Are witches dead or alive?
This question has been debated endlessly.
But what has gained widespread recognition is this.
The moment a girl falls into becoming a witch, she loses hope in the world and willingly abandons her own life.
Like a drowning person giving up the struggle, like someone standing on a rooftop closing their eyes to feel the fall.
Hope born from despair creates magical girls, while despair breeding in extinguished hope gives birth to witches.
Miyana had once seen her own light.
Miyana once had a happy, complete family.
In her memory, the living room was spacious and bright. Mother would arrange fresh flowers, Father sat on the leather sofa reading the newspaper, the air always carried the faint sweet fragrance of pastries.
She was once that little princess held in their palms, her smile radiant, not knowing what sorrow meant.
But the wheel of time rolls relentlessly forward—who could stay outside it?
At most, one could cling desperately for a few more moments beneath the wheels.
Father's business plummeted, expensive furniture disappeared piece by piece, the money exchanged for them slipping through fingers like sand. The spacious house became empty, quarreling replaced laughter, sweet fragrance was replaced by the pungent smell of cheap alcohol and tobacco.
"Dad... I want cream cake... today is my birth..."
Miyana's voice was timid, carrying a trace of barely noticeable hope, dissipating in the stifling air permeated with tobacco and alcohol smell.
Today was her thirteenth birthday.
She remembered before, on this day the house would always be filled with laughter, with a snow-white cream cake full of candles.
Father slumped in the only remaining, somewhat shabby sofa. Hearing this, he irritably scratched his greasy hair, not even lifting his eyelids, the cheap liquor bottle in his hand taking another swig toward his mouth.
"Cake?" He sneered, his voice hoarse and turbid. "Where the fuck's the money to buy that thing! I can't even fucking afford to eat!"
Mother silently wiped the already spotless stove nearby, her back stiff, not turning around, not speaking. This silence was more suffocating to Miyana than quarreling.
Miyana lowered her head, fingers unconsciously picking at a tiny thread on her dress. The living room was terrifyingly empty. Where exquisite vases and oil paintings once stood, only slightly lighter wallpaper marks remained, like faded scars. Sunlight streaming through the window could only illuminate dancing dust particles, unable to dispel that bone-deep cold and deprivation.
"But... Dad~ you said you'd celebrate every birthday with me~"
Miyana's voice carried the last trace of weak, almost instinctive coquettishness, trying to summon the phantom of that father who would hoist her on his shoulders, prickle her face with his stubble.
This sentence was like a needle, suddenly piercing through the alcohol-numbed nerves of her father. As if burned, he suddenly sprang up from the sofa, bloodshot eyes glaring at her, chest heaving violently.
"Celebrate birthday?! Celebrate what fucking birthday!" he roared, voice hoarse and broken, suddenly smashing the empty liquor bottle in his hand violently on the floor!
Bang!
Miyana instinctively hugged herself and retreated two steps. Her mother... just numbly, dully watched this farce.
"Money!" Spittle flying, he almost bellowed, "I'm fucking asking you where's the money?!"
"I've fucking raised you this long, all you fucking know is ask ask ask, what the fuck else can you do!"
Miyana's lips trembled, tears welling in her eyes, yet stubbornly refusing to fall.
"I... I can go work... I..."
"Work?! With your useless ass, how much could you earn?!" Father roughly interrupted her, the muscles on his face twisted from anger and alcohol, becoming abnormally fierce. "Old Zhang's daughter next door! Same age as you! Know how she earns money for her family?!"
He suddenly leaned close, lowering his voice, yet that voice was more chilling than roaring, filled with malice and humiliation:
"She knows to go out and sell herself! Once is enough for her family to eat for half a month! And you?! What's the use of raising a money-losing burden like you?! Huh?! Might as well..."
The following words completely turned into vicious curses and obscene language.
Miyana's head was buzzing.
Beautiful life and fantasies shattered in an instant along with that liquor bottle and her father's fierce face, turning to bubbles.
Yes...
Reality is cruel.
She was so useless, couldn't earn money, living a pampered life every day.
Miyana's brain buzzed, the world lost color and sound, only her father's twisted, fierce face continuously enlarging and deforming before her eyes. She couldn't hear clearly what specific curses followed, those foul words mixed into a nauseating background noise, completely drowning her.
"Why the fuck don't you just die!"
Father seemed tired of cursing, slumping back into the sofa, grabbing another bottle of liquor, completely indifferent to her departure. Mother still silently wiped the already spotless stove, as if nothing had happened.
She didn't know how she turned around, didn't know how she walked back to her room.
Miyana lay on the bed, eyes wide open, emptily staring at the mottled water stains on the ceiling. No tears, not even feeling sadness, just a cold sense of nothingness, like thick accumulated snow, burying her entire being deeply.
So familial love was this fragile, easily crushed by poverty.
So promises were this cheap, casually torn apart by reality.
So... money really could force people to become like that.
Her father who said he'd cherish her like a little princess, said he'd protect her for life, that mother gentle as water who would secretly slip her candy...
All turned to bubbles.
Why... don't I just die?
Dead... no need to worry about food.
Dead... no need to see Mom and Dad's angry faces.
Dead... I'll surely return to a warm home.
Dead, no need to fear losing anything, because already having nothing.
Once this thought arose, it grew wildly like vines, rapidly entangling all her thoughts.
Miyana slowly sat up, rummaging through the bed for pen and yellowed paper.
She wrote very slowly, stroke by stroke.
【Mom and Dad:
I'm leaving.
This way the family will have one less mouth to feed.
Money... I can't earn...
I'm sorry.
I hope you can relax a bit.
—Miyana】
She took one last look at this cold, empty, despair-filled room, turned without hesitation and walked out.
In the living room, Father had already passed out drunk on the sofa, snoring thunderously. Mother had gone somewhere unknown. She silently passed through the living room, opened the door, walked into the cold night.
The night wind was colder than during the day, sharper, scraping across her face like knives. Factory pollution dyed the night sky a dirty orange-red—no stars visible.
'Ah... so... death isn't scary at all.'
The girl stood alone on the rooftop of a twenty-plus story building.
Like a withered leaf about to return to the earth.
She walked to the edge, looking down. The street was like a pitch-black abyss, bottomless.
The cold and height made her tremble slightly, but the coldness in her heart was greater than this night wind.
She brought nothing with her, just as she brought nothing when she came into the world.
End it.
She closed her eyes, stepped forward.
The sensation of weightlessness suddenly struck.
Wind howled in her ears, body plummeting rapidly.
But Miyana suddenly felt two soft masses firmly catch her.
'So... soft... so warm…'
A dazzling ghostly blue light like lightning tearing through the night suddenly struck the building from the side, a tremendous shockwave and an inhuman shriek erupting simultaneously.
"Hyoooo!"
"Damn it, Suzune, you're too harsh, are you really trying to kill me!"
The gray-haired girl who seemed to have been sent flying precisely caught Miyana. The tremendous impact force suddenly slowed their descent, but also made Pale's blood churn, nearly knocking her unconscious.
Pale tightly held the frighteningly light, cold and stiff Miyana in her arms. The weak black magic buffer wings temporarily opened on her back desperately offset the remaining kinetic energy, but still couldn't completely dissipate the force.
Bang!
The two finally crashed heavily into the relatively soft pile of discarded cardboard boxes and cushioning materials below the building, making a series of dull sounds.
"Cough! Cough cough..."
Pale was violently choked by dust, the pain in her ribs making cold sweat pour out. But she immediately quickly rolled over, protectively shielding Miyana completely beneath her, while one hand suddenly covered Miyana's mouth that was about to cry out from shock and impact.
"Shh!" Pale's voice was extremely low, urgent hot breath spraying on Miyana's ear. "Don't make a sound! If you don't want to die, be quiet!"
"That little brat when she gets angry doesn't know her own strength. Don't know who she learned it from."
Miyana's eyes went round as saucers.
But... I was trying to die anyway.
But Miyana could only make "mmph mmph" sounds.
In the distance, the ghostly blue light circled in the air, seemingly searching. Powerful magic fluctuations swept across this area. Pale held her breath, suppressing both their presences and magic fluctuations to the minimum, their bodies completely melting into the shadows of the debris pile below.
Only after that suffocating oppressive feeling completely disappeared did Pale slowly exhale, but the hand covering Miyana's mouth still didn't immediately release. She carefully listened for a moment, confirming the danger had temporarily lifted.
Only then did Pale feel the wet warmth transmitted through her palm.
Miyana's body was violently trembling beneath her.
Fear, grievance, and the tremendous impact of some emotion made her unable to suppress her crying. But because her mouth was tightly covered, all her sobs transformed into suppressed, broken whimpers and scalding tears, burning Pale's palm.
Pale sighed.
She actually knew everything.
Knew the girl was attempting suicide.
Knew she had long lost the will to live.
But...
What if?
Wasn't it said that all people with suicidal tendencies desire someone to pull them back?
Pale slowly released the hand covering Miyana's mouth.
Losing that restraint, Miyana's crying actually became quieter, turning into that kind of extremely suppressed, intermittent sobbing.
Pale silently watched her, neither comforting nor rushing. She just struggled to shift her body, getting off Miyana, leaning against the scrap pile beside her, panting slightly, checking her injured ribs.
There was a large bruise, conservatively estimated several broken. That strike from Suzune really showed no mercy.
After a while, when Miyana's sobbing had calmed somewhat, Pale slowly spoke:
"Jumping from up there... did it hurt?"
Miyana hugged her knees, burying her face in them, unwilling to raise her head, dully shaking her head. The descent was very short—before she could feel pain, she was caught.
"Oh." Pale responded, touching her chest as if confirming something. "That's good then."
She knew it—this figure was very useful.
Pale paused, her voice lowering somewhat, as if speaking to Miyana yet also like talking to herself: "When I was sent flying... it really hurt. When I hit things it hurt even more."
"But I still felt very happy."
"Living is so good~"
"What will happen tomorrow?"
"Is someone still waiting for me?"
"I can still become hope for more people."
She slightly raised her head, looking at the pollution-obscured night sky where no stars could be seen. Her golden eyes seemed covered with a thin layer of mist, as if seeing through the dirty orange-red before her to something distant and far away.
Pale seemed to notice Miyana's furtive gaze, slowly lowering her head, her vision refocusing on Miyana's face. That layer of mist quickly dispersed, returning to that weary calm.
"Pain means you're still alive." She pointed at her agonizing ribs. "Being alive means you can still feel other things. Like..."
A soft object pressed against Miyana's face.
It was a brown plush teddy bear.
"I had an old friend who really loved these cute things. Cough cough... I definitely don't like them."
"But... dolls and such can always stay with you."
"When you can't hold on anymore, touching a soft fluffy doll will surely bring healing!"
"When crying..." Pale paused. "You can bury your face in it. More comfortable than your arm. Also... not as easily discovered by others."
Miyana took the teddy bear, hugging it tightly. The doll wasn't large, just the right size for her to completely embrace. She buried her wet face in it. The fluffy exterior strangely blocked out the cold air of the outside world, also absorbing her unstoppable, silently rolling tears.
"Only by living can you see warmth, can you change your circumstances."
"When you feel sad, hold the doll tight."
"Perhaps I, big sister, can hear it~"
"Big sister, you are..."
Pale stood up, patted the dust off herself, waved her hand and merged into the darkness.
"Big sister is an all-powerful magical girl who brings hope~"
Magical girl...
So beautiful, so strong, I love it.
Can I become like that too?
Can I change my circumstances too?
Will Mom and Dad return to how they were?
Magical girl...
"Big sister! What's your name!"
"Call me... Ember."
In the darkness, a small purple gem quietly formed at Miyana's chest.