2. I Discover My First Love in a Trash Heap
Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/2/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA
When I came to, I had returned to life and was lying in what looked like a garbage dump.
I noticed something strange the moment I stood up.
I could see through both eyes. I had all my fingers, too.
There were no scars on my body, nor any stiffness in my facial muscles.
What was more, my body felt unnaturally light, as though I were no longer myself.
I searched for something I might use as a mirror to inspect what had happened to me, but found nothing nearby.
With no other choice, I left the dump, passed through a place resembling a sewer, climbed a ladder, and emerged outside—
There I found a bleak townscape like the European slums depicted in my history textbooks.
Perhaps because the rain had just stopped, the air was thick with the smell of rotting food.
I climbed out through a manhole-like opening, instinctively found the sunlight beating down from above “unpleasant,” and retreated into the shade.
When I looked into a puddle there, I saw my reflection for the first time.
Though filthy, I had finely textured white skin like silk, red eyes, and sharp canine teeth.
My hair was still black, my face had not changed, and I was even wearing the same school uniform. And yet—had I always been this beautiful? The thought welled up inside me.
That would have been utterly impossible if I were still myself.
It seemed the change had reached not only my appearance, but my mind as well.
“I am…”
—Chigusa Hinata.
I clearly remembered that name, along with every memory of my life underfoot.
But my body was something else entirely.
In short, my conversation with the girl who called herself a vampire had not been a dream. It had truly happened.
She and I had become one, and in doing so, we had survived.
As a half-vampire.
So that was why I had instinctively avoided the sun. Satisfied with that explanation but still curious, I stepped out of the shade and into the sunlight once more.
It felt as though my skin were slowly scorching.
And yet there was not enough pain or injury to declare that “vampires are vulnerable to sunlight.”
Was that because I was half human, or were true vampires simply not as vulnerable to sunlight as the stories claimed?
“More importantly… where am I?” Continue reading