Trapped Within
Awakening in the Void
Takeda Ryūsei opened her eyes.
No—perhaps more accurately, her awareness did.
There was no sense of weight, no temperature. No walls, no sky. Only an endless, suffocating silence.
Where am I?
She reached for something solid—memories, fragments of who she was—but they drifted like mist, just beyond her grasp. She had a world before this. A name. A body.
But now, she was trapped.
The Blurred Boundary
She wasn't alone.
Or rather, she wasn't in complete nothingness.
Faint impressions bled through the void—a world she could see but not touch.
A classroom. A desk. A pen tapping against a notebook.
She saw her—the girl sitting there. Yuer.
Takeda stilled.
She could sense Yuer's thoughts, the quiet hum of her unease, the slight tension in her fingers. But why? Why did her consciousness overlap with this stranger's?
She pressed against the boundaries of her own awareness, searching for the answer. But everything was blurred, like trying to recall a dream that had already begun to fade.
She could perceive Yuer's world, but she couldn't reach it.
Not yet.
Testing Control
A test.
She focused on Yuer's hand, her grip on the pen.
The slightest nudge. A whisper of intent.
The pen tapped against the desk.
Once.
Yuer flinched.
A second tap.
Takeda felt it—the flicker of recognition, the ripple of unease running through Yuer's mind. She noticed.
It was a small thing, but for Takeda, it was proof.
She wasn't gone.
She could wait.
The Mark Left Behind
But something was missing. Something hurt.
Takeda reached deeper into herself, searching.
And then, she saw it—
The faint, black stains creeping up Yuer's ankle, shifting, blurred at the edges. Almost as if they weren't really there.
Takeda's consciousness trembled.
Her body wasn't here.
But something of her had left a mark.
A Silent Observer
Over the past few days, Takeda had been watching.
She had quickly realized she couldn't simply force herself into Yuer's mind—not yet.
Yuer's consciousness was too strong, too defined.
But cracks would form. They always did.
She would wait. Wait for the girl's mind to falter, to let her slip through.
She had waited before.
She could wait again.
Because eventually, Yuer would have to face the truth.
She was not alone.