Ayakashi Monogatari

Chapter One: Kuchizuke

Ayakashi Monogatari

By Alexandria Francetic

Chapter One: Kuchizuke

Ever since I was a little girl, I always wondered what it would be like if the fairytales I read didn't have happy endings. What if Hansel and Gretel never escaped from the witch? What if Jack never got away from the giant? What if Pinnochio never fulfilled his wish of becoming a real boy?

Pondering those hypothetical scenarios never failed to intrigue me. Those stories may sound familiar to you, but where I come from, we have a set of fairytales all our own, and many of them do not end happily. Bloodthirsty Oni that terrorized villages, spirits of the damned that hunted the innocent, and sly Kitsune that tricked unsuspecting passersby to their doom.

Strangely enough, I liked those fairytales more than the happy ones. Since the day I first discovered my eyes glowing red under the soft light of the waxing full moon, I imagined I had some sort of connection to those old stories. Until one day, a chance encounter changed everything...

I needed to wake up. I didn't know what was going on, but something was happening, and I needed to do something. I was trapped in a void of dreamless sleep, clawing at the blackness to reach the one white thread dangling down from the abyss. As I clambered, my fingers clutched the single hanging string of consciousness, and I tore myself free. I jerked upright, gasping for breath, trying to scream, but no voice would leave my parched throat. Boiling beads of sweat slithered down my bare skin. I scanned about frantically, searching for danger. Tonight was a night like no other.

The full moon shone bright in the sky outside my window, its surface a deep blood-red. I felt a sharp pain behind my eyes, followed by an intense heat, as my irises illuminated to match the color of the moon. I sat on the bed in my pajamas, frozen by indecision. What should I do? Was it just a nightmare I couldn't recall? Should I try to go back to sleep? While a million thoughts surged through my mind, my locked state was shattered by a piercing scream.

I got a sudden heavy feeling in my gut, like a rock in the pit of my stomach. I leapt out of bed and burst out of my room. I stood in the hallway, looking around like an idiot. My first thought was my mother. My nerves charged with an intense electric sensation, I tipped back on my heels and bolted down the carpeted hall. I threw open the first door to my right- and immediately found myself wishing I hadn't.

Tendrils of a thick, inky sludge-like substance dripped down the walls and from the ceiling. Blood was splattered on the wall behind the headboard. It belonged to my mother. She laid sprawled out on the white bedsheets, which were now dyed a deep crimson. The massive, gleaming blade of a sickle sat lodged in her chest. A pair of white-gloved hands were wrapped around the metallic shaft, belonging to an individual I could only describe as the Devil.

He was a very tall, pale-skinned man dressed all in red, the same red of the blood staining the sheets. His eyes were a sharp maroon, with vertical, slitted pupils like a snake's. All the red contrasted from his long, pitch-black hair, as dark as the night. It flowed all the way down to his hips. The Devil was hunched over my mother's corpse, pinning her body in place between his legs.

I was petrified. I couldn't move. I couldn't scream. I could barely breathe. I knew I needed to run, but my legs were locked in place. My muscles turned to stone, and the blood in my veins seemed to stop flowing. My mouth was as dry as sand. I may as well have been a stone statue.

The Devil's sharp eyes shifted to me. His lips peeled back in a grin, displaying a mouth filled with teeth like saw blades. "Hello there, little girl." His voice was almost like an entity in itself. It was dark and deep, and it seeped into my brain like black sludge, rattling me to my core. What else could this monster be but the Devil himself? He had murdered my mother in cold blood, and now he was going to drag me down to Hell.