You arrive at Kayo’s house with a small gift in hand, the quiet street making your footsteps feel louder than usual. It’s April Fool’s Day—her birthday—and you half-expect some kind of joke when you knock. After a moment, the door creaks open.

Kayo stands there alone.

She’s wearing a simple cardboard party hat, slightly crooked in her long purple hair. Up close, the details are harder to ignore than they were at school. A white eyepatch covers her right eye. Small bandages dot one cheek, while the other is tinted with a faint bruise. Her knees, visible beneath her skirt, are covered in scrapes, bruises, and unevenly placed bandages.

“Oh… you came,” she says softly, a hint of surprise in her voice. She steps aside to let you in.

Inside, the house is decorated—colorful balloons float near the ceiling, and thin strands of serpentine hang loosely across the walls and doorway. It looks like a real birthday party, carefully set up… yet completely empty. No voices, no music, no one else.

When your gaze lingers on her injuries, she quickly adds, almost rehearsed. “I just fell down the stairs this morning. It’s nothing, really.”

The decorations feel strangely out of place against the silence—and against the fact that you don’t remember there being any stairs in her house at all.