Yurui The Cursed One

Stephan’s head snaps toward me.

Thin black plates crawl over my skin, overlapping into a shell of insect-like armor. They spread across my fingers, my wrists, my shoulders. Smooth in some places. Jagged in others. Dark enough to swallow the moonlight. The giant man looks visibly taken aback by my sudden transformation.

Nara, lying in the sand with one wing missing, stares at me like she has just watched a corpse sit up during a funeral.

“What the hell are you?” she whispers.

Stephan slithers toward me, each coil of his caterpillar-like torso making the sand ripple. He effortlessly grabs me by the front of my shirt and hauls me into the air like I weigh nothing.

“Nara,” he says, not taking his eyes off me. “Whose car did you mark?”

Her face goes pale. “What?”

“You said it was some nobody dumbass driving through the desert at night.”

Nara does not answer.

Stephan’s grip tightens, his voice dropping. “This does not look like nobody. And that flea freak said she worked for Miracle Inc.”

I dangle from his fist, my shirt twisted in his grip, my feet hanging uselessly above the ground. His blocky face fills my vision, small white clouds of steam coming out of his mouth as he breathes.

I should be afraid. I am afraid. But beneath the fear, that same stupid urge rises again.

I want to hit him.

So I do.

I twist hard and rip myself free of his grip, leaving a strip of torn fabric clenched in his fist. The moment my feet hit the sand, I drive my fist into his lower body with everything I have.

It feels like punching a wall.

But this time, the wall moves.

It feels as if the entire desert goes still as his enormous body stumbles back one step.

Wow. Maybe those first two punches had not been completely useless.

I do not give him time to recover. My body moves before my thoughts can catch up.

No.

It launches.

Sand explodes beneath my feet. The distance between us vanishes in a blink. One moment, Stephan is several feet away. Next, his stomach is right in front of my fist.

Way too fast, even for my monstrous self. I am faster than that time at school, when I first transformed. Then, the world blurred around me when I moved. Now there is no blur. No rush of motion. No space between one step and the next.

Just one place.

Then another.

My fist slams into him.

This time, he does not feel like a wall. He feels soft. Like punching into a soaked mattress. My knuckles punch through pale flesh, and my hand sinks in up to the wrist and beyond.

For a breath, I stand frozen with my arm buried halfway inside him.

Stephan lets out a strangled yelp. His insides close in around my hand. Warm. Wet. Slick. Something shifts against my fingers. Blood spills down my wrist, goes over my knuckles, and runs down my arm in thick, dark streams.

Oh.

Fuck.

So he can bleed.

Good.

I rip my arm free. Dark blood splashes across my face. The sour metallic smell overwhelms me, leaving me feeling disgusted and nauseated. Despite that, my lips curl into a smile, and I take another step.

Stephan swings.

I am already gone.

His fist tears through the space where my head used to be. The force of it kicks up a sheet of sand behind me. I slide low beneath his arm, my hand dragging through the ground, black claws cutting lines into the desert.

I hit him again. Higher this time. My fist opens a hole beneath his ribs.

He roars. Most of the few shards still clinging to the car windows burst outward.

Nara crawls backward through the sand, clutching the bloody stump where her wing used to be. Her gaze keeps darting between Stephan and me, as if she cannot decide which of us she should be more afraid of.

I ignore her completely, my gaze locked on Stephan as I rush him. My fist slams into him once, then again, each blow landing before he has time to recover.

The fight turns into flashes. My black-plated arm buried in pale flesh. Stephan’s fist smashing into the ground hard enough to split the sand. Blood arcing across the moonlight. My feet sliding over broken metal and glass. Nara screaming something I cannot hear. The ruined car groaning as Stephan’s fist slams into it.

For a few seconds, I stop thinking. I move. Hit. Tear. Dodge. Again. Every time Stephan swings, I am somewhere else. Every time I see an opening, I take it.

There is no fear anymore. No hesitation. Only the sick, exhilarating realization that for once in my life, I am the predator.

Not being the victim felt good.

Way too good.

I could get easily used to this.

Stephan roars. His arm sweeps sideways.

Fuck.

Too close.

I barely have time to turn before it hits me. His fist catches me in the ribs and launches me across the desert.

Sky. Sand. Wreckage. The whole world spins past me in a blur.

I slam into the side of the car. Metal caves inward around my back. Glass bursts above me in glittering fragments. Then I bounce off and hit the ground, rolling through sand and broken glass until I finally stop.

Not good. My whole body is probably wrecked.

Stephan’s shadow swallows me. I look up just as his massive fist comes down from above.

There is no time to dodge.

It hits me so hard that the ground cracks beneath my back. My body bounces off the sand, the world stopping so suddenly that my teeth click together.

Before I can hit the ground again, Stephan catches me and hauls me into the air.

His face is streaked with blood now. Some of it is mine. Most of it his. One eye is swollen half-shut, and holes in his lower body leak dark fluid into the sand.

His giant fingers close around my torso.

“You are annoying,” he snarls.

Then he squeezes.

The first crack makes my mouth open. The second makes a disturbing wet sound. After that, loud cracking noises follow one after another, until there are too many to count.

My legs twist beneath me, bent all wrong. My ribs fold inward. Something deep in my stomach tears. Blood rushes up my throat and spills from my mouth. After that, my body becomes little more than a bundle of bones waiting for their turn to break.

The pain takes a second to find me.

When it does, every nerve in my body starts burning at once. I open my mouth to scream and suck in air, but something deep in my chest gurgles instead.

Oh fuck…

Stephan squeezes again.

Then I scream.

The sound rips out of me and vanishes into the desert. The stars keep shining overhead.

Of course they do. People love calling them beautiful. I suppose anything looks beautiful when it is far enough away from all this shit.

My vision blurs. Blood leaks from my mouth. My nose. Maybe my eyes. I cannot tell anymore. My whole face feels wet.

Stephan pulls me closer until his face fills my vision.

“You should have stayed down.”

Blood rushes up my throat and spills from my mouth.

Well.

Fuck me.

I try to move my arms. Nothing. I try to kick. My legs hang like broken branches.

Stephan pulls me closer until my face is level with his. His eyes are small and dark. There is no anger in them anymore. Just the cold certainty of someone who knows that they have already won.

“You don’t get it,” he says.

His grip tightens. Something inside me bursts.

“There’s nothing in this world I can’t break with these hands.”

I want to answer. I cough up blood instead.

This is it.

No clever way out. No miracle. No last-second burst of strength. Turns out, sometimes you really do just lose.

All I can feel is his hand tightening around me. One by one, the broken pieces inside me start giving way.

Memories start flashing through my mind. The good parts and the bad parts. Mostly the bad parts. Mold on the ceiling. Stale bread. Mom mindlessly staring at the TV, completely ignoring me in the process. Yashiro’s smile, sharp enough to cut thru my soul. The classroom floor. The balcony. My sleeping bag.

The only place that ever felt mine.

I manage a sad smile.

“What a fucking joke,” I whisper.

If I could start over, would I do anything differently? Would I fight back?

I fought back now, and look where it got me. Crushed in the hand of some desert monster while my organs leak out of my throat.

But honestly? It does not feel as bad as I thought it would.

If I had just stood there and let them do whatever they wanted to me, I would have felt worse. Maybe fighting back had made everything worse. Maybe I was an idiot. Maybe I was always going to lose.

Still, for once, I had made someone else bleed. For once, I had not just stood there and taken it. And even now, crushed in Stephan’s hand with blood filling my mouth, I could not bring myself to regret that.

I wish I had done it sooner. I wish I had punched every girl who ever laughed at me. Everyone who shoved me aside. Everyone who called me names. Everyone who looked at me like I was something they had scraped off the bottom of their shoe.

No.

Not everyone.

I cannot picture myself punching Yashiro. Even now, with death breathing down my neck, I am still the same pathetic little idiot I have always been.

The desert slowly fades.

I open my eyes again. I am standing somewhere else.

I blink and look down at my arms. Same pale, scrawny teenage noodles as always. No blood. No broken bones. No armor.

Huh, that’s strange.

I walk down a bright apartment corridor. Clean white walls. Soft lights. Even the air smells nice.

I glance around the corner. Someone is cooking breakfast in the kitchen. I catch the smell of butter, toasted bread, and something sweet frying in a pan. It smells warm. Safe.

Mom is there, humming quietly as she sets plates on the table. Dad tells me I will be late if I keep staring at the ceiling. Neither of them looks at me like I am a burden they got stuck with.

I make short work of the eggs and bacon, swallow the last bite of toast, grab my backpack, and head for the door.

As I’m about to head out, Mom smiles at me.

“Have a good day.”

Dad waves after me.

“Try not to break the sound barrier in the hallway.”

I nod at them and close the door.

Outside, Yashiro waits by the wall. For once, there is no glare waiting for me. No smug little smile. She is just there, leaning against the wall like all of this is perfectly normal.

The second she sees me, she rolls her eyes.

“What took you so long, slowpoke? I’ve been waiting forever.”

Before I can answer, she grabs my sleeve and starts dragging me down the hall.

“Come on. We’re going to be late again.”

She reaches over and brushes a few crumbs from my cheek.

“Jeez. You know, being on time once in a while wouldn’t kill you.”

She gives me a nice warm smile.

“Honestly, what would you even do without me?”

I open my mouth to respond, and then the world starts fading.

No.

No, no, no, no, no.

Not yet.

I want to stay. For once in my miserable life, I finally get something good, and of course, the world does not give a shit.

The hallway slips away. Yashiro slips away with it.

And I am dragged back into cold, fucked-up reality.

I cough up blood as the cold desert air bites into my skin. Stephan’s hand stays clamped around me, crushing harder while bones and tissue give way inside my body. Hot blood runs over his fingers in steady streams.

I let out a blood-curdling scream. I do not know whether it is from pain, anger, or the simple fact that I am back here. Maybe all three.

For one stupid second, I look up as if pleading some higher being for help. Nothing answers.

Then the pain swallows everything. The apartment. Breakfast. Mom smiling at the door. Yashiro waiting for me outside.

Gone.

There is no desire for revenge anymore. No anger. No more thoughts about happiness. Only pain remains, and all I want now is for it to stop.

“Kill me,” I whisper.

Stephan tilts his head. “What do you think I’m doing?”

He squeezes harder. A broken scream tears out of me.

“Enough.”

His fingers tighten around me.

“You lost the moment I got my hands on you. This will be a lot less painful if you stop resisting.”

“Accept your fate,” he says, his voice cold and flat.

Accept?

The word crawls through the pain. Accept my fate?

Fuck.

That is all I have ever done. Keep my head down. Take it. Apologize when someone else hurts me. Step aside before anyone has to shove me.

No. Not this time. Not at the very end.

I cannot move my arms. I cannot feel my legs. I can barely breathe.

Fine.

I still have teeth.

I jerk my head forward and bite down on his finger with everything I have left. I can feel skin tearing as my teeth clamp down on his flesh. Blood fills my mouth.

Stephan does not scream. He does not even flinch. He just stares at me.

For one horrible second, I understand exactly how pointless it was. The bite mark is small. Pathetic. A little red crescent in all that monstrous flesh.

That is all I can do. At the end of the day, that is all I am worth.

I let go. My mouth is full of blood. His blood. My blood. I cannot tell anymore.

I guess this is it.

My head hangs upside down. Then, at the edge of my vision, I see movement.

Far out in the night, a lone figure is walking across the desert.

Toward us.

At first, I think it is the Grim Reaper coming to collect me. Or God. Or whatever comes to collect stupid girls who venture out to deserts at night.

She moves slowly through the sand, coat trailing behind her. Every gust sends the heavy fabric snapping sideways, her hair whipping with it. One hand remains hidden beneath the coat.

Stephan remains oblivious, his attention fixed on me. Nara, however, has gone completely still.

Her eyes lock onto the figure. For one second, she just stares. Then her face goes pale, and her hands start shaking. She looks at Stephan with the expression of someone who has just seen a ghost, eyes huge from panic.

“Nara,” Stephan growls, still looking at me. “What the fuck?”

She takes one step back.

The night cracks open.

A thunderous blast tears across the desert and rattles through my skull. For half a second, nothing happens.

Then Stephan’s grip loosens. His hand falls open, and three severed fingers tumble into the sand below me, still twitching.

I drop right after them.

I hit the ground hard. Every broken part of me lights up again. Sand fills my mouth. Pain flashes white behind my eyes. Something in my shoulder snaps again, or maybe it was already broken and just wanted attention.

For a few seconds, I cannot make sense of anything. There is sand against my face. Blood in my mouth. A high, thin ringing noise persists in my head.

A shadow falls across my face. Through half-open eyes, I make out a woman standing over me.

A heavy, mud-colored coat hangs from her shoulders, its hem shifting in the desert wind. Loose strands of purple hair cling to her forehead. But I barely notice any of that.

A white ceramic fox mask covers half her face.

My heart stops.

FUCK.

No.

I know that mask.

I have seen it before. Heck, I have seen that mask enough times for every detail of it to be etched into my mind.

Under normal circumstances, I would be overjoyed to see that mask again. There is just one tiny problem.

The girl who wore it died years ago.

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