The world had lost its texture. Colors bled into muted greys and washed-out blues. Sounds arrived muffled, as if Yuki were submerged in deep water, only the sharpest noises—a car backfiring, a teacher's shrill reprimand—cutting through the suffocating haze. The constant, low-frequency hum vibrating in his bones was the only real thing, a dissonant thrum that synchronized with the slow, heavy beat of his heart. Thud… thud… thud. Each beat felt like a stone dropping into a bottomless well.
He sat at the back of the classroom, staring blankly at the equations scrawled on the blackboard. The numbers meant nothing. The teacher's voice was a distant drone. He traced the intricate black scars on his forearm beneath his sleeve, the skin there unnaturally cool to his own touch. A faint, dark pulse beat beneath them, a counter-rhythm to his sluggish heart.
"Tanaka-kun?" The teacher's voice cut through the fog. "The answer to problem seven?"
Yuki blinked, lifting his head. The class turned, a sea of curious, indifferent faces. He felt nothing. No embarrassment, no frustration. Just a vast, cold emptiness. He shook his head mutely.
The teacher sighed, moving on. Yuki's gaze drifted to the window. Outside, autumn leaves swirled in a brisk wind. He felt no chill. He hadn't felt properly warm since consuming the doll-creature's soul. The warmth it had briefly granted had been a cruel illusion, burning away to leave only this pervasive, internal cold.
Later, in the noisy cafeteria, he picked at his lunch. The food tasted like ash. He watched his classmates laugh, argue, share food. Their movements seemed frantic, their emotions loud and garish. He felt like an observer behind thick glass, detached, untouched. He pressed a hand to his chest. Beneath his ribs, a hollow space resonated with the hum, filled with an arctic frost that seeped into his very marrow.
He excused himself early, needing the silence of the empty apartment. The walk home was brisk, but he didn't button his jacket. The wind bit at exposed skin, but he felt only a vague pressure, not the sting of cold. He passed a mirror shop. His reflection caught his eye: a tall, gaunt figure with skin like polished marble, dark circles etched deep beneath eyes that held a flat, unnerving stillness. He looked… ancient. Worn.
At home, he went straight to the bathroom. He avoided looking at his reflection as he washed his hands. The water ran lukewarm over his skin. He dried them and finally forced himself to meet his own gaze in the mirror.
The face was his, yet alien. The eyes were the worst. The spark of life, the flicker of teenage angst or grief, was gone. Replaced by a cold, calculating emptiness. Dark, almost bruised-looking circles hollowed his cheeks. His lips were pale, bloodless. He looked like a corpse animated by sheer will.
He pushed up his sleeve. The black scars pulsed with a deep, internal light. But it was the veins beneath his translucent skin that made his breath catch. They weren't the healthy blue they should be. They were dark, threaded through with faint, inky blackness that seemed to spread from the scars, like frost creeping across a windowpane from a central point of cold. He watched, horrified, as a thin, dark tendril snaked a fraction higher along the vein towards his elbow.
The ice spreads, Kage's whisper echoed, not in his ears, but inside the hollow of his mind. The voice was devoid of inflection, a dry, clinical observation. The fire changes you. It consumes the fragile mortal heat, replaces it with our own endurance. A colder, more resilient flame. You are shedding weakness.
Yuki recoiled from his reflection, yanking his sleeve down. Weakness? Was warmth weakness? Was feeling cold? Was the slow, steady beat of a human heart weakness? He pressed his fingers to his wrist. The pulse there was sluggish, faint. He remembered the frantic hammering of his heart when he'd first seen Hana's ghost, the adrenaline-fueled pounding when the gym creature had cornered him. Now, it was just… slow. Heavy. Like a stone sinking.
He walked to Hana's room, hesitating at the door. He hadn't entered since making the pact. He pushed it open. The stale air, thick with dust and the ghost of her floral perfume, washed over him. He stood in the center, looking at her untouched belongings. The silence was profound.
He felt nothing. No crushing wave of grief. No tears pricking his eyes. Just the vast, cold emptiness inside him, resonating with the hum in his bones. The ice had reached his heart, freezing the grief into a solid, inert block. He was becoming a vessel. A hollow container for a power that burned cold.
He left the room, closing the door softly. The click of the latch sounded final. He leaned against the wall in the hallway, sliding down to sit on the floor. He wrapped his arms around his knees, rocking slightly. The motion was automatic, devoid of comfort. He felt the coolness of the wall seep through his clothes, merging with the cold within him.
He was changing. Irrevocably. The warmth of life was being leached away, drop by drop, pulse by slow pulse, replaced by the enduring, terrifying chill of the damned. The ice wasn't just in his veins anymore. It was becoming his entire being. And the scariest part? A small, frozen corner of his mind was starting to find the silence… peaceful.