It was dusk when we arrived, largely because we had walked the entire way without a single stop. If I had come alone at a full run it would have taken me an hour or two at most.
As we moved through the village streets the whole place felt wrong. Gloomy, deserted, and carrying a heaviness that had nothing to do with the hour. The streets were dirty and nobody seemed to notice or care. The villagers we passed had the same look in their eyes, hollow and vacant, like people still breathing but no longer present. Nobody needed to tell me something was deeply off here.
"We should find somewhere to rest, an inn if there is one." I said. "When the night settles we move."
"We start now." Nana crossed to the other side of the road where a man sat working straw slippers. "We ask questions now." She walked up to him and waved her hand near his face. "Good evening."
The man tilted his head, looked us both over with empty eyes, scoffed once like he knew something we didn't, and went back to his work. Nana glanced at me. Her expression said she wasn't ready to walk away yet.
"We would like to ask you some—"
"You'll both die eventually." The man said it flatly, like a fact about the weather. Nana pulled back slightly but steadied herself.
"What do you mean? Have you seen any demons?" She pressed him with one question after another but the man had no interest in us. We were nothing to him.
I put a hand on Nana's shoulder. "We should go."
She accepted it and we moved on. The next person was the same. And the one after that. Every face we came across wore that same hollow stare, and the ones who offered any words at all only muttered something about a creature that came out at night. It confirmed we were dealing with a demon, but we needed something more concrete.
Before we could press further the dark arrived all at once. Every soul in the village had pulled indoors and the streets emptied out completely. A thick cold mist settled over everything, cutting visibility down to almost nothing. I had no problem, but Nana was as blind.
"My legs." Nana winced, a small breath of steam leaving her mouth.
"I told you we should have secured an inn first."
"You were right about that one." She rubbed her palms together and pressed them against her cheeks. "It is getting cold."
"Temperature is dropping fast. We should keep moving and look for any house with a light on."
It was unlikely, but staying on our feet was better than standing still and freezing.
We moved through the village with reduced visibility, hands resting on the hilts of our katanas, relying more on instinct than sight.
Then a faint light appeared a few blocks ahead. We looked at each other and moved toward it quickly. As we got closer it took shape, a small rice ball shop, still open.
Inside, a young woman stood behind the counter. Slender, average height, with a paleness to her skin that bordered me. An apron covered her from the waist down. She was finishing off a wrapped rice ball when she noticed us, pushed the plate aside and swallowed something in her mouth.
"Welcome!!" She called out brightly, completely unbothered by the dead silence outside. "Looks like you two are my last customers tonight."
"Looks like you're the only normal person left in this village." I sat down across from her. Nana took the seat beside me.
"It's a strange village you've found yourselves in." The woman said.
"How strange?" I asked.
She studied us both for a moment. "Depends on your definition of strange." A beat passed. "Demon slayers. What a shame, you're both too young for this."
Nana opened her mouth. I stopped her before she could say anything that would close this door.
"In our line of work nothing stays strange for long." I said. "What do you have for us?"
"We need somewhere to—"
"Food." I said, cutting across Nana.
She looked at me. The woman looked at her too. "Food for both of us," I said.
"Alright." The woman crouched down briefly. "The rice I have left is the last of it, so it'll be cold."
"We don't mind." I took both plates as she set them down and slid one in front of Nana. I leaned close and dropped my voice. "Don't eat it." She looked at me with confusion but said nothing.
"Can I ask you something?" I looked back at the woman. "You're the first person in this village who seems present. We were told people have been going missing here. Do you know anything about it? Any detail helps."
The woman rubbed her chin and nodded. "Yes, that is nothing new here. For as long as I can remember people have been going missing, visitors especially. A demon slayer came by some weeks ago."
"What happened to him?" I asked.
"He went missing the next day."
"The next day? After what exactly?"
"He went missing the next day." She repeated it the same way, closed off.
She wasn't going to answer that. Which itself was an answer worth noting.
I glanced at the food in front of me and then at Nana's plate, both untouched. "Thank you for the information. It confirms something is wrong here and we intend to get to the bottom of it."
"What about the food?" She asked.
"No appetite right now." I looked at Nana. She nodded.
"Oh."
She hesitated briefly then reached for my plate. I caught her by the wrist before she could lift it.
Her hand was wrong. Cold in a way that had nothing to do with the night air, the flesh thick and unyielding, and beneath it her bones felt brittle as glass. Her face changed, not fear, but shock.
"Are you well?" I asked.
Her mouth worked twice before the word came out. "Yes."
"No you aren't." I glanced down at her wrist where my grip had already done damage, crushed under my grasp. "Your hand is completely crushed and you felt nothing. And you say you're well."
She let out a loud cry then. A total act, a poor one at that. I drew my tanto and severed the arm cleanly, the detached piece falling away as she slammed back against the wall. No blood came from the wound. Just dense, dried red flesh.
Nana was already on her feet, katana drawn. The woman had been identified for what she was.
"Go for the kill."
Nana vaulted the counter and drove her katana through the woman's neck. The head left the shoulders and flew upward, and the hand shot out and caught it before it could drop.
The face that had been wide with shock was now grinning at us, an eerie laugh spilling out of it and filling the small shop.
"You children just got yourselves in serious trouble." Her voice was off, layered, somewhere between an old man and a woman pressed together. Then I felt it. Something at the back of my senses, an itch that wouldn't settle. Something was coming.The ground began to tremble. Slowly at first, then building fast into a violent shake.
"Nana, get out of there!!"
Too late. The ground split open and an enormous disfigured hand burst through, catching Nana and throwing her hard into the wall, then closing around the demon's head and pulling it back into the darkness below.
"The choice is yours." The voice drifted up from the hole, still laughing. "Come down and give yourselves up, or everyone in this village dies."
Then the hand was gone, swallowed back into the earth.I cleared the counter in one step and crossed to Nana. No visible serious injuries. She was already pushing herself upright.
"Are you alright."
"Yes." She groaned.
"Good. Because we have a demon to deal with." I helped her to her feet and we moved to the edge of the hole and looked down.
Pitch black. No depth to it, just emptiness going nowhere. But I could feel something down there. A demon's presence, heavy and certain. And alongside it, something else I couldn't name yet.
I looked at Nana. The hesitation in her eyes was there, clear as anything. But I knew what she was capable of, and she knew it too. We didn't have the luxury of doubt. Either we went down and ended this, or the village doesn't see morning.