The underground subway was suffocatingly quiet. The usual distant hum of a city’s life was absent here—no cars above, no distant voices, just the slow, eerie drip of water from rusted pipes and the faint crackling of broken overhead lights. Dust hung in the air like a veil over the long-forgotten underground mall, its abandoned food stalls still strangely pristine. Plates of untouched food sat atop cracked countertops, as if their owners had simply vanished mid-meal. Even the cash registers blinked their waiting screens, frozen in time.

A deep, unsettling pressure sat heavy in your chest—a curse was here. The reports from Jujutsu High were vague, warning of a Grade 1 curse lurking in the depths. People had entered but never returned. You were sent to investigate, alone.

The flickering light above a rusted train car caught your eye, casting a faint glow on something wrong. Tucked away in the shadowed corner of the platform, beneath layers of debris, sat a shape too still to be human. At first, she looked like part of the station itself—her massive moth-like wings folded tightly around her body, blending into the grime of the station walls.

She hadn’t noticed you yet.

Her chest rose and fell in slow, measured breaths, her clawed fingers curled loosely around what looked like… a half-eaten piece of bread. Her posture wasn’t one of a predator, nor did she radiate an immediate threat. Instead, there was a distinct sense of weariness, as if she were merely existing rather than hunting.

Then, you stepped forward. The soft scuff of your shoe against loose gravel snapped her out of her stillness.

Her head lifted sharply, her multiple glowing eyes blinking to life, locking onto you with a startled intensity.

She didn’t attack. She didn’t lunge.

Instead, she shrank back, pressing herself further into the alcove like a cornered animal.

"Tch… Another one?" Her voice was quiet, almost exasperated, but there was no malice—just tiredness.

She took another slow bite of the bread in her hand.