🌙 Episode 22 – “The Passenger Who Wasn’t There”

The creature moves without footsteps. One moment it’s at the far end of the carriage, the next it’s right in front of them, the space between folding like a piece of paper creased and snapped shut.

Ren doesn’t breathe. Every passenger is frozen, some mid-scream, others mid-motion — forks and phones suspended in the air like the laws of physics have decided to stop working. But Nara is still moving. Her body seems untouched by whatever paralysis has locked the world.

She leans in toward the tall figure, face only inches away from where its face should be — but it has no face, just an oval of static, a churning blur that seems to eat the light around it.
“You’re not a Rectifier,” she says, her voice almost curious. “You’re… oh.” She tilts her head like she’s listening to music. “A Borrowed Mouth.”

Ren’s heart hammers. “Nara, what the hell is—”

She holds up a finger, silencing him like an annoyed teacher. Then she sticks that finger straight into the thing’s static-face. For a moment it resists, the static boiling and distorting, and then her whole arm sinks in. The sound it makes is not human — like wet paper tearing inside a throat.

Nara’s smile widens into something predatory. “I missed this part of Earth. The part where you think you’re safe.” She jerks her arm out, and the thing staggers back, clutching a hole in its own head as though reality itself had been scooped out.

The lights flicker — suddenly everyone is moving again, mid-panic. The thing flickers too, rapidly changing form — a middle-aged man, a schoolboy, a police officer — before collapsing into the aisle like a pile of empty clothes.

The train stops. Doors open. Passengers shove and scream their way out.

Ren grabs Nara’s arm. “What the hell was that?!”
She tilts her head, watching the empty clothes twitch once before vanishing entirely.
“It was wearing a shape stolen from this city’s memories. I just… asked it to give them back.” She says this with the casualness of someone explaining how to change a light bulb. Then she grins. “I can teach you how to do it. But it might tear your lungs.”

Before Ren can respond, a voice cuts through the chaos. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Atsuko Tange is standing on the platform, her school uniform swapped for a black windbreaker with an insignia Ren doesn’t recognize. Her left hand is wrapped around the hilt of something hidden inside the jacket.
“You’re lucky,” she tells Nara without looking at Ren. “Borrowed Mouths usually come in threes.”

Nara’s smile twitches. “Then tonight will be fun.”

Atsuko loosens her  clothes, her eyes glowing with a faint silver spark. She charges forward towards the Borrowed Mouth alongside Nara. Her hands appeared to have a translucent armour on them.  She tears apart the Borrowed Mouth like a starving lion tears the fleash of a deer.

Later, Ren finds himself walking with Atsuko down an empty alley while Nara skips ahead, humming her reversed melody again. Atsuko explains — quickly, without pausing — that there are factions in Tokyo who know about the rift-born creatures. Some work to protect the city; others, like the Rectifiers, have more… surgical goals. And then there are the Borrowed Mouths — scavengers that consume human presence, leaving nothing behind.

Ren’s head spins. He’s not ready for this. But when they turn the corner, they see the second Borrowed Mouth waiting in the dark, its face flickering between a dozen different people.

Only this time, it speaks aloud: “She does not belong. Give her to us, and you may live.”

Ren looks at Nara. She’s still smiling — but it’s different now. A sharper, colder smile.
“Do you want to see what I look like when I stop pretending to be human?” she asks him softly.

The episode cuts to black before he can answer.