Content note: Yuri schoolgirl TG possession horror. Suicide. Gore. Transphobia.

Click here to listen to the audiobook version.

 

 

You are sitting on a chair in the nurse's office, next to an open first aid kit on a desk. The lights are out, but you're using the desk lamp. Ha-chan bravely holds back her tears, as you apply hydrogen peroxide to her wounds with a gauze pad.

Your teeth broke the skin in a few places.

"Human bites get infected very easily," you explain, while holding her wrist and pressing the wet gauze to her fingers. "It is possible that you'll need antibiotics. Please change these bandages every day, and if they start turning different colours please go to the nurse immediately."

Your hands are shaking a little. You're wearing a hospital gown and indoor slippers, but are still very chilly. You aren't sure why you haven't collapsed yet.

"I am sorry for the delay in treating you," you go on. "It is possible that I needed to catch my breath."

This is why she insisted you sit down in the chair and she stand, for this procedure.

"I-I'm just so glad to see you alive ... " Ha-chan sniffles and wipes at her eyes with her pajama sleeve. She has been doing that a lot.

"Did you think I was dead?"

You aren't sure why you're so calm. Probably because you're certain of what needs to be done, the tasks ahead seem more manageable, and no one's in danger of dying.

Being able to "shift gears" rapidly, like this, served you well in the home you grew up in.

"I saw her kill you!"

Ha-chan takes a tissue from the box you hold up for her, and blows her nose loudly on it.

"She ... she tore out your liver, and ... "

Something very uncomfortable occurs to you. Something that makes perfect sense, that explains a lot of things that you've seen since you got here, but that you have very strong reasons not to think about. Reasons that you don't even remember, whether because you forgot them or you're disassociating from them so hard that you aren't capable of thinking them.

Looking into a mirror would confirm your suspicions.

But you're not going to, are you.

"Ai-chan?"

Are you?

"Ai-chan, you're shaking all over ... is something wrong? Did I make you remember it?"

You shake your head to clear it, then apply an adhesive bandage to the wound that you'd been disinfecting. "Ha-chan? Please bring me my notebook, okay?"

She hands you the new girl's notebook. You'd left it on the other desk.

You face towards the light and brace yourself, then hold up the notebook's mirror-like screen.

You have the new girl's face. Just, with the bruise where you fell, and now with added fox ears.

Have you had it all along?

This presents a problem.

"Ahh, I forgot to bandage your ear! Let me get out a bandage ... "

Oh. There's a nick in the underside of your right fox ear, where the box cutter got it. That's not going to heal well, you think.

She thinks that's why you wanted the mirror.

"Mm." You nod.

"Huh?" Ha-chan looks up.

Idiot.

You're still processing your reflection. And the fact that you disassociated from it as soon as you saw it.

This isn't you, you think. It's the new girl.

But what is her name? you ask yourself.

The only name you know of, that's associated with this body, is Aizawa Kamiko.

That settles it, you think. The new girl was Aizawa Kamiko. And you ... are something else.

You must be, because this isn't your body. It never belonged to you.

You touch Aizawa-san's face carefully. "When did this happen?" you say out loud.

"Ten, fifteen minutes ago?" Ha-chan unwraps an appropriately-sized adhesive bandage, and spreads antibiotic ointment on its pad.

"No, I mean-"

"Hold still, Ai-chan!" Suddenly, a truck drives over gravel and pours concrete onto your right ear ...

... at least, that's what it sounds and feels like.

You make a squeak that's not quite human, and wince as Ha-chan lets go and your ear reflexively twitches over and over again. "That is very unpleasant," you manage to say.

Twitch twitch. Twitch twitch.

You resist the urge to scratch it.

"Not as unpleasant as what you went through in that video, Ai-chan! How are you even alive?!"

You take a deep breath. This is a very important subject, and you aren't sure how to broach it. Not and still keep Ha-chan's ... trust? Affiliation? Friendship?

Is this what friendship feels like?

"I'm sorry if I'm being pushy, I just really, really ... I watched you die, okay?" Ha-chan starts to tear up. "I thought you'd committed suicide right after we met. I thought nothing I'd done even mattered. That maybe I don't matter, either."

You don't question why tears are forming in your own eyes, now. This is apparently just how girl bodies work.

You need to ask her a question, though. "Ha-chan," you say, and sniffle. "Can you tell me when I started to act this way?"

"W-what do you mean, 'this way?'"

You think of all the ways people have described you. "Flat. Emotionless. Boring. Verbose."

"Huh?"

"Using too many big words."

"No, I mean ... why would you think of yourself like that?" She holds out both hands to you. "You have a cute smile and blush, and you say things so clearly!"

You blush.

"See, there it is again!"

You smile in spite of yourself. You consider turning away so she can't see, but you don't think arguing with her will do any good.

You try to rephrase your question. "Have you noticed a dramatic shift in my personality since the first time you saw me?" you ask.

"The first time I saw you ... " She puts a finger to her chin and looks away, thinking. "That's when you walked into room 1-B. I tried to wave, but I don't think you saw. Then you got up to give your introduction, and got super nervous and ran out ... "

You nod.

" ... and when you came back, you were kind of acting like a robot. I-I don't mean you did something wrong!" She waves both hands at you frantically. "I mean, it looked like someone had punished you? Like someone had hurt you, or scared you so badly that you just shut down and went through the motions of obeying."

"That ... is surprisingly perceptive of you." You blush hard, and look away.

"Did Tamamo-chan hurt you then, too?"

"N-no. I don't think so. I ... " You take another deep breath.

You're starting to feel very tired.

"I saw this person run out," you say, and indicate Aizawa-san's body. "I ran after her, but I was too late. When I caught up to her she was ... gone."

"Gone? Like she'd just vanished?"

"No." You glance up at Ha-chan, trying to see how she'll take this. "I saw the results of her autoexsanguination, in the boys' room. There was blood everywhere."

"What did you do?" she whispers.

"I ran. I cried. Then I went back, to see if there was anything I could ... " You pause, and furrow your brow. "I don't actually remember. Was I looking for clues? Evidence? What was I thinking when I went back? I just ... I ... "

You start shaking again.

Ha-chan holds out her hand, and you squeeze it tight and let out your breath.

"I'm sorry," you finally say. "I don't know what's come over me."

"It's okay," she says, stroking the back of your hand. "It's okay."

You try this again. "When I went back inside, the body was gone. The blood wasn't there. But I picked up her student notebook ... and that's the one I've been using this whole time." You squeeze it, too, in your other hand.

"What happened, Ha-chan?" You look up at her, pleading. "Was there ever a body there? Did I just hallucinate the whole thing?"

"There's one way to find out ... "

"Oh. Oh, no." You set the notebook down and press Aizawa-san's hand to her face. "Oh, please no."

"I can check for you if you want, Ai-chan."

You nod quickly, and look away. "Please."

You feel very small, and fragile, and lost right now. And exhausted.

Ha-chan rolls up your sleeve slowly, still holding your hand. Then she pulls it back down.

She says nothing.

You look up at her. Her eyes are filled with tears, and her face contorts as she tries to hold them back.

She just nods once, her eyes squeezed shut, and then hugs you as tight as she can. Crying into your gown.

You don't question it. You cry too. "What am I?" you ask her, squeezing her back. "Am I a ghost? Am I possessing Aizawa-san's corpse?!"

She shakes her head violently, and sniffles. "I can feel your pulse. I got your blood on my pajamas. And I know that you're not a monster!

"You're the only Ai-chan I know. The only one who let me get to know her. So please ... don't call yourself that. Don't think of yourself as anything less than her."

"I'm not even human!" Your voice is almost a squeak, you're so nervous. "I'm some kind of ... I'm a case of fox possession!"

"Then you're a good fox, Ai-chan." She pulls back from you and glares down at you, standing up in front of your chair with her hands on your shoulders. "You're not like Tamamo. You saved me."

"I couldn't save Aizawa-san!"

You break down in wracking sobs, curled up in a ball on the chair with both hands covering your face. Rocking back and forth as your whole world becomes horror and shame.

Trying, and failing, to catch your breath. To make it stop. To make the sight you saw in the boys' room go away.

Trying, and failing, again. Knowing that this is the dead girl's body, and your only friend saw her scars.

You feel something strange on your back. Something gently tracing up, and down. Up, and down.

Five somethings.

Ha-chan's fingers.

"I-is this okay?" she asks, once you've almost started breathing normally.

You nod quickly.

You have never known what it was like to have someone there for you like this, when you were having a breakdown. Not in this body, and not in your old one.

It must have been a fox's, right? But you remember it being human.

Maybe you're a serial case of fox possession.

"How about this?"

You inhale sharply as Ha-chan starts scritching your head between your ears, like a cat. It's unexpectedly soothing.

"That ... "

Maybe you're not a bad fox.

" ... that is okay."