The Mimic: ✨Novel Edition✨

Chapter 1(2)

HIS MORNING ROUTINE usually consisted of waking up to his alarm, stumbling to the bathroom to brush his teeth and freshen up, heading downstairs, and stealing a cup of premium ramen. He'd gaze at the noodles like the treasure they were; the food of gods.

And then not eat them anyway. Juno's voice haunted his thoughts nearly every morning, her firm but warm voice scolding him for eating nothing but ramen. He'd revert to a bland- er... healthy breakfast and then get ready for whatever he had to do that day.

This routine consisted of falling out of the sky and landing in a bunch of bushes.

Yasu glared at the sky above, picking a leaf out of his hair. His muscles still felt a bit sore, but they were much better than before and most of his energy had returned. He mumbled a string of curses as he made his way out of the branches, trying not to scrape himself.

The area he had been teleported to was strange. He had been fortunate enough to land in one of the more moderate-sized bushes, enough to cushion his fall and prevent him from landing building deep in a cage of wood with branches as thick as his arms for bars. They cleared the way to the middle, a level place with trimmed grass with torii carved ahead of him. In the distance, he saw a figure in white, though much shorter than the woman in the previous maze.

When Yasu got closer to the figure, he noticed a tune- the person was playing a biwa, fingers dancing across the strings like second nature. Only with the music in the air did he notice how... abandoned this place was.

There were no signs of life other than the manmade structures. No bugs, spiderwebs, or critters in the bushes when he climbed out, the clearing silent of any birds. It was supposed to be night, yet he could see fairly well even without his flashlight. The person- no, girl- was no different. She played the song over and over again, her face shadowed as the biwa went on and on.

Inhaling through his nose, Yasu stepped up to talk to her. Similar to the lady in the white dress, she vanished.

What is with people vanishing? He ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head like a cat. Do I have something on my face?

Glaring up at the sky one last time, Yasu huffed and jogged forward, following the dim glow up ahead the path as it became steeper, leading to a village.

No, a ghost town.

The houses were built in an older fashion, maybe ranging back a few decades or maybe centuries. There was no electricity- only lamps lighting the areas around the buildings and the faint smell of crops and manure, long gone from abandonment. Despite the foul scent of manure and blood, no flies sounded in the air, the night hauntingly silent.

An exhausted sigh cut through the air like a hot blade through butter, sending a shiver down his spine. Yasu jumped, the sound of his feet against the dirt too loud for his good. His first instinct was to dart behind one of the structures, though if there was another entity here like the woman from before, it would only buy him a few seconds.

When he peeked out from the side of one of the houses, he saw a middle-aged man leaning against one of the houses. From his distance, the man seemed around his late twenties or early thirties, with a conical straw hat and brown clothes. A farmer, maybe.

He looked human. He sounded human.

If he was human, why was he living here all alone?

Yasu buried the lower half of his face into his hood, weighing his options. If the farmer there had no malicious intentions, then perhaps he knew a way out of here.

If he was not, then it could spell Yasu's end.

Trying to buy some time, he stared up at the sky and across the village. The moon was blocked out by the clouds, the stars seemingly growing dimmer by the second as they vanished in the darkness.