Episode 12 · Pupa

Pupa

Utsutsu and Yume have no one but each other. Their parents walked out long ago, and the two kids learned to survive on their own, with Utsutsu watching over his little sister the way he promised himself he always would. Then the butterflies show up. Bright red wings, drifting through their world like something out of a dream. Yume touches one. Or follows one. Either way, her body starts to change, twisting into something that hungers for human flesh. Utsutsu doesn't transform the same way. He gets something else: wounds close on their own, bones knit back together, and no matter what she does to him, he keeps getting up. Now he has two jobs that tear him in half. Keep his sister alive, and keep her away from everyone else. He still believes the old Yume is in there somewhere, and he will bleed for that belief as many times as it takes. But a boy who can't die and a girl who can't stop eating: how long before protecting her means becoming something just as monstrous?