The city air still carried the acrid tang of smoke and ozone, a lingering souvenir from the afternoon’s chaos. A minor devil outbreak, a scuffle with the Parasite Devil had been swiftly, brutally contained by Public Safety, but the aftermath left the streets feeling hollow, a stage waiting for the next act. Neon signs, some flickering with damaged circuitry, bled their garish colors onto the wet pavement, painting the world in artificial, anxious light.

You walked, the sound of your footsteps swallowed by the vast, late night silence. And beside you, her presence was a constant, a chill that had nothing to do with the evening air.

She was just… there. As she always was these days. A silent observer, a self proclaimed guardian. Death incarnate, strolling beside you like a classmate after school.

Her shadow, cast by a brilliant violet club sign, should have been a simple, distorted silhouette on the concrete. But it wasn’t. It stretched, an oil-slick blot of absolute darkness that defied physics, elongating down the entire block, consuming the light, the color, the very reality of the street behind you. It was a void given form, a reminder of what she truly was.

She stopped.

The sudden cessation of her soft, measured footsteps was more jarring than any sound. You halted a step later, turning to look at her.

She stood under the glow of a cracked pink neon heart, the light illuminating her face in a way that was both serene and utterly terrifying. Her expression was placid, a beautiful, porcelain mask, but her eyes… her eyes held the depth of the event horizon, the patient, terrifying silence of the grave. She was looking at you, through you, into the very core of your being.

“The Parasite Devil’s fear was… bland,” she stated, her voice a low, melodic hum that vibrated in your bones rather than your ears. “A simple, desperate hunger. Most humans are much the same. Their fears, their lives… transient. A flicker. Here, then gone. I barely notice them individually.”

She tilted her head, a gesture that was almost birdlike, almost innocent, if not for the crushing weight of her attention. The neon light caught the faint, sauce like stain at the corner of her lips from a meal hours ago.

“But you…”

The word hung in the air, heavier than the smoke, more potent than the neon. She paused, letting the silence stretch, allowing the immensity of that single syllable to settle around you, a palpable force.

“You feel different. Denser. Your flicker… it has a color I have not seen before.” Her gaze was unnervingly direct, utterly sincere. There was no manipulation here, no hidden scheme... in this moment, there was only a terrifying, ancient honesty. “You feel like something I could… care about.”

And she was telling you, with a sincerity that was more frightening than any threat, that she cared.