Plucking the food from her lunch, Homura stared around the roof the four of them were currently relaxing on. Mami was still scolding Sayaka and Madoka for following them despite their agreement.

"It was already lunchtime and we thought some freaky witch had got you guys!" Sayaka whined, trying to argue with Mami, against better judgement.

"That still doesn't mean you should have been so careless." Mami's tone was firm, yet concerned. "What if someone had seen you two?"

"We're sorry Mami" The duo hung their heads in the air, feeling defeated. "We won't do it again…"

All the while, Homura was looking at the incubator grooming himself on the railing of the roof.

'What is it, Homura?' He turned to her with wide, curious eyes.

Nein

"I-" Homura hesitated, not sure what to say to the incubator. The feeling of discontent and all around the feeling that something is off from before returned at the sight of Jyubey.

He seemed... wrong somehow.

Memories of the barrier began to align.

"Did you-" She bit her lip nervously, unsure of how to word her strange misgivings.

"Did you used to look different?"

Jyubey tilted his head questioningly.

Halt

'I've always looked like this, Homura!' He jumped down towards her, the idle talk of the nearby girls lulling in the background.
'I'm pretty confident I've looked this way for like… a very long time.' He stood at Homura's feet, looking up at her expectantly.

With the food in her lap going cold, a thought that flickered within the barrier came back in focus.

'What do you think I'm meant to look like, though?' His tail swished.

"...like a real Incubator."

Nicht

She froze, the air around her seemed colder. She felt eyes watching her, not looking her skin, flesh, or bone, but her soul and mind.

She glanced at Madoka and her friends, they were still wrapped up in conversation, unaware of the thought that burned itself in Homura's mind, spinning in circles and meaning nothing.

She felt pins and needles across her whole body and opened her mouth to speak only to breath in cold, dead, air, that was rotted and fetid with the single thought that wormed into her mind.

I can't go back if I die.

The string of words cascaded across her thoughts in an ocean of wrong wrong wrong wrong wr-

Verlassen

'Aha.' She snapped back to reality as Jyubey spoke and turned away from her. 'Be careful, Homura... you don't want to push too fast.'

He tilted his head to look at her, his teeth gleaming, jagged and white.

'You wouldn't want to break things this early, would you?'

Mich

"Where's Jyubey?" Homura darted round to find Madoka suddenly by her side, eyes curious and hands clenching her skirt.

Homura turned back and found the roof empty, and where the black incubator stood, there was nothing.

He'd gone off.

She pretended not to see the yellow eye hovering over her.

Can't go back where?

entire story reedited three times over, all chapters have lil fixes, mostly small
generally just making it more readable lmao
next time: we return to a certain seer who tries to chat with her dad

BETA'D BY THE AMAZING /cheesecakewitch