cicatrize

There was blood everywhere.

You look around desperately, feet skidding a little in the cooling, sticky pools of crimson. A pale arm lays motionless behind a desk. Recoiling, you stumble backwards, arms pinwheeling at your side. Your sneaker slips-

"Easy there, kiddo."

Jerking away from the hands that came to settle on your hips, you turn shakily. There's a white haired man smiling in the shadows, moonlight drifting in to make his hair glow dimly in the dark classroom. It's like there's a glowing aura around him; his presence somehow loud.

"I-I-," you stutter, mouth opening and closing like a fish. I didn't do this. You just came back to grab your phone, having forgotten it after your study session ran late.

"Listen, I'm gonna be honest," he says, looking around the room with his hands in his pockets. "I don't really care."

"What h-happened?" you whisper anyway, eyes wide with horror. You keep your focus on the stranger - is that a blindfold? - unwilling to face the gore. It distantly occurs to you that the arm belonged to someone you knew - this was the classroom your group was in before you had to run to make dinner for your father. He was a dick if he came home and there was no food on the table.

"It's a long story," he drawls, waving an elegant hand in the air. "Evil curses, blah-blah-blah."

He ambles over slowly, bending down to peer into your face. There really is a blindfold wrapped around his head. The fuck is he even seeing right now?

"Did you see anything weird, kiddo?"

"No," you say blankly, knowing full well you'd never be able to scrub the image of a pale, lifeless arm out of your head. "I just got h-here. I forgot my phone earlier."

"Eh? This must suck for you then," he says, cocking his head. There's a faint grin on his lips that you want to smack off his face.

Staring vacantly at him, you don't answer. There's a tingling numbness spreading through your limbs and your vision blurs sporadically.

Shock, you think faintly, I'm going into shock.

"You'd be kind of cute if you weren't covered in blood."

Reaching up, you feel the stickiness on your face. Closing your eyes briefly, you grip your phone.

"My phone was coated in it." You stare at it. The little charms are rattling from how hard your hands are shaking. "I had to call 119."

He snorts, circling you. "So, are you absolutely positive you didn't see anything? Not just tonight, but ever." Leaning in close as he again stands before you, he cocks his head. "Anything weird or scary? Like a yokai or whatever?"

You had, actually. A couple of times. You've seen dark and frightening auras around abandoned buildings, slimy little creatures slinking in the shadows.

"Yeah," you admit, curling in on yourself. "Not- not tonight, I was telling the truth about that. But...it sounds crazy."

"Not to me. My whole life is crazy." White teeth glint in the moonlight.

That sounds likely, if he was this cavalier in a room full of massacred university students. He was kind of a douche, but his frivolity was soothing somehow.

"I bet," you mutter, gaze ticking to the viscera painted gruesomely on the walls. "So...what happens now?"

"Well, since you were dumb enough to call the police, we gotta go. Like, right now. What's your address?"