Eri's breathing slowed. Her forehead throbbed. A little monster was slamming an anvil against her skull, an arhythmic pulse that threatened to push her over the edge. In front of her, Kai Chisaki lay in his bed, deathly still.
I can reverse this, Eri thought—no, it wasn't Eri, but a stranger, a darker, mutant voice that infiltrated her mind. The voice got louder after a day spent in the sun.
Eri stumbled away from the deathroom and found a cracked mirror. She adjusted her view so the crack ran down the middle of her face, then pushed her waist-length silver curls out of her eyes, raising it to expose her pale forehead.
She had a wart.
Eri squeaked in repulsion at the blemish. To her greater horror, the wart – inches above her right eyebrow – sharpened and then elongated, resembling a thorn that curved upward. It was a hideous sight to behold. Eri whimpered and tried to push it down, but only succeeded in putting a dent in the skin of her palm. The hand's heart, was how some described the palm. As a child, Eri thought it referred to how she could hold a bird's heart in the palm of her hand; as she tried to squelch out her growing horn, she was aware of her heart beating strongly even against her palm. Some say we have two hearts. One that beats blood and one that beats spirit. Eri's spirit was panicking, screaming in the confusion and chaos at Chisaki's death, beating like a heart.
Eri strode back to Chisaki's deathbed. In a timid voice, she said, "You were supposed to be my mentor. I wanted to learn from you, the greatest doctor in the borough. But you hid your knowledge and let it wither in you—and then I snuffed it out." Her voice cracked. "I'm sorry."
Her heart, her spirit, defied gravity and flowed to the top of her head, extending out of her new horn. The corpses around her rewinded. A plague doctor's head returned to the rest of his body. Another's limbs spasmed as he began to stand in unnatural, jerking motions. Chisaki blinked at Eri, his dark eyes bright and keen. The pustules and rashes that had plagued his skin for moons cleared away. Eri reached out to touch him.
Her hand hesitated as Chisaki continued to rewind. He seemed to age in reverse, becoming a younger man, then Eri's age, then a child that Eri scooped up and cradled close to her. Around them, infants wailed and screamed, banging at their plague masks and crawling around their heavy coats, which lay on the floor like blankets. The curse didn't stop there. The men—the babies—continued to shrink and become more monstrous until Eri was holding a fetus. So much blood! Eventually, the fetus shrivelled and imploded on itself.
All that was left were the clothes of the deceased, strewn across the bed and floor. Eri marched toward the kitchen, grabbed a knife, and then returned to the mirror. She brought the blade to her forehead and then slashed viciously. Her horn dropped to the ground and shattered.
Or rather, the casing was what broke. From inside, a worm writhed and cut itself open on the fragments of the broken horn. Eri took pity on it and smashed the creature under her boot.
Eri's hand shook, her fingers still clutching the knife. She brought the blade to her neck.
Silver curls drifted to the floor like angel feathers over the dead worm and broken horn. Eri's hair now reached just past her chin. With her horn, her hair, and her burden gone, Eri could hop along the sky in lightness. She settled with dreaming it.
The next morning, she returned to town, but without any birds to sell. She didn't bother to wear a headscarf, though she dressed modestly out of habit. The sun was becoming more powerful beyond burning people and scorching the earth.
"Hello, miss!" a merchant waved at her with a hand that glowed poison-apple-green. "Don't mind the hand. I think I've been blessed! It tastes like jelly!" To prove his point, he ripped off his thumb and popped it into his mouth. A moment later, his thumb grew back. "A never-ending supply of jelly!"
Eri smiled at him. "May many more blessings fall upon you."
"As for you, miss."
Eri was not blessed. The sun had cursed her. Her mark was hideous, its power abominable. What human rewinds other humans to a state before humanity?
Eri entered a tavern and found an empty seat in a corner. Around her, townsfolk gathered in clusters, chattering about how the sun had blessed them: with light, with fire, with an eye that could roll back and see inside the socket.
A young man in a pale grey cloak slammed a pint of beer down on Eri's table. His fingers were talons resembling a chicken like the one Eri had butchered last night. She tried to smile politely at him, but he wouldn't look at her. "Thank you, sir."
He didn't reply, and he shuffled back to the kitchen, hunched over. Eri watched him whisper to a beautiful girl his age whose metallic-silver hair was done up in a ponytail yet still cascaded to her waist. It must be longer than Eri's had been before she cut it.
The girl skipped over to Eri. "Are you here alone?"
"Yes. I'm alone." And lonely.
The barmaid smiled. "Not anymore. I'm Nejire. What's your name, pretty?"
Eri didn't think she was pretty. She wasn't elegant, and with her hair cropped short, the world could see the scar from her horn. Meanwhile, if Nejire had been marked by the sun, it was well hidden, even with her sleeveless, low-cut dress. It was a much thinner and simpler garment than most barmaids would wear, and had a similar metallic aesthetic as Nejire's hair.
Nejire blinked. "Your name, sweetheart?"
Eri blinked back. "Eri."
Nejire sat on the table and crossed one leg over the other. "Want to see something fun, Eri?"
A blush crept up Eri's cheeks. Was it Nejire's sun mark? Did Nejire think Eri's scar was 'fun'?
Nejire didn't wait for the younger girl to reply. She wiggled her fingers, and light energy flowed out in a spiral that ascended toward the ceiling. A few moments later, dust floated down from where Nejire's energy had disturbed it.