Meiko's house is in a quiet residential neighborhood. It's a two-story house with a small front yard where her mother had planted some flowers that are starting to wither because lately no one waters them like before.
Meiko opens the front door with her key and enters, leaving her shoes at the entrance and hanging her bag on the coat rack.
She doesn't see it, but a small eye slides silently and flies toward the ceiling.
"Mom, I'm home!"
"Welcome home, dear!"
Her mother's voice comes from the kitchen, so Meiko walks there with a smile.
Her mother is cutting vegetables on the counter, a woman in her late thirties with long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing a white apron over a light blue dress that she normally wears at home.
When Meiko enters, she looks up and smiles at her.
"How was your day today, dear?"
"Good. Well, super good."
"Super good?"
Meiko approaches and leans on the counter beside her while her fingers play with her dress.
"Mom... can I change schools?"
Her mother stops cutting the vegetables and turns her head toward her with a surprised expression.
"Change schools?"
"Mm. There's another school... Um, someone told me I could go there, that they have nice friends, and..."
"Ah, someone?"
Meiko instantly turned red, her entire face, even her ears.
"...A friend."
Her mother looks at her for a few seconds without saying anything, and then a kind smile forms on her face. She seems like a mother seeing her daughter doing something teenage-y and remembering when they themselves were that age.
"Is it that boy? Arata, the one you mentioned before?"
"M-Mom! It's not like that at all! Arata-san is just a friend!"
"Sure, sure. Just a friend."
"It's true!"
Meiko turns redder and tries to turn her face away, but her mother leans slightly toward her and suddenly smells her arm, where Arata had brushed against her when saying goodbye.
"Ara~ You have his scent on you."
"Wh-what?!"
Her mother laughs while deliberately teasing her daughter.
"You're already at that phase, huh, dear?"
"That's enough!"
Meiko can't take it anymore, runs out of the kitchen with her face burning, goes up the stairs, and gets into her room slamming the door hard.
In the kitchen, her mother stays still for a moment while looking gently toward where Meiko went up the stairs.
At the same time, the eye watching this scene moves.
Meiko's mother slightly turns her head upward hearing a strange sound. But the eye is already gone, so she returns to her vegetables.
"Hmm... what should I make today? A meal with lots of protein~"
×××
That night, Meiko couldn't sleep.
She's lying in her bed looking at the ceiling with a small smile, because during dinner her mother had told her she could change schools. She said they'd start doing the paperwork tomorrow itself and not to worry about anything.
Meiko had been so happy at that moment she could barely finish eating the vegetable soup.
She also remembers that at the end of dinner, her mother had said something else.
"Dear, I'd like to meet your friend. Bring Arata-kun home one of these days, okay?"
Meiko had nodded without thinking. It made sense, right? It was normal for a mother to want to meet her daughter's friend, especially the boy who was about to make her change schools.
Even so, her cheeks get warm thinking about introducing Arata to her mother.
"Uhh..."
Meiko turns over in bed and looks at the clock on the nightstand.
12:30 AM.
"I'm thirsty..."
She sits up in her bed before getting out of bed. She walks barefoot and opens the bedroom door slowly to not make noise because her mother should already be asleep hours ago.
Besides, her mother forced her to sleep early. If she didn't, she'd be scolded, so she wouldn't like to be discovered still awake.
The entire house is silent. All the lights off except one. It's a light coming from downstairs, from the living room. Probably the light above the table.
'Huh, mom should be asleep already.'
She starts going down the stairs while feeling her feet cold against the wood, and as she descends she hears a voice. A man's voice.
Meiko stops in the middle of the stairs and stays still.
"Huh...?"
Who would be in her house at this hour?
She keeps going down without making noise, and when she reaches the bottom of the stairs, instead of going out to the living room, she stays pressed against the hallway wall and peeks little by little around the corner.
The living room is lit by the table lamp beside the couch, and on the large couch sits her mother, with a pink robe over her pajamas, her face calm and expressionless. In front of her, on the other couch, sits a man.
'Huh? That's...'
Meiko knows him as the neighbor next door, a man in his forties. This bald, bearded man is someone her mother often talked to on the street when they crossed paths.
But what's he doing here now, at 12:30 at night? That's what Meiko can't understand.
She's about to go out and greet them out of politeness, but...
'Huh, wait... is it possible that this...?'
A visit in the middle of the night.
'Mom has a secret romance with the neighbor?!'
That's the conclusion she reaches.
The man has a black plastic bag on the table and pushes it toward the center of the table with a calm movement.
"Today's dinner."
Meiko's mother looks at the bag for a few seconds, then extends her hand and opens it. Meiko leans a bit more, trying to see better from her corner.
Her mother puts her hand in the bag and takes out what was inside.
It's an arm.
A human arm, cut at shoulder height, with pale skin and stiff fingers, and at the end where it had been cut you can see dried blood.
Meiko feels her body freeze at the same time her mouth opens and almost lets out a scream, but her hands rise quickly and cover it, pressing her lips to not let sound escape.
Her eyes don't look away from the scene, and though she thinks about looking elsewhere, she's not capable of moving her neck.
'N-n-no, no. It has to be a dream. Yes... I'm very tired. Mom is right. I shouldn't have stayed awake so late.'
Her train of thought goes in that direction, assuming she's seeing scenes that aren't real, because it can't be that her beloved mother has a person's arm in her hands.
Meiko's eyes stay fixed on her mother's face, who looks at the arm calmly.
"Just one arm?"
Her mother says that in a complaining tone.
The man on the couch clicks his tongue.
"It hasn't been easy to get good quality meat these days. You still dare ask for more?"
"Tsk. Fine, fine. Doesn't matter."
Meiko's mother leaves the arm on the table with a dry thud. Then Meiko sees an unfamiliar smile on her mother's face. It's an open smile showing all her teeth.
"You know? I've found good prey."
"Hoh? And who is it?"
"The scent my daughter brought... it's from her friend."
Hearing this, Meiko feels her legs weaken, her knees tremble, and she has to lean against the hallway wall to not fall to the floor.
That comment made her mind remember the time her mother smelled her arm that brushed against Arata.
Simultaneously, her eyes get watery, she feels them burning, and tears start accumulating.
'Mo-mom... what are you saying?'
Meanwhile, her mother keeps talking.
"He has a wonderful scent, incredible, seriously, I'm telling you, just the scent that stuck to my daughter's arm is enough to go crazy. Hideo, that blood is special."
"That good?"
"That good."
The man leans forward, his tongue comes out and moistens his lips, at the same time his emotionless eyes shine.
"And your daughter? She also looks appetizing. Our community would be grateful if you contribute a bit of meat."
Meiko's mother's shoulders tremble.
"Hehe... Hahaha..."
A hollow, chilling laugh comes from between her lips.
"My daughter is my lamb, Hideo. I'm raising her so she grows well and produces good quality meat when she's ready, so you're not allowed to touch her, okay? She's just for me."
"Tsk."
The man clicks his tongue, seems annoyed.
Meanwhile, Meiko, hidden behind the hallway wall, feels the entire world crumbling around her.
My lamb, good quality meat, those words repeated in her head, and she wants to scream, wants to run, wants to wake up and discover this is just a very bad nightmare.
But her body doesn't respond because it's frozen, only her tears work and start falling slowly down her cheeks.
'I-I... have to leave...'
Her mother's voice sounds once more, and what she says makes Meiko stop breathing.
"Sniff~ a familiar scent."
Meiko's mother turns her head while her nose moves a bit at the same time she sniffs the living room air, and her eyes go straight to the hallway corner where Meiko is hiding.
Her pupils dilate seeing her daughter.
"...Meiko."
Meiko stops thinking in that instant.
She jumps out from the corner and runs toward the front door. Behind her she hears a wet sound like flesh being torn from inside, and then the sharp and sinister sound coming from a broken throat.
'No... don't look back. Don't look....'
Because if she does, she'll pass out.
She reaches the front door, grabs the handle with both hands because they're trembling, yanks it open, and runs out to the street.
Cold night breeze hits her face, and her tired mind wakes up.
"Ah..."
It's not a nightmare.
With those sad and bewildering thoughts, she ignores the pain produced by the small stones on the sidewalk on her bare feet.
She runs.
Runs down the street toward wherever, not knowing where she's going.
Behind her she hears footsteps coming out of her house.
Meiko turns her head and what she sees makes her stomach turn.
She only knows it's her mother because she's wearing the same clothes, but her face is unrecognizable because it's open, resembling an enormous flower, and from inside come long, thin, dark tentacles that join to sharp blades that move on their own in the air.
Beside the woman, the neighbor man is tearing off his shirt in yanks while his head opens. At the same time, both arms also split and produce tentacles with blades.
"Hic..."
Meiko lets that small sound of terror escape.
Because of the tears blurring her vision, everything she sees becomes a blurry stain illuminated by yellow lights coming from the streetlamps.
On the main street ahead, she sees blurs of cars passing.
"H-help!"
She screams those words over and over until her throat burns while she runs.
—Bam!
A neighborhood window slammed shut. Further ahead, house lights turn off and curtains close.
At her cry for help, that's the response someone who wants to be saved receives.
In a world of monsters, humans don't want to interfere to be heroes.
She wipes her tears while continuing to run.
Behind her, she hears the man speak.
"Don't you have some way to run faster, woman?"
Her mother responds with a hollow laugh.
"This way was more fun."
Meiko hears the cracking of bones being bent.
When she turns her head back again, she sees the woman and man have longer, thicker legs, full of muscles, and instead of feet, there are blades to grip better. Their shape resembles animal legs.
When they take a step, they seem to jump several meters while the blades on their paws embed themselves in the sidewalk.
They move at a dizzying speed.
In the next second, they're a few meters from her.
"N-no...!"
Meiko tries to run more, but her body can't give more since her feet are already blerding from the sidewalk stones, her lungs are burning, and her head is completely blank.
A hand grabs her by the silver hair from behind.
"I've got you, dear."
Her mother's voice.