The city had rain all week. Shadows twisted the wet alleys, quiet except for the hum of vending machines and, now and then, a distant voice. Meet Jun Asakawa, sixteen, short with bruised eyes and coffee-black hair. He practiced speaking up at home. But out here, there’s only his faint reflection in a cracked shop window.
Jun’s crush, Aya Endo, runs past with the nerve to grin even as clouds spit on her. Aya was always bold; she once slapped a teacher for sneering at an outcast. Jun, shaking under his loose jacket, waves. She doesn’t see. Would you run up or stay hidden?
His breath fogs the window glass. Just eight months ago, nothing weird ever came to Northgate High. That ended when glass and bone started warping on their own. Two broke arms in gym, both in twisted angles that surgery barely fixed.
Tonight Jun ducks down Cluster Alley. There’s graffiti where a thick shape bulges out of the brick, round and wet like skin stretched over something alive. He nearly trips over Ken Sugimoto, his soccer club pal. “Hey, Jun, did you hear Juji’s leg? More tendon rot.”
Jun’s voice sounds far away. “We shouldn’t say that here.” Ken snorts. “Come on. Ghost stories don’t rot your body.” The two keep walking, voices low.
In bed, Jun stares at his ceiling. What would you do if you woke up and something was wrong inside you? Sounds from downstairs: his mom whispering into the phone. One word stands out. Mutation.
Flashback: Last fall, news spread. Someone infected? Rumors got faster, balled up like dryer lint, choked the school offices. Only art club meetings stayed peaceful—unless, like Reiko Nomura (each finger thin, knuckles red), you’d felt your own art paper weld itself to your skin.
The next Friday, Jun checks the bathroom mirror. His reflection seems… laggy. He blinks, and one eye lags nearly a full second behind the rest. Heart pounding, sweat dries cold as he leans close. Stubble tangles along his jaw — but there had been none last night. He claws at his chin. A thick flake peels up.
His phone dings. Ken: “Bro, Laplace Square. Now. Aya found another bulge.” Ken never jokes about her. Jun races, messy, plaster on his face, hood up. He finds a cluster of nine friends eyeing a wall pulsing slow and heavy, center of Laplace square.
Aya waits, bright and sharp. “It’s spreading again.” Aya shoves a flashlight at Ken. Jun draws close and feels sweat — not just fear, it’s real, he’s shaking.
There, under the flicker, the swollen shape trembles. Slow movements bulge behind the thin brick. Something glides, rides just under the city crust.
Each friend stares. Reiko throws up. Jun hugs close. Aya bites her lip. They don’t argue — each week those growths have mutated school walls, then bodies. No one told police last time. There’s the hope you’ll dodge this if you turn away.
Around midnight thunder cracks Laplace apart. Jun stares again at the swelling on his own jaw. Is it copying the wall? His mind spins. He hurts to swallow. Each glance, in glass or puddle, his own image trails behind as a watery shimmer.
He whispers to Aya: “Are you scared?” She puts one cold hand on his wrist. “I am. Don’t look away.” Their pulses are throbbing under the street lights.
At home, Jun puts the flake in a jar. By morning, new gray lines crawl across mirror glass, side of his face, and wrists as if something struggles beneath. More are starting to notice skin changes. Reiko snaps a selfie — fingers fused into one mass, tears on cheeks. Ken has contorted toes. Nobody laughs.
Cut to school: Mr. Hazuki limps. Others hide fresh wounds or odd bulges.
Fear spreads this round like fog in rain-soaked air. Authorities claim it’s a local fungus or virus and urge calm. But Jun hears them that day, scared adults huddling in the office, gripping wrists tight. A rumor: the mutation targets anxiety, homesickness, small fears made living flesh.
<p "What does it want?" Ken asks. Aya scoffs. "Not what. Who." Everyone nods. They're all afraid of their own bodies.
One week brings more deformations. Hands curl in on themselves. Aya’s bold eyes now weep tears the color of hot tea. “We’re falling apart,” says Reiko. Yet there’s a mood of strange curiosity. Who’s next, you or your best friend? Or is it everyone, together, by spring?
Possibility seeps in. Someone begins bringing knives to cut at skin gone false; others lock themselves in broom closets hoping to not feel watched. But the mutation often comes while you sleep. Each nightmare gives it shape.
Jun can’t rest. He keeps hearing his heartbeat changing — sounding thick, slow, granular — like gravel under river water. Is that even possible? Would you listen to your heart? One night, he tries to stab the bulge, slicing thin. The wound sheds no blood. Instead, a cloudy pearl comes loose and twitches on the tile.
He brings the pearl to school. Aya shakes her head. “Is this your dream? Not part of you?” Jun almost cries. It seems like a question for them all — does fear have form when shared? He smashes the pearl. Quick gray gas scours his hands but the pain in his jaw fades in that moment.
In the hallway, news spills quick: art teacher Nomura collapsed. Her body stretched, not long but tall, and her mouth now opens sideways. Staff pen the area with caution tape. Kids glimpse her twitching against the pale fluorescent lights.
The school closes the gym, blocks alley doors, warns silence about all of this. Fear increases pressure on those already changed. Some whose faces warped start seeing new things in reflective surfaces — shapes dancing, wailing forms. Who will look away, and who will stare back?
As the episode closes, Jun stares at his mirror. His smile moves before the rest of his face. Each friend hears a soft call come from some organ or skin piece. Jun’s hand tightens on his phone. Will he stop what’s happening, accept it, or meet mutation in another body’s shape?
The glass on the mirror cracks. His reflection blinks, but Jun only gapes. Did any of his friends just see the same?
Would you?
