Chapter 12 - A Taste of Fear

Shaking my head lightly, I broke my eye contact with the phantom floating above my body. With my eyes still shut, I forced myself up on my feet and when I opened them back up, I found myself fused into the girl's frame. Like walking through mist, I could easily move around despite me fusing into her belly.

"Oi oi, give me some room, will ya?" Floating away, she stood before me. "I busted your ass out of the void, a sankyu would be nice, don't cha think?"

'She's talking?' Feeling a migraine coming up, I pressed my hand against my skull. 'T-this nightmare!'

My teeth gritted shut, I stood there struggling through the hurt until eventually, it subsided the slightest bit. Raising my head again, I glanced at the girl floating upright before my eyes.

"Hallucination?" I asked myself while moving closer.

Reaching inches from her body, she grabbed my hand and jerked it onto her pulsing neck. For the brief moment that I could feel her veins, I heard not only her blood but the screams of countless people.

"F-fuck!" Pulling my hands off of her, I accidentally stumbled on my feet and fell down on my back. "Wh-what was that?!"

Tilting her head to the right, the blue-skinned girl crooked up a smile. Walking closer with her hands inside her ripped jeans, she kept her eyes fixed on my face.

"Just my lunch," licking her lips, she gulped down on something so heavy I could see her throat swell up as it went down. "Ahhh~ Such an unaltered taste of fear…"

Heaving an exalted sigh, the girl opened her mouth slightly and a flood of her saliva began dripping down her pale lips. Glossing them with a clear glint, the saliva dripped to the floor with every step she took closer to me.

"I need more," she whispered, her eyes glowing like a cold winter moon.

"What the hell are you?!" Crawling backward on the floor, I tried to keep some distance from the girl, but in the blink of an eye, her face appeared right in front of my eyes.

The sudden appearance tensed up my muscles, disabling me from moving an inch further from the phantom. Petrified, I held my breath as hers brushed against me. Like the chilling winds of winter, her breath left my skin coarse with streams of my own sweat iced over my cheeks.

"There it is," grabbing my face with her sharp nails, she leaned even closer with her tongue stretched far out of her mouth. "If I get to taste this fear often, then I suppose choosing you wasn't a complete waste of time."

"C-choosing me? For what?" Instead of giving an answer, the phantom pressed her lips against mine, tensing me up even more.

Her tongue slipping into my mouth swelled up for a moment before it stretched down into my organs. Crawling its way around, it kept going deeper and deeper until it found a way to tear into my heart. Feeling her caressing a spot deep down my throat, I couldn't help breathing heavily while anticipating her next action.

'G-get away from me!' Grabbing her by the arms, I tried to push her off. However, the sudden tearing inside my organs by her tongue drained my gathered strength away. 'I-It's touching my h-heart!'

Tearing up from the pain, I felt myself waning. Her tongue kept coiling around my beating heart as if it were a viper squeezing its prey to death. But then, as I kept looking into her eyes while my mind began drifting, I saw in her gaze the sudden acknowledgment that she was killing me. Slowly drawing her tongue back, she let our lips finally part.

"That should be enough agony for today," she murmured, seeming a little dreamy herself.

Getting off the floor, she kept her eyes locked on me while making her way towards the bed I'd been sleeping on. Laying down on it she let out a yawn before speaking again.

"I really shouldn't eat so much in the evening," nuzzling her neck onto the pillow, she continued. "You, Daichi, was it? Why don't you go into the bathroom and come to terms with your situation?"

As if nothing had happened at all, she began snoring right after almost killing me. The wounds inside were still making me bleed into my mouth, and yet for some reason, I was perfectly fine all of a sudden. In fact, the longer I stood in trying to find out if it had been a dream, the better I felt, even better than I'd ever felt before.

Something about my body was striking me off. It felt much bulkier than I remember and yet I felt light on my feet. Looking around the cramped apartment, I tried to spot a mirror, but it must've been tucked away inside the bathroom.

'Just a bed and nothing else, what kind of room is this?' I thought while finally making my way towards the bathroom. As soon as I entered, I noticed my reflection in the peripheral on a mirror right above a sink in the doorway. Before taking a look, I was once again astounded by how cramped everything was with a small toil, and a tub stuffed inside a barely breathable room. The yellow tint from the light didn't help much, and the cobwebs and dust omened of sure sickness.

Even so, I stepped inside, hoping not to be grazed by rusty pipes on feet level.

'Time to see what the prob-' Turning to the mirror my mind froze up at the unfamiliar sight. With silver hair, silver eyes, thick lashes, and a chiseled chin, the man in the mirror was nothing like me. He wasn't even close to what I looked like. Backing away ever so slightly, I shot a glance down on my body. Grooved with lean yet toned muscles and abs, I looked like a marble masoned by a Greek god. 'E-even down there?'

Shooting a glance down my shorts, it seemed that it wasn't just my muscles and looks that were nearly perfected. Unsure how to feel about the whole thing, I peeked at the phantom sleeping soundly on the bed.

'I feel like a broken record, but what the hell is happening?' With no clue what was going on, I decided to wait for her to wake up so I could ask her to shed some light on what was going on.