Chapter 1 – A City That Doesn't Blink
I woke up with blood in my mouth and no idea how it got there.
Concrete pressed against my cheek—cool at first, then warm the longer I lay there, sticky with something I didn't want to name. The scent was thick and metallic, sour with piss and rotting trash. Somewhere close, glass shattered. Somewhere further, a siren screamed itself hoarse and faded into nothing. I flinched. Nothing changed.
I sat up too fast. Pain exploded across my ribs and up the side of my neck like a slow crack through stone. My hands hit the ground for balance, skidding across the broken grit and gravel beneath me. Palms scraped. Knees torn. No shoes. No wallet. No phone. Just sweatpants, a sleeveless hoodie damp with something darker than sweat, and the kind of breathless panic you can't swallow.
I blinked. Once. Twice.
No familiar buildings.
No familiar language.
No familiar sky.
The alley around me was narrow and overgrown with shadow, caught between two looming apartment complexes that looked more like stacked cages than places to live. The sky above was a wash of sick gray-blue, framed by crisscrossing laundry lines and rusted fire escapes. Overhead wires buzzed. An engine revved, angry and short-tempered.
I touched my face and winced. Swollen. Left side.
My heart was already pounding, but now it began to race like it wanted out of my chest. I dug my fingernails into the cracked pavement and tried to breathe deep, but nothing felt real—not the air, not the noise, not my own limbs. My tongue was dry, thick with copper. My eyes stung. I tried to stand and failed the first time. My legs wobbled like they weren't mine.
My right arm ached.
I glanced down.
There, stretching from shoulder to wrist, was a full flower sleeve—gardenias, lilies, irises, inked in delicate black and soft grey shading. The lines blurred slightly around the edges, as if healed too fast, too recent. My skin still burned faintly beneath it, like the memory of fire.
I touched the tattoo with shaking fingers.
It pulsed.
And for a moment, I remembered her. Not her name—just her hands, warm and trembling, pressing a cloth to my shoulder as she whispered, "You're never gonna see me again, so I want you to keep something that won't fade."
The grief hit like a gut punch. Raw. Incomplete.
And then it passed, leaving silence in its place.
The street beyond the alley didn't care.
It didn't even look up.
People moved like they'd been trained to ignore each other. Fast but avoidant. Expressionless. Cheap scooters weaved through stalled traffic. Neon signs blinked half-dead in foreign script—kanji I barely recognized from anime subtitles years ago.
Osaka. I didn't know how I knew that. But I did. Somewhere deep down, something said it aloud without my voice.
The city didn't blink.
It stared.
Wide-eyed and waiting.
I tried to walk, tried to stay small. I kept to the sidewalk, head low, eyes scanning every reflection, every whisper of movement in a window. Nobody stopped. But everybody noticed.
I passed a group of older men huddled outside a smoke shop. They fell silent as I walked by.
A woman dragging a toddler across the street caught sight of the tattoo and hurried faster, muttering under her breath.
They didn't speak to me. But they didn't need to.
I wasn't supposed to be here.
And I didn't even know where "here" was.
The first confrontation came fast. No warning.
I turned a corner too wide and collided shoulder-first into someone built like a refrigerator. He didn't budge. I stumbled back a step, but didn't fall.
He looked down at me with a slow, deliberate smile. Two others stepped up behind him—one wiry and twitching, the other older and quiet, arms crossed like this was routine.
"Where you from?" the big one asked.
His accent was rough, but the English was clear enough. I didn't respond. Couldn't. My mouth was still trying to catch up to my heart.
He saw the tattoo.
His eyes stayed on it a little too long.
The twitchy one snorted. "Pretty ink, gaijin."
"Gang sign?" the big one asked.
I shook my head.
"Then what's it mean?"
I opened my mouth to speak, but the words didn't come. I didn't have an answer.
That was enough of a reason.
The punch came fast. I didn't move.
Didn't block.
Didn't even flinch.
Fist to jaw. My vision flared white, then black. My knees gave out. I hit the pavement sideways and rolled. A foot slammed into my ribs. I gasped, air leaving in a broken wheeze.
Another kick. I curled. A knee in the back. I couldn't see who was talking now—just shapes and motion, laughter without joy.
This wasn't a mugging.
This was a message.
And I wasn't fluent enough to read it.
Somewhere between the third hit and the fourth breath, something shifted.
Not the air.
Not the world.
Something in me.
Not rage. Not adrenaline. Just this sudden, unnatural pressure beneath the surface of my skin—like a sigh that never finished, or a scream buried under years of silence.
The one crouched over me locked eyes with mine.
And froze.
I didn't do anything. I didn't move, didn't blink, didn't even breathe.
But he flinched anyway.
The others hesitated.
The tension broke like glass—quiet, but final.
They backed away.
No final kicks. No words.
Just retreat.
They left me lying there, broken and bloodied and buzzing with something I couldn't explain.
I didn't feel strong.
I felt wrong.
Like I'd cracked open and something else had looked out through me for just a moment.
Something patient.
And very, very still.
I sat there for a long time.
Not because I couldn't move—though that was part of it.
But because I was afraid if I did, I'd find out I wasn't the same person anymore.
That maybe I never had been.
When I finally stood, my legs shook. My ribs ached. My mouth tasted like copper and fear. I looked down at the tattoo again—at the flowers curling around my arm.
They looked like they were blooming.
But only in the places that hurt.
I didn't remember how I got here.
Didn't know who I was supposed to be now.
Didn't know what just happened—or what they saw in my eyes that made them run.
But the city watched me go like it was waiting to find out.
And somewhere behind my heartbeat, I felt something waiting too.