74: A Moment Between Life and Death

"The day is still so exhausting."

After school, Shiina Mahiru walked home alone.

The setting sun dyed the street a warm orange, and pedestrians passed by, carrying the relaxation of a day's work behind them.

She mingled with the crowd, listening to high school girls walking by discussing new desserts and office workers complaining about overtime. These trivial, life-filled snippets of conversation acted like a thin barrier, temporarily shielding her from the fear that plagued her.

Her perpetually taut nerves finally found a faint sense of relief in this ordinary, bustling atmosphere.

She even deliberately slowed her pace, greedily soaking up this ordinary warmth, hoping to hold onto the feeling for a little longer.

However, this peace was as fragile as a soap bubble.

When her gaze inadvertently swept over a store's glass display window, her reflection flashed by, and that thought intruded inopportunely: In such a crowded place, could it be... that "Mary" was already silently following behind her?

She turned around abruptly.

Behind her were only unfamiliar, peaceful faces in a constant stream.

But the small peace she had just acquired had already shattered. Her heart slowly sank once again.

A flash of undisguisable panic crossed her uneasy, pretty face. Her previously slowed pace instantly became hurried, and she stumbled through the crowd.

The peaceful world around her seemed separated from her by an invisible film, and all sounds and colors became blurred and unreal.

She had only one thought now: Faster, just a little faster, to return to that one familiar, enclosed space—home.

Reason told her that being alone at home might be even more dangerous, effectively trapping herself at a known coordinate.

But a deeper, more desperate emotion gripped her: she did not want to drag any innocent people into this. If that terrifying fate was destined to arrive, it was better for her to bear it alone.

Besides...

A near-defeatist thought quietly emerged, carrying a bone-chilling coldness.

"Even if I die, isn't dying alone quite fitting for... myself, who has always been alone?"

This thought gave her a twisted sense of relief, but it also made her eyes ache.

She lowered her head, bit her lower lip harder, and almost broke into a run, resolutely leaving behind the noisy crowd that symbolized "daily life" and rushing toward that known apartment building, which felt like a cage.

The pitch-black room was so quiet she could only hear her own rapid heartbeat.

Shiina Mahiru wrapped herself tightly in her quilt, as if this thin fabric were a fortress capable of resisting all the malice from the outside world.

Her pitiful figure curled up and trembled beneath the thick quilt, like a bird startled by the mere twang of a bowstring.

The only light source came from the phone in her palm. The cold white light of the screen illuminated half her face, filled with fear and tension, and stung her eyes, which had already adjusted to the darkness.

The time had not yet come.

But it was close.

The cold numbers jumped silently on the screen she stared at intently, each flicker striking at her nerves.

The air seemed to solidify, and an invisible pressure permeated and contracted within the room, wrapping tightly around her.

The countdown had begun.

"This is a call from Mary. I am at your door now!"

The cold, monotonous female voice, like a final judgment, came clearly from the receiver.

"Bzz—"

Shiina Mahiru's mind went blank, and the blood in her body seemed to freeze instantly.

Almost at the same moment the call ended—

"Thud... thud... thud..."

A heavy, slow, yet exceptionally clear knocking sounded like a funeral bell, one after another, outside the deathly silent door.

Every sound seemed to strike directly at her heart.

Her body, curled up under the quilt, shook violently, and her teeth chattered uncontrollably, making a "clack-clack" sound.

Extreme fear gripped her throat, preventing her from making even the slightest sound.

The phone slipped from her limp hand, its screen light flickering in the dark space formed by the quilt, illuminating her pale face, twisted in extreme terror.

The knocking continued.

"Thud... thud... thud..."

Unhurried, with a kind of cruel patience like a cat playing with a mouse, it echoed in the silent night.

Suddenly, the sound stopped abruptly.

The persistent, heavy knocking disappeared without warning.

Outside the door was deathly silent, as if everything just now had been an auditory hallucination caused by her over-strained nerves.

After extreme tension came the feeling of collapse brought on by sudden relaxation.

Shiina Mahiru collapsed in the quilt, gasping for air, cold sweat soaking her bangs.

"Was it... a prank?"

Could it really just be a joke by some nasty person, and now it was finally over?

This thought emerged like a straw to clutch at, making her almost want to believe it, even producing a sense of unreal absurdity.

However, at the very moment her mind eased slightly due to this brief tranquility, and her tense body was just about to relax—

Bzz...

The phone she had dropped in the quilt suddenly lit up, accompanied by a low and continuous vibration that traveled through her body.

That vibration, like a whisper from the Grim Reaper, penetrated the fabric and branded itself directly onto her skin and into her bone marrow.

"This is a call from Mary. I am now..."

The cold, flat female voice attacked her from two directions simultaneously—

One, still from the phone receiver pressed against her body.

And the other... surprisingly clear and hollow, echoed throughout her pitch-black, lightless bedroom.

The source of the sound was close at hand.

Shiina Mahiru's breathing stopped completely, and a coldness like blood flowing backward instantly swept through her whole body.

She raised her head abruptly, her terrified gaze piercing the darkness, staring fixedly in the direction of the bedroom door—

The door was still tightly closed.

Then the sound was...

Her neck, like a rusted gear, turned bit by bit, extremely stiffly, toward the inner side of the room, to the floor-to-ceiling window connected to the balcony, which was covered by heavy curtains.

"...behind you."

The voice on the phone and the voice in the room, right by her ear, perfectly and synchronously delivered the final declaration.

Shiina Mahiru's thoughts completely solidified due to extreme fear.

The next second, an irresistible, bone-chilling force suddenly gripped her neck!

The touch was as stiff as iron, and the chill instantly penetrated her skin, piercing straight to her bone marrow, making her heart almost stop beating.

The instinct to survive made her struggle desperately to turn her head—

What met her eyes was a face as flawless as the finest doll in a display window, pale to the point of being eerie.

Long golden hair hung down like withered wheat ears.

However, on this face, thick, blackened blood was slowly flowing from the seven orifices.

Those hollow, lifeless eyes were staring at her fixedly, without blinking.

Boundless, gloomy, and cold energy radiated from this thing, as if even the air were about to be frozen.

Shiina Mahiru felt as if she were falling into a bottomless ice cellar, every inch of her skin, every cell, wailing in pain.

She opened her mouth wide, using all her strength to scream, to call for help, but her throat felt as if it were filled with ice shards, unable to squeeze out even the faintest breath of sound.

Only those bleeding eyes, in her vision which was gradually blurring and darkening due to lack of oxygen, magnified infinitely, becoming the last, eternal image in her consciousness.

"Hey, what are you trying to do in my neighbor's house?"

A clear, slightly lazy, yet unquestionable voice suddenly rang out.

This voice was like scorching sunlight piercing through the thick night, and like a spring breeze blowing past, causing the surrounding bone-chilling, cold energy to melt away instantly!

At the same time, a solid and warm touch came from behind Shiina Mahiru's slender waist—it was an arm, firmly and powerfully wrapping around her body, which had gone limp from fear.

"Ah—!!!"

Almost at the same instant, the "Mary" that was gripping her neck let out a shrill scream that didn't sound human!

That cold, stiff hand seemed to have been precisely slashed by an invisible sharp blade; it was severed at the wrist and instantly turned into wisps of filthy black smoke, twisting and dissipating in the air.

The deadly constraint gripping her throat suddenly vanished, and Shiina Mahiru gasped in a breath of long-lost air, followed by violent coughing.

Her whole body was drained of strength, and she relied almost entirely on the support of the arm around her waist to keep from falling.

She lifted her head, still shaken, and through tear-blurred eyes, she saw a tall, upright figure that had appeared beside her at some point.

"Mr. Lin Luo..."

Shiina Mahiru looked up at this familiar profile, the same one that had been fighting side-by-side with the Butterfly Sisters under the moonlight not long ago, and tears instantly flooded down.

It was not out of fear, but an unspeakable heartache mixed with endless grievances and immense relief that surged up, breaking down all her psychological defenses.

It was the moment when, after struggling alone in the darkness for too long, she finally encountered someone she could rely on without reservation, and all the hardship, fear, and loneliness that had been forcibly suppressed were released at once.

She had really... held it in for a long time.

Her tense body completely relaxed, and she surrendered almost her entire weight to the warm and solid support behind her. Her slender fingers unconsciously gripped the lapels of his chest tightly, as if a drowning person had grasped the only piece of driftwood.

Sobs could no longer be suppressed and escaped from her trembling lips.

Lin Luo looked down at the young girl in his arms who was crying uncontrollably, and a trace of complex ripples swept through his usually calm eyes.

He tightened his arm around her waist, giving her silent support, while his gaze swept sharply forward.

The "Mary" with the severed hand let out a venomous hiss beneath her golden hair, black smoke billowing from her severed wrist, but she dared not take another step forward.

Its bleeding eyes were now staring fixedly, with undisguisable trepidation, at Lin Luo—or rather, at the layer of pure, holy Qi that naturally circulated around Lin Luo, causing all evil and filth to retreat.

"Don't be afraid," Lin Luo's voice was low and steady, carrying a power that could soothe the Soul, clearly reaching Mahiru's ears, "I am here."

However, the anticipated further attack did not come.

The doll known as "Mary" slowly lowered her remaining hand, and the venomous, ferocious expression on her face receded like the tide, returning to that lifeless, "perfect" state like an exquisite display window doll.

She even tilted her head slightly, "sizing up" Lin Luo with those hollow eyes that were still shedding tears of blood.

"On you..." a cold voice, but no longer filled with killing intent, came from within her, carrying a hint of confirming doubt, "...there is the scent of Hanako."

She seemed to be capturing some invisible trace in the air, the unique "Qi" originating from Lin Luo, left over after contacting other urban legends, which ordinary people could never perceive.