Chapter 329

In a small town on the outskirts of Kyoto, there was a woman who lived alone. Her name was Yuka, and she had always been a quiet one, keeping to herself. Her neighbors didn't know much about her other than that she was a bit of a mystery.

Every night, as the moon crept high into the sky, a strange sound would come from her apartment. The soft scrape of something against wood—sharp, deliberate. Some thought it was the sound of a brush, others assumed she was sharpening knives. They never guessed it was her fingernails.

Yuka had never been particularly beautiful. She was plain, in fact, with dull eyes that seemed to carry the weight of something that couldn't be named. But her nails, her nails were different. They were long, almost unnaturally so, and sharp.

Every night, she would sit in front of her mirror, her eyes locked onto her reflection, and scrape her nails against a rough stone. Hours would pass as she worked, each scrape taking off another thin layer of her once soft nails, revealing the hardened, jagged edges beneath.

At first, no one thought much of it. She was just another lonely woman, after all. But soon, the strange deaths started. It wasn't the way people normally died. No one found bullet wounds or stab marks. No, her victims simply bled out, their bodies left in pools of blood. It was as though their veins had simply been opened, torn from within. There were no signs of force. No struggle. Just death.

The first victim was a man named Haruto. He lived two doors down from Yuka. One night, he simply didn't show up for work. His family grew concerned, and when they broke into his apartment, they found him dead.

There was blood everywhere, his body splayed out on the floor, but no sign of what had done it. He hadn't been robbed, and there was nothing taken. His arms were marked with deep, claw-like gouges. His face was frozen in an expression of terror, his mouth open as if trying to scream.

After that, people began to talk. No one could put their finger on it, but there was something unsettling about Yuka. She hadn't changed, but there was something in her presence that made others uneasy. She stopped coming out of her apartment. People began to avoid her.

But her nails—they kept growing.

One evening, as the shadows grew long and the streets grew quiet, another death occurred. This time, it was an older woman who lived near the market. Her name was Mizuki, and she had often greeted Yuka with a smile when they crossed paths.

Mizuki's body was found in her small apartment, her eyes wide with fright. There were no obvious wounds, but her hands, her poor hands—Mizuki's hands were mangled. It was as though something had torn into them, deeply, with deliberate force. Her fingers were twisted, bent in odd directions, as if someone had broken them, but the bones weren't snapped. They were shredded.

It was as if something with claws had dug into her hands, tore them apart, and left her to die slowly.

The town was on edge. The rumors swirled, each one more bizarre than the last. Some said it was a curse, others believed there was a wild animal loose, but the most chilling story was the one that said Yuka was somehow involved.

She had been seen leaving Mizuki's apartment the night before. Her fingernails, sharp and dangerous, had been seen through the cracks of her sleeves.

It wasn't long before the whispers turned to fear. Yuka's apartment was soon surrounded by an uneasy silence. Every creak of wood, every soft scrape in the night, made people uneasy. They began to avoid her completely, but that only made her more determined.

Yuka didn't want to kill. She didn't want to hurt anyone. But there was a hunger inside her that grew every night. A gnawing, relentless hunger that couldn't be ignored. As her nails grew longer, so did the feeling of something inside her unraveling, something dark and feral awakening.

It wasn't that she didn't feel remorse. She did, deep in her chest, where something still pulsed with humanity. But it wasn't enough to stop her. The sound of her nails against the stone, the satisfying scrape, drowned out the guilt, drowned out everything.

Her next victim was a young woman, only twenty. Her name was Aiko. She had just moved to the town, and she didn't know anything about Yuka. She only knew that the woman had been watching her from across the street.

At first, Aiko thought it was nothing. Maybe Yuka was just lonely. But the longer she saw her, the more she realized that something was wrong. There was something twisted in the way Yuka looked at her. A desperation in her eyes.

The night Aiko died, the entire town heard the sound of nails scraping against stone. But this time, it was different. It was louder. More urgent. It was as if Yuka couldn't stop. She had to finish. She had to.

And then, the next morning, Aiko's body was found. She was discovered in the park, her body twisted and bent in unnatural ways. Her nails were gone, as if they had been ripped off, and her fingers were torn to pieces, shredded beyond recognition.

It was then that the town began to panic. People stopped leaving their homes at night. Doors were locked, windows bolted shut. But Yuka didn't care. She no longer worried about being seen. She no longer cared if anyone knew. The hunger inside her had grown too large, too overpowering. She had to feed it. She had to sharpen her nails, just one more time.

The last time anyone saw her, she was standing on the street corner, her nails glowing in the moonlight. The people who saw her said she didn't look human anymore. Her face was twisted into something unnatural, her eyes hollow, and her fingers—they were no longer fingers at all. They had become talons. Long, razor-sharp, deadly. Her hands were no longer the hands of a woman, but the claws of something older, something far darker.

It was a week later when they found her. She had taken her own life.

They found her in her apartment, curled up on the floor. Her fingers, now mere stubs, were covered in blood. Her nails had been sharpened down to the quick, leaving her fingers raw and exposed. There was a look of horror on her face, but it wasn't the terror of a victim—it was the terror of someone who had become what they feared most.

But that wasn't the worst of it.

On the wall, in blood, was a single word: help.

Yuka had finally realized what she had become. She had seen herself, really seen herself, in the reflection of a window, and it had broken her. She wasn't just a lonely woman anymore. She was something monstrous. Something that couldn't stop. Something that would never stop.

The town did not mourn her. They burned her body, scattered her ashes in the river, and went on with their lives. But deep down, there was something they all felt. A sense of relief. Relief that whatever Yuka had become, it was finally over.

But late at night, in the stillness of the town, there was still that sound. That scraping sound. The sound of nails against stone.

No one could say for sure if it was Yuka. No one could say if it was something else. But sometimes, when the moon was high and the wind was still, they could hear it. That scraping, that terrible, never-ending scraping.