“So,” Yuuta said aloud, “how old is Rika? She’s the age of the last happy memory she had while alive. And also the age of infinity.”

Trapped in the form of a monstrous queen, lashing out from a child’s nightmare. Her “age” was a lie—time passed, but Rika didn’t grow. Yuuta grew from a terrified boy to a teenager, but she remained the ghost of a little girl who’d died holding his hand.

The monitor glowed with one final line from Yuuta’s post:

Not really—she never saw her 11th birthday. But in the split second of the crash, in the space between the truck’s headlights and the wet pavement, Rika’s soul aged. Not in years, but in rage. She became a cursed womb, a paradox: a child’s heart sealed in an abomination’s body.

“They’re asking about me,” she whispered, her voice a chorus of little girl giggles and ancient sorrow.

Yuuta paused, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. Rika’s shadow tendrils curled playfully around his wrist.