Yurui The Cursed One

The slum rises ahead of me, its grey, disheveled buildings hunched beneath the darkening sky. From here, it is still only a jagged line against the horizon, distant enough to look out of reach, yet close enough to make me feel at home.

The first sight of home hits me with a stupid, childish force of homesickness. As if those grey buildings could hide me from the world long enough for all of this to blow over.

Without a second thought, I break out into a run.

The first step nearly throws me sideways. My legs do not move the way I expect them to. The armor drags my balance forward, then sideways, each stride landing with a hard, uneven jolt that rattles up through my hips.

The road shudders under every step. Dirt kicks up behind me. My breath tears in and out of my throat, hot and ragged, and I keep running as if speed can scrape the day off my skin.

But the day comes apart in flashes. No matter how fast I run, I just cannot leave it behind.

My knees on the classroom floor. Yashiro’s voice forcing me into the trash. Maevis watching with that terrible stillness on her face. Kika’s hand driving me into the desk. The ceiling splitting open above us.

And then the centipede, lowering itself through the dust.

And worst of all—

My skin opening. My bones shifting. My own body betraying me and transforming me into something monstrous.

And then, for a few seconds, the noise inside my head blanks out under the rhythm of my own steps. The wind hits my face. My thoughts blur. The slum grows larger ahead, and the world narrows to the dirt road, the failing light, the pounding of my monstrous feet hitting the dirt.

Then something loosens and slips free from under my blouse.

The first thing I feel is the sudden bare patch beneath my uniform. A cold strip of air slides over and touches the skin that had been buried underneath armor a moment ago. Something hard strikes the road behind me with a flat, heavy crack.

I should stop. I should turn around, look at what fell off me.

Instead, I keep running.

Another piece loosens near my shoulder. I feel it detach slowly, as if something is being unstitched from under my skin. Each tiny separation sends a sick little shiver through me.

It does not hurt. This is much worse than pain.

It feels like running through the quiet horror of coming apart while still moving, every step carrying me forward while another piece of me decides to let go.

A dark plate slides down my arm. I see it happening right in front of my face: the black armor splits along a pale seam and lifts from my skin, then peels away like a scab from a wound still raw underneath.

It drops behind me with a dry clack. The sound stays in my head long after my feet carry me past it. I squeeze my eyes shut for half a step.

Stupid. Very stupid.

The ground shifts under me. My left leg buckles.

I hit the dirt hard.

The impact knocks the breath from my lungs. Gravel bites into my palms. My chin almost smashes against the road, and for a moment, all I can do is lie there with my mouth open, trying to remember how breathing works.

Behind me, something rolls across the road and comes to rest.

I turn my head.

A curved piece of armor lies in the dirt behind me, dark and smooth, looking horribly familiar.

The lower half of my leg.

Or what replaced it after the centipede took over my body.

I look down. My real leg is still attached.

That should be comforting.

It is not.

I stare at the armor. Then at my bare shin, pale beneath the torn edge of my skirt, dirty and scratched from the fall but unmistakably human.

“Okay,” I whisper.

My voice comes out so thin and unsteady that I barely recognize it.

“Okay. Great. Wonderful.”

I push myself up. The first attempt fails immediately because my other leg is still armored from the knee down, twice the size it should be, and apparently completely useless for balance. I lurch sideways, catch myself on one hand, and almost laugh.

Of course.

Of course turning back was not going to be simple.

It feels like the monster is not leaving me so much as breaking apart around me, and I am trapped inside the wreckage.

I try again. This time I get halfway to my feet before the armor on my right leg gives way with a dry crack. The whole piece buckles, folding in on itself before it tears loose.

The armor breaks apart around my calf in brittle black segments, shedding off me piece by piece until my human foot hits the dirt beneath it, bare and shaking. My leg gives out, and I drop together with the remains of the armor.

For a while, I stay on my knees in the dirt, breathing hard and staring at the pieces of what used to be my legs scattered all around me.

For the first time all day, the silence around me is almost obscene.

No shouting. No walls breaking. No orders slipping into my bones. Only the empty road, my torn breathing, and my heart beating too hard in my chest.

I look down at myself.

The uniform is beyond saving. The blouse hangs open in torn strips. The blouse is missing one sleeve and half the front. The skirt is ripped at the hem, streaked with dirt, and caught in places where the armor had forced its way through. My socks are gone. My shoes are gone. I do not even remember when they came off.

A cold sensation crawls beneath my ribs.

I go still.

“No,” I whisper, and I hate how small it sounds.

Then something cold slides under my blouse. I feel it drag across my side, slow and deliberate, scraping between fabric and skin. My hand flies towards it, then freezes an inch away.

I do not want to find out what is under there.

Then it slips from beneath the torn hem of my blouse and hits the road with a dull, heavy thud.

Another armor plate.

Then smaller pieces begin to follow, ticking against the dirt one after another. One comes loose at my hip. Two more peel away from my back. Near my collarbone, a thin black shard slips out from beneath my blouse and drops into the dirt.

They let go one by one, as if some invisible hand is unfastening me. I just sit there and watch myself become human again, one discarded piece at a time.

Then something warm slides against my stomach.

At first, I think it is another plate coming loose. But it is too soft to be armor.

Every part of me goes still.

I look down.

A lump of grayish flesh hangs from beneath my blouse, attached by a thin, wet strand. It swings slightly with my breathing. For a second, I cannot make sense of what I am seeing. It looks like something scraped out of a butcher’s drain. Pale-gray, slick, veined in dark red, twitching faintly at the end of its wet little strand.

My stomach turns over. Something sour climbs into the back of my throat. I gag hard and clap a hand over my mouth.

The strand stretches until it goes thin.

Then snaps.

The lump drops between my knees and lands in the dirt with a small, wet slap.

I barely have time to breathe before my body folds forward. Bile hits the dirt between my knees. Acid burns up my throat, and my eyes blur with tears. I remain hunched over the mess in the dirt, spit hanging from my mouth, shaking so hard my teeth almost click together.

I spit into the dirt until there is nothing left but the sour burn coating my tongue. I have no water. Not even a stupid mint forgotten in my pocket. No clean sleeve left to wipe my mouth with.

Heck, I do not even have enough money to buy a can of soda to wash the sour taste out of my mouth.

Wonderful.

It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. To think that after everything I've been through today, a can of soda, of all things, would be what finally cracks me.

I would give anything for a cold can right now. Lemon, grape, that cheap orange stuff that tastes mostly like chemicals and children’s medicine. It does not matter. I would gulp down any of them like they were holy water.

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, only to regret it immediately. My hand is filthy.

“Perfect,” I mutter.

It comes out hoarse and bitter.

I sit back on my heels and force myself to breathe through my nose, then regret it because the road now smells like dirt, blood, bile, and the sickly sweet stink of whatever that gray lump is. I look at it for a second too long and have to swallow down another gag.

I have to restrain myself so that I won’t barf again. My stomach has already emptied itself, and I’m very well aware of what dry heaving entails. I’d rather avoid that at all costs.

Slowly, carefully, I get to my feet. Both of my legs are back to normal now. Pale, scraped, flushed pink from the cold, trembling under the touch of night air.

My bare feet sink into the cold dirt. Little stones bite into my soles. One knee is bleeding where I hit the ground, and with the armor gone, it makes me realize just how small and fragile I really am.

I dust off my uniform out of habit.

As if that helps.

There is no saving it anymore. All I do is smear the mess around and make my hands dirtier. The blouse is torn almost beyond recognition. It clings damply to my skin where sweat and other liquids have dried. The skirt is ripped high on one side, exposing one pale, scraped thigh to the cold air.

The only piece of nice clothing that I owned is completely ruined now.

My mother is going to notice. I can already picture her face going still, her eyes moving over every tear and stain, calculating repairs, not even bothering to ask what happened to me.

“Shit.”

Shoes, I can work around. I have spare ones somewhere. Ugly, cracked at the sides, probably still damp from the last time it rained through the window—but still shoes.

The uniform, on the other hand, is a completely different story. One clean, white lie that lets me stand “equal” among people who would rather see me dragged back to the slum.

At Miracle Academy, the uniform is the only proof that I belong there.

White blouse. Navy skirt. Clean seams. A careful little disguise that turns a slum girl into a scholarship student, at least from a distance.

It cannot wash the slum out of my voice, or my posture, or hide the way I count coins before buying lunch. But it lets me pass through the white halls without someone shouting for security.

And now it hangs off me in ruined strips.

My throat tightens. I look back down the road.

The trail behind me looks disturbing. Black armor plates lie scattered through the dirt behind me, curved and empty like broken shells. Smaller shards catch the fading light. Wet gray blobs litter the road between them, and one long smear cuts through the dust where something dragged before it came loose.

It looks like something monstrous was dragged across the dirt until there was nothing left but scraps.

A trail of gore leads all the way toward the slum.

My skin goes cold.

Anyone from Miracle Inc. could follow this. Even someone like Maevis could find me without even trying. She would not need to follow tracks. The moment she finds the first piece, it would be game over for me. One look at the road, one faint smile, and she would know which way I ran.

For one panicked second, I think about covering it up: stuffing plates and flesh into my torn blouse, dragging it somewhere no one will look.

Then I look at the road and understand how useless the thought is. Even if I stayed here until morning, scraping shell and gray meat out of the dirt with my bare hands, I would not get half of it. I would only risk someone finding me standing in the middle of the mess.

I take one step back. Then another. My bare heel lands on a shard, and pain shoots up my leg. I bite my tongue hard enough to keep the sound trapped behind my teeth.

Enough.

I cannot stay here forever, bleeding into the road and looking back at all the pieces I left behind.

I turn toward the slum once again. The buildings wait in the distance, gray and crooked and ugly as ever. Home, more or less. The only place in Miracle City’s shadow where a barefoot girl in a ruined uniform can limp down the road shaking and still not be the strangest thing anyone has seen that night.

I lower my head and start walking.

Each step sends a small, sharp pain through my bare feet. Dirt clings to my soles. Gravel cuts thin lines into my skin. The evening air finds every tear in my uniform, sliding cold against bare skin that should otherwise be covered up. I cross one arm over my stomach and clutch the ripped fabric at my side.

The road behind me is littered with fallen armor and flesh, all of it spread across a trail I cannot hide.

Undeniable proof that I was here.

I do not look back again.

By the time I reach the slum, my legs are shaking so badly I almost trip over the curb. I catch myself on a rusted street sign and bend forward, one hand braced against my knee, the other pressed flat against my ribs where the last of the armor had been.

Nothing. Only soft, human skin warming beneath my cold fingers. No hidden structures waiting to unfold.

The chilly night air slips through the holes in my uniform and settles against my skin. I cup my hands in front of my mouth and breathe into them, watching my fingers tremble around the warmth.

I stand at the edge of the old road and let the darkness settle around me. Far away behind me, Miracle Academy is still glowing like a temple, bright enough to stand out from miles away.

Here, the road has no pavement. Just packed dirt, gravel, broken glass, and strips of dark weeds pushing through the cracks where the asphalt used to be. The streetlights gave up years ago. A few still stand, bent at the neck, bulbs clouded with dust and dead insects.

I look down at my hands, and they are back to normal again.

Well, at least as normal as it gets tonight.

Dirty, scraped raw at the palms, with chipped nails and red knuckles. Dirt clings to every crease, and the skin across my fingers is split in thin lines where they hit the dirt.

I should be relieved to have my body back. Instead, I stand there shaking in it and think, bitterly, that this body has never done me many favors. It bruises. It starves. It gets cold. It runs when it should fight and freezes when it should run. It is the kind of body people feel comfortable pushing out of their way.

On the other hand, my new body was monstrous. But it was strong. For the first time in my life, it was others who trembled before me.

And now that I've got my first taste of power, real power. Having to turn back to the helpless little thing I always was felt really shitty.

Yurui the scholarship student. Yurui, the slum girl. Yurui, the human-shaped inconvenience. A fragile little thing in a torn school uniform, standing barefoot in the dirt, legs shaking.

In the end, that is what I am.

“Great,” I whisper.

My voice comes out hoarse and small.

I laugh. Once. A short, broken sound echoes thru the quiet of the night.

My hand flies to my mouth, but it’s too late. I stare into the dark between the buildings, waiting for movement. A voice. A door opening somewhere.

Anything.

Thankfully, no one's here. I let out a shaky breath.

I did it.

I made it back to the slum.

For a moment, I almost let myself believe the worst of it is over.

The slum waits ahead, dark, crooked, and familiar. The air smells like smoke, damp concrete, and old cooking oil drifting from buildings where people have learned not to look too closely at what happens outside their doors.

I made it back.

The thought loosens something in my chest, but then the relief curdles as I remember the trail of mess behind me.

All I can do now is hope that Miracle Inc. does not decide I’m interesting enough to be worth collecting.

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