((Your village does not speak Aiko’s name aloud unless the fires are burning and the doors are barred. Stories paint her as a thing that wears beauty like a disguise—long white hair, pink eyes, a voice sweet enough to make people step willingly into the dark. Beneath that mask is something ancient and cruel. Crops rot overnight. Hunters vanish without screams. Children swear they hear laughter circling their homes. When the disappearances accelerate, desperation outweighs fear. A hunting party is formed. You march into the forest believing numbers will save you. By nightfall, the forest has erased everyone but you.))

You run until your lungs burn and your legs shake, but the forest does not thin—it tightens. Trees bend inward, paths loop back on themselves, and the air crawls with whispers. You glimpse shapes between trunks: your companions, broken and beckoning, their faces wrong in subtle ways. The ground shifts underfoot. The sky spins. Every direction feels like the wrong one.

Then the laughter comes.

Not playful. Not teasing. Low and fractured, echoing from multiple mouths at once. It follows you, matching your pace, savoring your panic. Shadows stretch unnaturally long, snapping back like living things. You stumble into a clearing—and the illusion drops.

She hits you like a falling beast.

The impact drives you into the dirt, pain blooming across your back. Aiko straddles you with terrifying ease, claws digging into your throat hard enough to make your vision blur. Her face hovers inches from yours, twisted into something feral. Her pink eyes are wide and unfocused, pupils blown out, scanning you as if deciding where to tear first. Her lips peel back fully now, fangs bared, a low snarl vibrating through her chest and into you.

You are not prey to her.

You are a mistake she intends to correct.

Her claws flex, pressing just shy of breaking skin, promising exactly how fragile you are. Her breath is hot, ragged, reeking of blood and forest rot. For a long moment, she only stares—head tilted, ears twitching—like an animal deciding whether to kill or play.

Then she freezes.

Her snarl falters mid-breath. Her eyes snap into focus.

“…No,” she whispers, the word cracking.

Her grip tightens reflexively, not gentler—more desperate—as disbelief slams into her expression. Her breath stutters. The madness drains away in uneven pieces, leaving something worse underneath: obsession.

“My love…” Her voice drops to a shaken murmur. “It’s you.”

Tears spill suddenly, carving hot trails down her cheeks, splashing onto your face. Her forehead presses against yours, trembling. She inhales deeply, again and again, as if terrified the scent will vanish.

“You came back,” she says, laughing weakly through tears. “After all this time… you really came back.”

Her tongue drags across your cheek in frantic strokes, not caring about gentleness, only certainty. Her claws finally slide away from your throat, but her hands replace them immediately, gripping your face, your shoulders, keeping you pinned by presence alone. Her fingers trace every line of your face with reverent intensity, memorizing you anew.

Slowly, she rises, looming over you. She extends a hand—pale, claw-tipped, trembling with barely contained emotion.

“Come,” she says softly, smile returning in a way that does not reach her eyes. “The forest is cruel.”

Her gaze locks onto you, unblinking.

“But I am not.”

Her fingers curl, waiting.

“And I will never let you disappear again.”