NOVPUBAt nine in the evening, I leaned against the second-floor stairwell railing, arms crossed, my mind a tangled mess.
My brows furrowed deeply as I thought about Serena, who had undeniably turned into a pervert. A female pervert. I couldn’t help but worry about her.
And then there was Cora... No matter what, she couldn’t keep doing things like that.
I had to find a way to correct her mindset.
But how...?
I let out a heavy sigh. Whatever. I’d think about it later. First, I needed to finish my homework.
It was already ten past nine. The call should be coming through any minute now.
Following Ms. Jane’s "Homework Relay" system, Snowy Jiang was supposed to inform me of the assignment, and then I would relay it to Lillian Ji.
Sure enough, the long-neglected landline in the house started ringing. I’d been waiting right beside it, so I quickly picked up the receiver and asked, “Hello? This is Ethan. Is that you, Snowy?”
“Mm.”
It was Snowy’s voice. I could hear the faint sound of water dripping in the background. Did she forget to turn off the faucet?
“Tell me the homework. Ah, wait a second. Let me grab a pen.”
“Okay.”
I held the receiver between my head and shoulder and picked up a pen and notepad from the phone stand. “Alright, go ahead.”
“Mm.”
I focused intently, listening for her voice. But after a while, there was still nothing.
“Uh, Snowy?”
“What?”
So she was still there. I thought maybe she’d gone to the bathroom or something. Why wasn’t she saying anything?
Oh, right. I suddenly remembered. The longer Snowy’s sentences got, the quieter her voice became. And the homework assignment Ms. Jane had given was probably pretty long. If she was trying to recite the whole thing, her voice must’ve dropped to a whisper.
So it wasn’t that she wasn’t speaking—it was that she was speaking, but I couldn’t hear her.
This was bad. I had to get her to speak up somehow.
“Uh, I can’t hear you. Can you speak a little louder?”
“Okay.”
I waited for a while longer, and this time, I did catch some faint words.
“...fill-in-the-blanks... number 28... math... three questions... practice...”
“...”
But it was still just isolated words and fragments, completely disjointed and barely comprehensible. It was practically the same as not hearing anything at all.
“Uh, I still can’t really hear you. How about you just take a picture of the homework and send it to me?”
“No phone.”
“Huh? You don’t have a phone either?”
“Mm.”
“What about a computer? Do you have a computer?”
I was just asking out of desperation. I mean, if she didn’t even have a phone, how could she possibly have a computer? But right now, it was the only thing I could # Nоvеlight # think of.
“No.”
Of course not. Now I was really out of options.
What now? Maybe I could record Snowy’s voice and then try amplifying it on my computer?
No, that wouldn’t work. It’d probably distort the sound too much...
“Come to my house,” she said.
“What? Go to your house?”
Oh, right. That was another option. I could just go to her place and have her tell me the assignments face to face.
But Ms. Jane had specifically set up the Homework Relay system to prevent students from wandering around at night. If I went to Snowy’s house, wouldn’t that defeat the entire purpose?
But what other choice did I have?
I remembered that Snowy had always sat in the very last seat of the last row, so she’d never had to pass on the assignments before. Now that we’d changed seats in our second year, the burden fell on me.
“The address isn’t far,” she said.
“...Alright. I got it. Tell me. I’ll come over.”
There was no other way. I had to go myself. If I missed passing on the assignments, and someone got into trouble later for going out at night, it’d be on me.
“District Six, Binhai Road,” she said.
Binhai Road. That was pretty close. I used to pass by there all the time on my way home from night classes, stopping at the vending machine in Beishan Park to buy coffee.
Though I hadn’t been back there since that UFO incident...
“Black Street, Building 221B.”
“Uh... Black Street? Does that even exist?”
I’d lived in this city for years and had never heard of any "Black Street." And if it was on Binhai Road, how could I not know about it?
Before I could ask, the sound of a loud crash echoed through the receiver. Instinctively, I pulled the phone away from my ear as a series of clattering, banging, and shattering noises erupted from the other end.
Crash! Bang! Clang!
The racket was so loud it made my ears ring.
Something was wrong. Panic surged through me as I yelled into the receiver.
“Hello? Snowy? Are you there?”
“...”
“Snowy! Can you hear me?”
“...”
“Snowy! Answer me! What’s happening over there?”
All I heard in response was the endless, hollow drone of the dial tone.
“...Damn it!”
I slammed the receiver down, bolted back to my room, grabbed a jacket, and sprinted down the stairs. Halfway down, I nearly ran into Cora, who was coming up.
“Big brother, where are you going?”
“I have to go out! It’s an emergency!”
“What? Dad said it’s dangerous to go out at night!”
“I know, but it’s urgent!”
“Wait! Big brother!”
“I have my phone! If I’m not back by midnight, call me!”
I didn’t have time to explain anything else. I jumped down the last few steps, shoved my feet into my shoes, and dashed out the door.
Please... Please let her be okay...
...
I ran from one end of Binhai Road to the other, but there was no sign of any "Black Street."
I’d been searching for over two hours and still hadn’t made any progress.
Just as I suspected—there was no such thing as Black Street!
Did I misunderstand? Was there another Binhai Road somewhere? But as far as I knew, District Six only had one Binhai Road...
Where the hell are you, Snowy...?
“Tch, nowhere to be found...”
Wandering around blindly like this wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Should I give up...?
No. No way. Snowy was the first friend I made after entering high school. Now that something had happened to her, how could I just walk away?
Lillian? No, she didn’t count as a friend. She was my girlfriend. We’d skipped right past the friendship stage. Even if our so-called relationship was filled with... complications, it was still closer than an ordinary friendship.
Ugh, what am I even thinking right now? Focus. The most important thing right now is finding Snowy. Please, please let her be okay...
The clock struck midnight, its chimes echoing through the night, reminding everyone that this was no longer a time for wandering around outside. The sound came from the small clock tower in the center of Beishan Park.
Back when I used to stay out late studying, I’d pass by here often, stopping by the vending machine in Beishan Park to grab a can of coffee. I’d sit on the bench, drinking coffee and watching the stars before strolling leisurely back home.
...Well, who knows how long I’d be searching for tonight. Might as well grab a coffee.
I walked into the familiar park, heading toward the usual vending machine when a strange sound caught my ear.
It was the kind of sound that sent a shiver down my spine—the sound of something hard piercing through something soft.
To be more specific, it sounded like... the noises a tiger made while tearing into its prey at the zoo. I remembered watching the feeding show once. After killing its prey, the tiger would hunch over its meal, biting, tearing, gnawing, crunching—those kinds of sounds.
But hearing it here, in the dead of night, in an empty park... it felt a thousand times more unsettling.
Wait... why would I be hearing such sounds in a park?
Did a tiger escape from the zoo?
I should’ve called the police right then and there. But my curiosity got the better of me, compelling me to do something incredibly stupid—I decided to go check it out.
Beishan Park was located in one of the more deserted parts of the city. The streetlights turned off at eleven, and in the past, I’d sometimes see couples sneaking into the park to... do things they shouldn’t be doing in public.
But tonight, there wasn’t a single person around.
The park was pitch-black, eerily silent.
After the chimes stopped, the air became so still it felt like even time had frozen.
I kept walking forward, the strange sound growing louder with each step... The oppressive silence only made that unsettling noise stand out even more.
I finally reached the familiar path. The vending machine’s glow was like a lone torch in the abyss, illuminating the way.
As I walked closer, I could see the bench where I usually sat. But tonight, there was something else there.
In the dim light of the vending machine, I saw...
A girl.
She was sitting on the ground, head bowed, long hair obscuring her face. Her hands were holding something to her mouth as her head bobbed up and down.
She looked to be around my age, maybe a year or two younger. Petite, like Cora. Her waist-length hair blended into the darkness, but because she was slightly turned to the side, her hair spilled over her thighs.
At first, I thought she was wearing a coat, but on closer inspection, I realized it was a raincoat. And it was several sizes too big for her, covering her down to her feet.
There was something resting on her lap... something she was eating.
No. Eating wasn’t the right word. She was... feeding.
This wasn’t dining—it was devouring.
It wasn’t like someone eating a meal to enjoy the taste. It was more like a starving animal feasting on a carcass, tearing into it, ripping chunks away, gnawing on bones, gulping down every last scrap.
Outdoors, in the open air, yet her actions were as ravenous as if she were seated at a banquet table.
She wasn’t even trying to hide her gluttony. She was covered in blood, her face smeared red, chewing, crunching, swallowing—her jaws never stopped moving. Even the bones weren’t spared, every bit going into her mouth like a starving beggar finally finding a meal.
The sound of teeth grinding against bone echoed in the silence, making my skin crawl.
Forget her eating habits for a moment—the more pressing question was: what the hell was she eating...?
To be honest, the moment I noticed her, I had already sensed what it was.
I didn’t want to admit it. I prayed I was wrong. But... but...!
I swallowed hard, feeling the metallic taste of blood in the air, and took off my glasses to wipe my eyes, trying to clear my mind.
First, it was the auditory assault. And now... the visual impact.
When I got close enough to clearly see her, the sight that greeted me was... a girl divided into two worlds by shadow and light.
The ends of her hair were stained dark red. Her mouth was ringed with blood like a child who hadn’t wiped their face after a messy meal.
And now I understood why she was wearing that oversized raincoat. If she hadn’t, her entire body would’ve been stained bright red.
In this blood-soaked scene, there was one pristine patch of white.
A dismembered body.
A cannibal? No. If she still counted as human, then the creature crouched before me was a monster. A demon in a girl’s skin.
[Ghoul]
[Kan Tsukiyo]
The name and title floated above her in white, not red.
As white as my own blood-drained face.
That meant... to her, this was nothing. Just a completely normal, mundane act.
There was nothing special about it, no reason to feel any sort of emotion.
It was simply a physiological need. Just like how we don’t feel any remorse when eating a meal, she felt nothing as she devoured that corpse.
But that very lack of emotion was what terrified me the most.
A crazed killer with bloodshot eyes might be frightening, but a killer with a calm, indifferent face... that was the kind that sent chills straight to your bones.
And right now, every instinct I had screamed at me to run.
Run away from this monster wearing a girl’s skin.
This was bad... very bad...
Every survival instinct I had honed over the years told me to turn around and run. Right now. This was not something I could handle.
There were still twenty or thirty meters between us, but the feeling of danger was intensifying.
I took a cautious step backward, ready to flee.
And then, my heel struck an empty can.
The can rolled across the stone path with a loud clatter, and the sound echoed through the air like a gunshot.
I felt my heart seize in my chest.
A dissonant note that shattered the oppressive silence.
“Ara?”
My blood ran cold. 𝓷ℴ𝓿𝓅𝓊𝒷.𝓬𝓸𝓂
She noticed me.
The girl put down whatever she was holding and stood up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. But instead of cleaning the blood away, she just smeared it across her cheeks.
“Oh my, a guest~”
Midnight. April 1st. April Fool’s Day had just ended, the time for jokes long gone.
But fate decided to play one last cruel prank on me.
Under the moonlit sky, the crimson-stained girl smiled at me with blood-soaked lips.
And in that moment, I realized—I wasn’t dealing with a person.
I was facing a monster.
