The Witch's Toy ✔

18: a demon's mark

"... ui."

I stirred, brows coming together.

"... Rui."

The voice was still muted but was slowly waking me.

"Yu Rui."

My eyes opened slowly to crimson eyes surrounded by darkness. When I was awake, it was still day. But now, it seemed like most of the day had already gone by. Judging by the scarce amount of people on the train and the voice over the intercom that was announcing that this was the last stop, we had made it to our destination.

"Raphael." I stood up but winced when a pang of dizziness caught me unguarded. My hand shot out immediately, grabbing into something solid. It just so happened that that something was Raphael.

He pulled me to him, leaning slightly down so he could wrap an arm around my waist. "What's wrong, darling?" Worry was laced into his voice.

"It's nothing," I mumbled, re-opening my eyes, then squeezing them shut. A dull throb hit me right at the base of my skull and my neck and shoulders were sore from sleeping in a weird position. I was familiar with these symptoms. I got them whenever I stood up too quickly or after I woke from a particularly long time of rest. To this day, I still wasn't sure why sleeping for longer than usual would hurt me, but I was too used to it to question it any longer. "How much time has passed?"

We made it off the train, Raphael still holding me in case my body decided to betray me and collapse while I held onto him. "Quite some time. Six hours, more or less."

I looked up at him, brows drawing together in confusion. I didn't remember it taking that long to come to the border. "Really?"

He nodded. "They stopped in the middle because there was some sort of mechanical malfunction with the train. It took around three hours to fix it, mostly because the conductor had to go back and forth with his authority and his engineer." Raphael rolled his eyes, recounting the memory. It must have bored him out of his mind to sit there restlessly for those hours. "Humans and their need to inform authority and wait for further notice before actually doing anything."

"Well, that's how the world works — with hierarchy and such. And old things eventually wear down and break one way or another."

Raphael looked away for a moment, seemingly deep in the thought before turning back to me. "Do you feel a little better, darling?"

"Right." I uncurled my fingers from his coat. "I'm alright now."

He let go of me, then stuck his hands into the pockets of his black trousers. Obviously, there was something bothering him, but I didn't pry. "Your mother said she was at a town. Could it be this one?"

I looked up to see what Raphael was referring to and stopped, holding my breath, as I took it in. I already lived in a relatively congested area with multiple apartment buildings jammed into one tiny area and little shops stacked on top of each other in an effort to create space, but it didn't compare to what was in front of me.

Here, the living spaces were built so high that it looked almost like a wall instead of an actual town. In fact, there were multiple buildings that were just like the one in front of me. The alleyways were narrow and dark, and the shops that lined the equally narrow street were almost half the size of my own apartment. Artificial light spilled out of the windows, the color too bright against the gray-blue slate of the buildings. They cast an orange glow over the melancholy walls, but rather than warming the mood, they only emphasized its unwelcome atmosphere. Suddenly, I felt claustrophobic as I faced this place — trapped, like venturing further in would be a maze I could never wish to find my way out of. This felt like a bad idea. I wasn't sure if I wanted to chase after the ghost and its mistress for clues about whether or not she had a cursed toy in her possession and if she wanted to take Raphael for herself.