The last thing Valentina remembered was lying in bed.
The glow of her nightlight cast halos across the white walls of her hospital room.
She was shivering in pain, every inch of her body screaming internally.
Each breath, each twitch of a finger flared with the familiar burning pain she had long ago grown used to.
But that night... it was worse... much worse...
Even breathing hurt.
Each inhale twisted in her chest until tears streamed down her cheeks.
She weakly raised and pressed a trembling hand to her heart, too tired to cry out or even scream for help.
She was so tired.
The sound of her pulse, ringing both from the hospital monitor and her ears, started to slow down.
"Please... take me already..."
"I wish I could be healthy."
"I wish... I lived like a normal girl... not some sick corpse..."
She choked on a sob, and then...
Silence.
When Valentina opened her eyes once again, she was no longer in the familiar hospital room.
She lay beneath a vast green ceiling of leaves, behind which was an unnatural black sky.
No stars, no clouds, just emptiness.
The air blew over her softly, as if the forest itself was breathing around her— Whether with curiosity or fear was unknown.
She sat up on the grass. Her limbs moved freely, skin warm, no longer resembling porcelain.
"Doesn't hurt... at all..."
She looked down at her hands. Steady, strong, alive... it was unbelievable, but also confusing.
"What happened...?"
She took a deep breath, and that was when she sensed someone lurking in the shadows, watching.
Valentina looked around and saw a girl around her age approaching.
Her instincts warned her— No, almost urged her to run as she saw a tail swaying softly behind the girl.
For the first time since she could remember, she stood up, every muscle tense, finally usable.
Her voice, when she finally found it after so much time, was quiet but edged with determination, opposite to her trembling legs.
"Hello...? Who are you...?"
She asked, but her internal voice screamed one singular thing. That one characteristic of the girl—the tail screamed to her, "demon."
The girl's tail—black, sleek, tipped with a delicate curve resembling a heart, started flicking uncontrollably as she quickly closed the distance, seemingly not hostile... yet.
"OOOOWIE! A HUMAN?!"
Her voice was filled with disbelief and curiosity, and to put it simply, it was straight-up cute.
Valentina's eyes widened slightly as she noticed the sudden increase in movement, and she instinctively leaned away, almost tripping over a branch.
She stiffened for just a moment, her breath caught in her throat in fear. In all the stories and fantasies read by nurses and caretakers back home... demons were villains.
Monsters.
She couldn't help but be afraid of them. Of her.
But the girl didn't completely feel like one.
She was close to it, very close, and yet Valentina didn't sense any malice in that soft blue gaze.
"Y-You're not human... right?"
Her voice was small, wary, but then she blinked hard and straightened up again.
She wasn't sickly anymore. She wasn't helpless. And she knew it.
And if this girl... or demoness? Meant harm…
Well...
'I can run.'
She thought suddenly, not out of fear alone but calculation as her eyes scanned the surroundings.
Trees nearby offered cover. If she had gained some sort of magical ability, like in the stories she used to read and listen to, she might have been able to conjure something.
But the girl hadn't attacked yet. Just watched curiously.
Therefore, instead of retreating or trying to reach for magic, which she didn't even know if it existed in this world, Valentina tilted her head slightly.
A silent question hung between them:
Are you a friend? Foe?
Or something else entirely?
The girl, with no warning whatsoever, lunged at Valentina and crawled on top of her.
'I'm so stupid...'
Valentina insulted herself internally, thinking it was the end of the line for her, right after she started to actually live.
But to her surprise, the girl didn't attack, and instead... started sniffing her scent?
"Mmmmhmm..."
The girl grabbed her chin with two fingers with long, black fingernails and tilted her face upwards, then to the sides, examining her face, tail still energetic in the air.
Valentina's heart fluttered in her ribs.
The girl's light weight pinned her to the ground.
The warm press of the demoness's thighs straddling her hips.
The grip of her fingers on Valentina's chin.
It was all simply too much, all at once, so suddenly, without a single word.
Her head spun from the sheer closeness of the position.
The scent of the girl's skin— Something like a mix of smoke and cinnamon had a dizzying effect, leaving her too flustered to speak.
A flush rose to her cheeks, almost as if she had completely forgotten the fact that she was supposed to be on guard.
She quickly dismissed the blush by shaking her head and regaining her composure.
Valentina grabbed the girl's wrist and pulled her fingers away from the chin she'd been turning as if Valentina were some kind of doll to play with.
"W-what are you, uh..."
Valentina's voice cracked.
She swallowed hard.
Even though she calmed herself down, she was still trying desperately to keep her thoughts in check.
It was no easy feat with the girl's face so close, her scent lingering in Valentina's nostrils and mind.
And that damned tail flicking so innocently in the corner of her vision was just too adorable to withstand.
'W-What's up with you, Valentina?!'
'You should be scared. This demoness could hurt you. Could kill you. And yet...'
Valentina was not afraid— Not anymore. In fact, something else stirred under the fluttering of her heart.
The girl's lips parted, and finally, something different than sounds of amazement and contentment left them.
"So cute... So that's... a human... I've always wanted to see a human... awhhh... I want to touch you all day loooooong!"
Valentina blinked, her breath catching again, but this time from the sheer wonder in the girl's voice.
'The way she said "human" like it's something precious... rare... beautiful...'
It then hit her.
'Don't tell me that...'
That demoness... that girl with silver hair and empty blue eyes that somehow still shimmered with innocent curiosity...
Had never seen another person. Not one outside the small world she lived in.
Her stiff shoulders slightly relaxed beneath the girl's weight.
Her wide pink eyes searched those soft features of hers— The gentle curve of lips unaccustomed to cruelty.
...and slowly, but surely, something inside her melted.
"...You've never met a human before, haven't you?"
She asked softly, afraid that because of her lack of knowledge about this place, she might even have said something wrong.
The girl shook her head and smiled widely, then quickly slid off Valentina's body, giving her space to breathe.
"Nooooo! They locked me and my mama in this forest when I was still a small egg!"
She put two fingers together to show Valentina that she was once just a really, really tiny egg.
'An egg... huh...?'
Valentina thought to herself and sat up slowly, brushing a few leaves from her hospital shirt.
"What about your mom, hm? Where is she? Is she in here? Somewhere around?"
She asked, partly from curiosity, partly from fear that an actual demoness could show up at any second.
"No. Mama died a long time ago. When I was still a small imp!"
The girl responded immediately, her cheerful voice unwavering.
Valentina's expression shifted from surprise to... empathy? For a demoness?
She stared at the girl, actually looking at her for the first time.
Not just at the demonic traits—the tail, the strange silver hair—but her. The way she curled in on herself slightly when speaking of her past.
'There must've been a reason someone imprisoned her mother here... but... if she was an egg, that means she didn't deserve it...'
'...And also...'
Valentina gritted her teeth, reminding herself of the days in the hospital when no one visited her.
'...She must be so lonely...'
She took a deep breath and acted strong, caring—way more than she was capable of.
"They locked you away?"
Valentina repeated the girl's earlier words.
"Just... because you're different?"
'She's just like me... The sick girl no one wanted to see or understand... And the innocent girl who had her freedom stolen from her before she could even experience it...'
'One isolated by trees and magical prisons... the other by hospital rooms and pitying stares...'
Her stomach twisted.
A spark ignited inside Valentina's chest—not anger alone, though she was furious beyond belief at the one who did this to the girl, but resolve.
"You were never allowed out?"
The girl ignored the question, shooting back at her with one of her own.
"What is a human doing in this forest anyway?"
"No one can enter or leave, and mama told me that only a human can break the seal from inside!"
Valentina blinked a couple of times, surprised by the sudden shift in topic.
She opened her mouth to answer when the last of the girl's words caught up to her.
'The forest. Sealed. A human as the only one who could break the seal... and only from the inside, even though no one can even enter...'
'That's... cruel...'
Questions spun rapidly in her mind.
'How did it happen? Why were they sealed in the first place?'
Then her gaze fell on Lilia again.
Valentina's mind raced, piecing everything together like one of the puzzle novels she used to read in her old life.
'A sealed forest. A demoness born inside it. And now me? A human who appeared out of thin air, dropped into a world not meant for outsiders...'
She looked down at her hands.
'I don't feel any strange magical energy... not that I even know conjuration... but something brought me here.'
'Something answered a dying girl's quiet wish...'
And she realized.
'I wasn't just reincarnated by chance.'
'I was chosen.'
'By who, why, and when, I don't know—but I surely was.'
"...I think..."
She said slowly.
"...That I didn't come here by accident."
Her voice was steady. Quiet but certain, as if speaking aloud made truth more real than thought ever could be.
The girl's confused expression finally clicked, and she beamed into Valentina's eyes with pure excitement.
"Awh! Since you're a human, you can let me out!"
Valentina stood up and looked down at the girl.
Her innocent blue eyes, the long silver hair, and that silly, always-moving tail behind her.
'I will... I promise that I will... get her out of this place... and then... we both can learn what it's like to actually live...'