Page 16 of The Oni's Heart

I pushed the thought of him away. It wasn’t worth it. Nothing about him or his world was worth the pain it brought me to even entertain the idea.

But now, the idea of getting caught in the storm of my past, of being dragged back into that world, felt even worse.

My phone buzzed on the table, breaking me out of my thoughts. A message from an unknown number. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

I opened it, and sure enough, it was a threat. Simple, direct. The same handwriting.Time’s up. We’ll be waiting.

I let out a shaky breath. So this was it. They’d come to collect. They always did. I wasn’t exactly sure what they wanted this time, but it didn’t matter. I could feel the old dread creeping back into my bones.

I had two choices: confront them or run.

And I wasn’t sure which one scared me more.

With a deep breath, I grabbed my keys and left the apartment, the walls pressing in on me indistinguishable from a suffocating vice. The silence in the room felt thick, as though the air itself was alive with whispers of destruction, curling around me with cold fingers, each breath I took more labored than the last. Every crack in the walls, every shadow lurking in the corners was watching, waiting for me to break. The floor seemed to shift beneath my feet, and for a split second, I wondered if I was walking on solid ground at all—or if I was just sinking deeper into the nightmare of my own making.

I could feel the echoes of my past rising from the dead, clawing at my skin, whispering promises of pain and chaos, telling me I was going to be caged as a plaything to them all, left to starve and crave the scraps they threw my way. The weight of everything threatened to crush me, but I couldn’t stay in the apartment. I couldn’t breathe under its oppressive silence any longer.

I left. But as I closed the door behind me, I felt the darkness shift. It followed me—slowly, quietly, always just behind me like a reanimated skeleton that refused to die.

The evening started normal enough. I wandered the streets of the small town, trying to feel as if I belonged, soaking up what little freedom I had left. The locals here still didn’t know me. They didn’t know my name, my history, or the blood that ran through my veins. They only saw a woman—a stranger who had appeared out of nowhere, lost and looking for something she could never find.

But there’s always someone who asks the wrong questions.

I’d gone to the market, trying to blend in, trying to buy something normal—fruit, vegetables, anything to feel close to a normal person. It wasn’t long before I noticed the eyes on me, the whispers that had followed me ever since I first arrived. I’d ignored them at first. You couldn’t let the stares get to you. Not when you were like me.

But today felt different. The tension in the air was palpable, thick with something darker.

I tried to keep my head down as I moved through the market, but there was a feeling crawling at the back of my neck. I was being watched.

I turned the corner to head down a narrow street, my pace quickening, my mind racing. My instincts had always been sharp. Too sharp. I could feel it now—something was off.

"Hey!"

I froze.

I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. The voice was too loud, too familiar in its tone. I felt a pit of dread open in my stomach, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

When I finally turned around, I saw them. Two men—one of them the same stranger from the bar. He just couldn’t let it go, could he? But it wasn’t just the familiarity of his face that froze me; it was something darker in their eyes. A cold certainty that made my stomach twist. It was more than arrogance—the kind of confidence that comes from knowing you have backup, knowing you’re untouchable.

I felt my pulse quicken, a chill crawling up my spine as I recognized it. That unmistakable air. The same look I'd seen in the eyes of Yakuza men back home—the kind of men who ruled by fear, who didn’t hesitate to make their presence felt. The kind of men who took what they wanted, no matter the cost.

Had I missed the signs? How was this man—this stranger—connected to them? They positioned themselves so casually as if they planned to watch me squirm... It hit me. This wasn’t a coincidence. The man at the bar—he wasn’t just some random creep. He was part of something bigger. And now, I was in it.

I could feel the blood in my veins running cold.

"Yeah, you." The one closest to me smirked, his teeth yellow, his face dirty and unshaven. He was dressed like a man who spent too much time under the sun, too much time in the streets, with nothing to keep him in check. "You’re not from around here, are you?"

My heart hammered in my chest. I swallowed, trying to keep my voice steady. "I’m just passing through."

His grin widened, and there was something predatory in his gaze. "That so? You sure you don’t have any ties to those, uh… boys from the city?" His words were slow, deliberate. He glancedat the other man, and they both chuckled, as though sharing some private joke that wasn’t funny at all.

I didn’t move, didn’t blink. I could feel the adrenaline surging through me, my body on high alert. My instincts screamed at me to leave, to run.

But I wasn’t stupid. I knew where this was going.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, forcing my voice to stay level, but the tremor in my throat betrayed me.

“You sure about that?” the second man asked, stepping forward. His eyes narrowed. “You don’t look like someone whojust passes through. We don’t like strangers around here. Especially notyou.”

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