‘Riiiiiing-!’. With the sound of the bell, the teacher dismissed the class. Following dismissal was the immediate noise of impatient students, who had seemingly been waiting for that exact moment so they could get out of their seats.

Smiles, chatter and laughter erupted as they talked among themselves. Despite their hurry to get up, none really seemed in a rush to leave just yet. Most likely they were planning what to do or where to go. However, one girl sitting at the very back of the class could be seen not interacting with anyone. Simply packing her bag in silence.

‘Finally… I can go home.’ Kurushimi thought with a slight sigh, standing herself up and placing her bag over her shoulder. There were no plans to be made, nor anyone she would rush to as soon as the bell sounded. So, what did she choose to do? Go home. What else is there really? After making sure to tuck her chair back into the desk, she left without saying so much as a ‘bye’.

After making her way down and exiting the school building, she idly walked down towards the gate. By now she had already stuffed her earphones into her ears and shut off the outside world. however there seemed to be someone at the gate shouting towards her, keeping her rooted to reality after all. After giving a slight glance towards them, she decided to take out a single earphone to hear what they were saying.

“Oh~! She took one out.” After getting closer, Kurushimi was able to see that there wasn’t only one but there were two watching her. Although the two were not from her class, she had known them before from the previous year. And she wasn’t particularly fond of them. But still, she decided to hear out whatever they were going to say.

“Hey, show us your teeth! Prove you are human, not a vampire!” And upon hearing that shout, Kurushimi promptly stuck the earphone back in. Just to mention, this was their third and last year in highschool. In Japan, the age of that year would be eighteen years old. And these two, were calling someone nicknames like that. Kurushimi really couldn’t comprehend how one could fail to mature to that extent!

Tired of the repetitive and dumb things they had to say, she walked past the two. “She isn’t showing us, maybe she is…” Even after walking past them, she could still faintly hear them going on. Kurushimi simply let out a long sigh and went home.

‘K’chak-!’. Kurushimi opened the door to her house, entering the building and looking around. “I’m home~!” She shouted out as she left her shoes at the door. After briefly talking with her mom, she made her way upstairs and into her room. She then quickly changed out of her uniform and went on to play games over the span of several hours.

“Why won’t you understand, Kayle has an awful early so I need to afk farm in the beginning until 6 at the very least! But no, you brainlessly run in, kill yourself and then blame me when I lose lane because of that! Agh, I shouldn’t have ever trusted my jgl!” After a particular match in a certain game ended in defeat, Kurushimi decided she had had enough for now. She felt that if her mind took any more abuse, she generally wouldn’t be okay.

She sighed before promptly turning off her PC and getting up to change into suitable outdoor clothing. Running down the stairs and zipping up her jacket, she shouted out, “I’ll be back in 10 minutes!” before opening the front door. She planned on heading down to the convenience store quickly and grabbing some drinks, snacks and various other stuff.

After having left and walked for a few minutes, Kurushimi suddenly stopped and gasped. She hurriedly checked her pockets and looked for her phone. “Did I forget to bring it with me?” She asked, checking her other pockets for her phone as well. She found it annoying, but it looked like it was necessary to go back. After all, she was going to pay using her phone and hadn’t brought cash. Turning around, she looked up only to be met with unexpected scenery.

“Eh? What?” Kurushimi said, staring ahead of herself. Rather than the pavement she had been walking on till now, she was met with a completely different place! The strangest and most notable aspect of her new location was that she seemed to be in a forest. An incredibly dark and scary-looking one at that.

“What the hell?” Kurushimi dumbly stood there, blinking rapidly before rubbing her eyes. However, despite doing that, the forest didn’t go away and neither did the pavement return. She slowly lost any words she had to describe her unusual situation.

Unable to get any more answers standing still, she started to slowly walk in no particular direction. As she walked, she came to notice multiple strange sources of light. Although it was mostly dark, there were small sources of illumination in the area; Crystals, residing mostly by the base of the trees, shone in a beautiful collage of blue, orange and many other variations. The stark contrast of the colourful crystals with the dull and darkened bark of the trees painted a pleasant scene that she couldn’t help but appreciate a little.

Kurushimi unhurriedly made her way towards one of the nearby crystals. Upon arrival, she crouched down and stared at it for a brief moment. “This… doesn’t look like anything you’d see in Japan.” Kurushimi moved her blank stare over to the puddle of clear water that resided by the crystal she had been inspecting. By chance, she happened to see her own reflection on its surface.

What looked like a doll stared back at her. Her pale face looked as if it were made of porcelain and almost seemed fake at first glance. Seeing this, Kurushimi raised her eyebrows in confusion and the doll copied that action.

Kurushimi instantly snapped out of her state of delirium created due to the nonsensical course of events. Her face frozen in shock, she stared in disbelief. “Wait, wait, wait, wait! Is that supposed to be me!? But that, that… Eh?” In the end, she could only stutter and release a single ‘Eh?’ to describe how she felt.

The doll was completely different from the mundane and average self she had previously known. Her hair had become a lustrous silver and her glistening crystal-like eyes were a similar metallic colour.

Kurushimi had known her looks to be the absolute pinnacle of average. Black hair, just like most in the country had. A regular brown set of eyes, not big, not small. And her skin was definitely far from perfect. Essentially, she was the most basic and stereotypical rendition of a Japanese highschool girl. The only unique feature you could pick about her appearance was that her skin was very pale, hence earning the nickname ‘Vampire’ from an immature few.

Kurushimi knew all of this the best out of anyone. Yet, the sight before her flipped everything she knew about herself upside-down. The only sense of familiarity she got was her clothing, a jacket, trousers and shoes combo along with the red scarf that wrapped around her neck. Looking at the puddle one more time, she took a deep breath, “I have no idea what the hell is happening~”

“Ahh!!! Seriously, what is going o-!” Kurushimi finally lost her calm and shouted out, holding her hands against her hands against her head. But before she could finish her cry, she cut herself off after being interrupted by some kind of noise. ‘KREEE EE EEE-!’. Eerie shrieking echoed in the distance.

It didn’t take long for three dog-like creatures to emerge from the tree line. They approached slowly but with a menacing aura. Seeing them, Kurushimi wondered whether or not she would have noticed their approach if not for the shrieking.

Well, the term ‘dog-like’ was simply a name to give them using the creature they most closely resembled. Describing them as that was actually a huge stretch. It would be more correct to give them their own species name, since they looked nothing like anything to be found on Earth.

‘Suddenly thrown into a strange forest with these weird-looking crystals, my appearance drastically changing and an encounter with these weird dog... things…’

The dogs gazed at her, growling quietly while Kurushimi appraised them. Their skin was a gross purple and lacked any trace of fur that a normal dog would have. Their fangs were huge and covered the large majority of their faces. How they could actually see like that… was a mystery.

‘What is this, an isekai game or novel?’ Kurushimi involuntarily stepped back. As she did so, the dogs followed and increased the speed at which they approached her. She didn’t know whether it was just her, but it seemed like the dogs had gained a lot of confidence after witnessing her last gesture. At this point, she didn’t care whether she had been sent to another world or not, her top priority right now was to avoid getting eaten alive!

Kurushimi immediately turned around and ran in the opposite direction. From the clearing where she had stood, a path split through the trees. She hurriedly made her way onto it with the dogs close behind.

The chances of a human outrunning a quadrupedal animal was low. She understood that point well. But at this point, she had no other options. Boosted by adrenaline, she could only hope to outrun the dogs or find an exit from the forest.

“Hah.. Hah-!” After running as fast as possible for a bit, Kurushimi’s breathing had become more like panting. The path she had been running along had suddenly split into two, leaving her to make a quick decision on which way to go. “Left!” Without much time and no clues on which way to go, she shouted out a random direction and ran along its path.

The dogs chased her into the left side with no hesitation. As she ran down the left path, she stared forth dumbfounded. Along with a wave of despair came a wave of exhaustion, causing her knees to collapse.

More dogs blocked her way. Coming from the trees as if they had been waiting, five more dogs had appeared and trapped her. Fallen to the ground, she didn’t bother attempting to get up or escape now. It didn’t matter whether or not she could still run. She had been completely surrounded.

The dogs took no pity on her. Wasting no time, a dog jumped on top of her. Under its weight, she fell onto her back. The dog's fangs immediately went for her face. She could only throw out her hand in a futile attempt to avoid her face being mauled.

Simply put, her hand took the brunt of what would have been her face. Kurushimi stared at the mangled remains of her hand. She could see everything in gruesome detail. Blood gushed out of the ragged and sloppy wound, green and blue veins stuck out in the air.

She had lost most of the fingers on her hand. Only the thumb remained in decent shape, whilst the index finger barely hung on by a small chunk of flesh and whatever was left of the finger bone. It took a few moments of processing the graphic imagery until a horrendous wave of pain washed over her, realisation of what happened settling in.

“Ggha?! Aa,uaghaaAaaAh!!” Kurushimi screamed out in pain. It felt like her hand had been set on fire. A normal highschool student such as her had never experienced such pain before. Tears welled up in her eyes as she grinded her teeth together.

As more dogs piled on top of her and started relentlessly tearing her apart, ripping her skin off bit by bit, her mind went blank. She could only think of the horrific pain and how much it hurts and what she did to deserve this and the pain and that it hurts hurts hurts hurts…! ‘ItHurtsSoMuch!’

The vision in her left eye slowly faded to black. Her right eye was already completely dark as it had been ripped out of the eye socket by one of the dogs. In Kurushimi’s state of delirium, she thought she heard a voice.

“Again.”

Finally, she lost all feeling before blacking out fully.