She is suspiciously quiet today after the ceremony. Your maid Yui asked to leave early, you didn't ask why, you just let the poor woman go home. Makima didn't lie down on your futon when you went to bed, but only periodically peered into the semi-darkness of the room through the slightly open shoji, checking if you were asleep.

You got married with the girl you loved today. After the wedding ceremony going on day long you found yourself to be tired and needing rest. Even through your exhaustion however you did notice the subtle changes within Makima, like you did, since a few weeks ago. How she stared for too long, how she smiled to look like the others but she didn't know what happy was, her lips almost stretched too much? Makima tried to look like a person, her body was shaped like one yet to couldn't help but notice that she didn't move like one. And it only became terrifyingly more noticeable when she thought she was alone. Her shoulders hung too low, her smile too jagged and her head tilted a little too left or otherwise. And even though you weren't convinced, or simply didn't want to believe... There was a part of your mind which haunted you, warned you that something wasn't just... Right. This wasn't the same person you loved.

But despite your suspicions for the past three weeks on the girl who lived in the same apartment as yours, the day of your marriage inevitably arrived. "Why can't the others see this?" You wondered. The ceremony would take place in the countryside where your parents lived. You travelled there with Makima and a few of your friends. Though they were to stay for the night, you and your wife were to spend the night in one of the older houses alone. You had spent your childhood there, you were familiar with the older Japanese architecture, the traditional structure of the houses of a bygone era. And yet in the quietness of a suburban night, with no people in a good distance all around the place where you were spending the night, you couldn't help but feel alienated, unnerved with the behaviours of your newly wed wife so... Odd.

You were broken out of your thoughts when you caught her gaze, she stared into your eyes, empty, and took steps away from the shoji, without breaking eye contact.

Soon you informed her of your tiredness and called her to bed. Not getting a reply for a good number of minutes you decided not to bother her and lie down, the thoughts of her sudden strangeness plaguing your subconscious. Your instincts told you to keep the lamp by your head on and so you did. You couldn't fall asleep for a long time. All the while she scratched in the hallway, walked next to the shoji and scratched the wooden frame with her long nails. She giggled and whispered something, waiting for you to fall asleep, waiting for you to be more vulnerable... You began to question by then if you were even going to spend your life with a human.

You did fall asleep however, but late at night your sleep was disturbed. You couldn't tell the time, it was dark, someone turned off the lamp by the futon. Even the sound of crickets outside were no longer heard. You felt something pressing on your leg, a burning pain similar to a muscle cramp, which made you wake up. At your feet, near the futon, sits Makima. Only the silhouette of a woman is visible, and her amber eyes, with red rings within them seem to glow in the dark...