"hehehe~"
The little girl giggles.
It's a high-pitched, delighted sound. Like she just won a game.
"You fell for it!" she says, bouncing on her heels. "You actually fell for it! That's so funny mister!"
I drop to my knees. The pain is overwhelming. It's not like in movies where people get stabbed and keep fighting. This is real pain. Debilitating. Paralyzing. I can barely think past it.
I look up at the people around us.
They're watching.
A small crowd has gathered, people pausing in their daily routines to see what happened.
But no one is helping.
No one is running for a doctor or calling for guards or doing anything.
They're... smiling.
"Amateur," a man says, shaking his head with an amused grin. "Poor bastard."
"Kid got another one," a woman says, actually laughing. "That's what, three this week?"
"She's getting good at it," someone else adds. "Real convincing with the innocent act."
The little girl skips over to an older woman standing at the edge of the crowd. The woman hands her a cloth, and the girl carefully wipes the blood off her knife like it's the most normal thing in the world.
"Good job, sweetie," the older woman says, patting the girl's head. "Very clean strike this time."
"Thanks, Mama!" the girl says proudly. "He totally believed the balloon thing!"
They're mother and daughter. The little girl just stabbed me. And her mother is congratulating her.
I try to speak, to call for help, to do something, but blood fills my mouth. I taste copper. Warm. Choking.
I collapse onto my side, my cheek hitting the cold cobblestones. My vision is starting to blur. The edges are going dark.
I'm dying.
I'm dying.
This isn't a game where you just see a death screen. This is real. I can feel everything. The pain. The cold spreading from my wound outward.
The weakness as my body shuts down.
The terror as I realize there's nothing I can do to stop it.
The little girl crouches down next to me, her face appearing upside down in my fading vision. She's still smiling.
"Thanks for playing, mister," she says sweetly.
I want to say something. Curse her. Curse this world. Curse the goddess.
But I can't.
The darkness is closing in. The pain is fading, replaced by a cold numbness. My last thought before everything goes black is absurdly simple:
I died in the first five minutes.
I didn't even make it five fucking minutes.
And then there's nothing.
.
.
When I open my eyes, I'm on the clouds again.
The same impossible white clouds stretching out in every direction. The same perfect blue sky. The same golden light that comes from everywhere and nowhere.
But this time, I'm not surprised. I'm not confused.
I'm furious.
I push myself to my feet and look around for her.
And there she is.
The goddess.
But she's not just standing there like before.
She's posing.
One hand is on her hip, the other running through her long silver hair.
Her body is angled just so, emphasizing every curve.
Her robes—if you can even call them that anymore—are somehow even more revealing than before.
The neckline has been pulled so low that I can see the inner curves of her breasts, the fabric barely clinging to her.
The slits on the sides go all the way up to her hips, showing off her entire leg when she shifts her weight.
She looks like a pin-up model. Like she was waiting for me. Expecting me.
And she's smiling.
Not the cold, calculating smile from before. Not the terrifying genuine smile.
This is a knowing smile. Amused. Entertained. Like she just watched the funniest thing in the world.
Which, I realize with growing horror, she probably did.
She watched me die. Watched me get tricked by a kid. Watched me bleed out on the street while people laughed.
And she thought it was funny.
"Welcome back, Kaito," she purrs, her voice dripping with honey.
I stare at her.
I'm still processing. The knife. The blood. The pain. The little girl's laugh. The crowd's amusement.
I died.
And now I'm back here. With her.
"You—" I start, my voice rough and angry. "You fucking—"
"Me?" she says innocently, pressing a hand to her chest.
The motion makes her breasts shift, drawing my eyes despite my anger. "I didn't do anything. You're the one who tried to help a child."
"She stabbed me!" I shout. "A fucking little kid stabbed me!"
"She did," the goddess agrees, her smile widening. "And you let her. You saw a cute little girl with big sad eyes and balloons, and you didn't think twice."
"How was I supposed to know—"
"You weren't," she interrupts, stepping closer. "That's the point. My world is full of surprises, Kaito. Full of things that will try to kill you. Some of them look like monsters. Some of them look like little girls."
She's right in front of me now, her golden eyes boring into mine.
Her scent fills my nose—that sweet, intoxicating smell like flowers and honey and something else I can't identify.
"Welcome to my world," she says softly. "The real game."
I'm shaking. From anger, from fear, from the lingering memory of pain. My stomach—which should be torn open, bleeding—feels fine. Whole. Like nothing happened.
But something did happen. I felt it.
Every second of it.
"So... What did I lose?" I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
Her smile becomes something else.
Something predatory.
She reaches out, her finger trailing along my jaw.
"Let's find out," she purrs.