How to Have a Heartbeat? (Book Two)

Chapter 24: Heartless

At this point all I could hear were quiet mumblings from Enma and Junichiro and I could hardly make out what they were even saying. What words I did make out only caused my confusion to grow.

"I can't open the box," Junichiro mumbled as he grazed his fingers over the markings on the wooden box. Enma sighed as she grabbed it from him. My vision began to go hazy at this moment and one second the woman was holding the box and the next it was open.

I gasped in pain as my blood began to crystallize around me. The puddles formed into sharp spears that pulled apart the wound inflicted by Junichiro. I felt blood rise at the back of my throat and slowly the blood loss began to heal.

The blood that came out from my open wound blistered the skin out more until even more blood splattered out. The pain picked up and my screams rang on deaf ears. I was curious for how long would the suffering last.

My nails dug into the very ground and squeezed until they broke. Will I even make it through the pain?

When I saw my own organs start to rip through my open wound I began to cry harder. The pain of one being ripped out was nothing in comparison to the pain of one being grown back. I could feel the tattooed veins spread and squeeze around the new organ and I knew that this process would take a lot longer than I had previously thought.

"How long until it's finished?" Enma asked and I could hardly hear her over the sound of my gasps ringing and echoing throughout the room. I tried to lift myself up and I was hoping to crawl out of the circle, but blood splattered to the ground as soon as the floor stopped pressing against my open wound. I gasped and collapsed back now.

"Another hour at minimum," Junichiro answered as he took a deep breath from smoking. "If you can't handle a little blood-"

Enma immediately interrupted him. "A little blood? This is in no way 'a little blood.'"

"-then you can leave," Junichiro continued as if he were never interrupted.

"Is this is the easiest way to fill that body with blood and organs without killing anyone?" Enma asked as she flinched at my scream. That one was merely a scream in anger rather than pure pain.

"I want to die," I moaned out as my vision grew weak, but as soon as my eyes began to drop from blood loss the amount lost was back only to disappear again. I wasn't sure when Enma had left, but when my vision finally began to stop being so blurry she was gone.

"Are you feeling better?" Junichiro asked as he took a step closer, but he was still outside the circle. I reached to grab him, but he was out of my reach. My arm weakly crashed back to the ground above me from pure exhaustion. "I need you to do something for me Sana."

I weakly lifted my eyes up to him as if to say, "Haven't I done enough?" But he of course couldn't hear it or didn't care enough to see what I had said.

"I need you to call the name of your counterpart. Whatever you know her as is fine," he whispered and at the moment his very voice sounded like the devil himself.

"W-why?" I barely managed to stutter.

"If you do then I'll let you go. No questions asked," Junichiro answered and I felt her name on my lips. My eyes caught onto the puppet look alike to me and I right away caught onto this impossible plan. I also noticed that every last drop of blood and every last organ that was torn from me was gone. They had really built a body... And they were going to use it to host a soul that didn't exist in this world anymore. Even more than that, my desire to get out of here overthrew me and I could already feel her name coming out when a voice echoed throughout my head.