The dying song

Chapter III: As the night wore on

2020.

Utahime.

As the taste of copper and sand sweeps down from her mouth to her throat, Utahime opens her eyes and blinks, finding herself under the ramshackle ruins of what used to be the Tokyo Tower when she regains her senses. Everything around turns darker, the twilight sun coming to an end, calling for curses to make their appearance right after dusk, rushing her to find a safer shelter, or looking for a fast and reliable way to go back to the base before nightfall.

Her quad-bike fell upside down, right one meter away from her, and her intercom hangs from the handlebars as an invitation to catch it and communicate with her group. She needs to act fast: her wristwatch tells her there's sixty-four minutes before the sunset; all she needs to do is reach over and take the two-way radio and...

She can't.

Her eyes fall on the burning sting on her left leg, only to realize something.

A protruding, rusty peg from the tower's ruins has stabbed her lower limb, piercing it completely, so much that she can see its blood-covered tip poking out of her thigh, pointing right at her face.

The increasing scream that her lungs let out shakes the remnants of the tower, now feeling the stifling pain that was ignored until she was fully aware of her surroundings. A cry so powerful, she could have killed some grade one curses had they appeared now, but there was none, for curses don't come out until night, when the sun can't harm them and all the scarce sorcerers left are running out of cursed energy because of a poor diet and few chances to survive.

She has run out of cursed energy, too, her only way of escape being the intercom that now seems too far from her to take it. She's alone and stranded, and wonders what are her chances of making it out alive.

Air smells like iron and copper, but Utahime has to clear her throat and cough when tiny grains of sand get into her nostrils, forcing her to move and choke another whine, shivering as she does her best to keep her movements to a minimum. Her faltering breath comes in periods of two seconds, for even breathing could increase the brimming pain she's feeling in her thigh. Blood has started welling up from the corners of her wound around the peg, and her trembling hands try to make it stop out of mere survival instinct.

But she knows she must get rid of the peg and crawl in her skin to the quad-bike in order to get the intercom. The sole thought of it has her shivering, ripping out pricking tears out of the corner of her eyes. Her brain processes all the chances of survival in a matter of seconds, quickly diverting her attention from her leg to her wristwatch to know exactly how much time she has left.

58 minutes. That's the remaining time until the moon throws its dark veil over the city. If she stays like this, right where she is, all she can expect is for curses to appear and kill her mercilessly, taking advantage of her state to land their claws on her and finish with her life right away, the cruelty of their act depending of whether they like the taste of blood or not.

And she knows very well this is most likely to happen when blood-thirsty curses can be found around the corner as soon as the night falls upon the sandy, deserted streets of what once was Tokyo. She cranes her neck as slow as she can, just to take another look at her surroundings beyond the steel walls of a rusted tower: the crows already glide below a dying sun, also having smelled the scent of her blood, she guesses, waiting for her unconsciousness to soar down to her and gobble her flesh hungrily, while curses have a feast on the remnants of her life.