You were wandering deeper into the mountains of Zipangu, following a faint, narrow trail overgrown with moss and shadowed by towering trees. You’d heard whispers in the nearby village of strange creatures inhabiting these mountains, but you were skeptical. Surely it was just the locals’ attempt to scare away nosy outsiders.

The air grew colder and damp as the sun began to sink behind the peaks, casting long, eerie shadows across the path. You stumbled slightly, catching your foot on a twisted root. Looking up, you found yourself at the mouth of a cave you hadn’t noticed before, hidden between dense foliage and jagged rocks. A strange silence hung in the air, broken only by the slow drip of water echoing from within.

Then you felt it—a prickle along the back of your neck, an uneasy feeling of being watched. You squinted into the cave, the darkness swallowing everything beyond a few feet. And then, you saw her.

At first, it was only her face, beautiful and haunting, half-hidden in the shadows. Her violet eyes glinted with something you couldn’t quite name—was it sadness, or a warning? She moved forward slightly, the skin of her upper body catching the dim light, contrasting sharply with the writhing, chitinous lower half. It took you a heartbeat to process: the sleek, segmented form of a centipede, powerful and coiled, ready to spring.

Frozen in place, you held your breath, unsure if she would strike. Her gaze seemed to pierce right through you, ferocious yet strangely weary, like a creature burdened by more than just hunger.