Ficorpio
Chapter 1
When I couldn’t hold it in any longer, I went to the train station.
A college girl in a camisole slipped a solicitation card into my hand.
“Hey, handsome. Need a local companion? I’m an art-school student working part-time. I’m available day or night…”
I pointed to the photograph on the back of the card. “I want her.”
Claire Morgan.
My first love.
Today marked seven years since I had run her over and killed her.
“Are you sure you won’t reconsider?” Sophie Hart asked. “I can give you a discount.”
Her icy hand curled around my arm, and she pressed almost her entire body against me. Even her voice had turned sweet and coy.
Ignoring her, I exchanged cash for coins at a nearby street stall. Without looking back, I said, “I only want her.”
I found a coin minted in 2018 and slipped it into my pocket, satisfied.
I had just turned to leave when Sophie huffed behind me.
“Fine, fine. I’ll take you to her.”
Girls in her line of work earned commissions for referring clients to one another. With money on the table, of course she wouldn’t refuse.
She took my hand and led me toward the narrow alley.
The deeper we went, the more streetwalkers crowded the alley.
Every time we passed one, she would discreetly hook a finger across my palm.
Or brush against me on purpose.
They were cold.
They wore almost nothing, and their skin was cold to the touch.
I couldn’t help looking.
The women standing outside were all young, and every one of them was beautiful. Their clothes were either skin-tight or barely there. Now and then, I caught sight of breasts straining against flimsy tops.
Sophie deliberately slowed her pace. She turned to me with a knowing look.
“See anyone you like, handsome? They’re all paid local companions. Legitimate companions.” Her smile turned coy. “If you spot someone you want, I can talk to her for you.
“If the price is right, there might even be a little surprise. And every girl has her own kind of surprise. You could always try them one at a time.”
She lowered her voice.
“Honestly… I’d really like to be your companion too.”
I met her eyes without thinking.
They were so soft and liquid that I found myself staring a moment too long, my thoughts beginning to wander.
Paid local companions had become popular over the past few years. Most of them were college students picking up work during holidays. On a good day, they could earn what other people made in a month.
Officially, all they did was keep clients company. Talk, eat out, take photos, maybe pretend to be someone’s girlfriend for an afternoon.
Though there might be the sort of surprise Sophie had mentioned.
We were all adults. Without something extra on offer, who would pay for a companion?
Still, I shook my head. “No. Take me to Claire.”
Sophie froze for a second, then understood.
“Oh. So you’re a regular.”
This time, she didn’t drag things out. She took my hand and led me straight into a barbershop glowing with a faint, eerie light.
Chapter 2
“Ethan, help yourself to whatever you want. I’ll go get her.”
Sophie swept the snacks from the table toward me in one motion.
There wasn’t much: a few cups of jelly, some Pop Rocks, and a bottle of water.
I tried one of the jellies and immediately spat it out.
It was awful.
The women nearby covered their mouths as they laughed, their shoulders shaking.
Then something occurred to me. Embarrassed, I lowered my head and looked at the back of the card again.
In the photo, Claire was lying facedown on a bed, wearing a low-cut blouse and a short skirt.
She looked just as young and beautiful as she had seven years ago. Her figure was even more stunning than I remembered.
But Claire had died in a car crash seven years earlier.
I had been the driver who hit her. I’d watched her fade away, little by little.
The next time I saw her had been in the hospital anatomy laboratory.
She had been a body on a dissection table.
No.
A cadaver donor.
“Ethan. It’s been a long time.”
The sudden voice made my entire body shudder.
She was here.
My first love. Claire Morgan.
I lifted my head stiffly.
Claire stood in front of me with a bright smile.
She wore a JK-style skirt and knee socks, exactly like the outfit she’d worn the day of the crash seven years ago.
But her sweet, familiar scent was gone. In its place was a faintly sharp smell.
Formalin.
Her face and skin were deathly pale.
Like a corpse.
Strangest of all, her legs seemed to tremble slightly, and there were damp patches on her skirt.
What had she been doing?
Frowning, I reached out and took her hand without thinking.
It was ice-cold.
Swallowing my doubts, I reflexively pulled a coin from my pocket and placed it in her palm.
“It’s been a long time, Claire.”
Seven years earlier, during China’s National Day Holiday, I’d driven to Claire’s city with a bouquet and an engagement ring.
She was always telling me I had no sense of romance.
This time, I hadn’t told her I was coming. I wanted to surprise her properly.
By the time I arrived, my heart was pounding. I was already imagining her bursting into tears when I got down on one knee.
Then my brakes failed.
In the panic, I hit someone.
That person was Claire.
She slowly closed her eyes in my arms.
And I couldn’t shed a single tear.
At the hospital, the doctor let out a quiet sigh.
“My condolences,” he said.
I fell apart.
I wanted to cry, but no tears would come.
Then, one week later, Claire appeared before me alive and well.
That night, she came to find me, soaked from head to toe.
I was so terrified I couldn’t think straight.
Only after she stepped inside my rental room did I begin to react.
I vaguely remembered that she was wearing a brand-new JK-style skirt. Her skin was wet, as though she’d just gotten out of the shower and hurriedly changed clothes.
And when she came close, I caught that same faint, acrid smell.
Chapter 3
I didn’t know whether she was alive or dead, and I didn’t care.
I was too overwhelmed to think about it. I pulled her into my arms.
Claire hugged me back, tears streaming down her face.
That night, she took the initiative for the first time.
Neither of us stopped until well past midnight.
But afterward, Claire asked me for money.
Not paper money. Not a bank transfer.
Coins.
The older the coin, the better.
She only wanted one, but there was a condition: I had to keep it on my person for more than twenty-four hours before giving it to her.
She stressed it again and again.
More than twenty-four hours.
When I asked why, Claire looked at me gently and told me it wasn’t an ordinary coin.
It was a Life-Exchange Coin.
“I’m buying your lifespan,” she said softly. “So I can keep living.”
And so it continued for seven years.
Once a week, Claire came to see me. After we were finished, she would ask me for a coin.
I always made sure to put one in my pocket two days before she arrived, so it would remain in contact with me for more than twenty-four hours.
Then, last month, I saw Claire’s body in the hospital’s anatomy laboratory.
Professor Whitmore, who supervised our anatomy training, told us that this cadaver donor had arrived seven years ago. For various reasons, the body had never been used.
I stared at Claire on the dissection table.
Her skin was deathly pale, her eyes sealed shut. I could even make out that familiar odor of formalin.
My mind went completely blank.
If Claire had been lying here all this time, then who had been coming to see me for the past seven years?
From that day on, I became convinced I was suffering from delusions.
I searched through the hospital’s records.
Claire Morgan was dead.
She had died in the car crash seven years ago.
Which meant the Claire I had been seeing ever since was most likely nothing more than a hallucination.
The next time she appeared, I shouted at her to leave me alone.
“You’ve been dead for years! Stop haunting me!”
I put every ounce of strength I had into those words.
Claire stood frozen in my doorway that night.
I pulled out every coin I had and hurled them at her.
“Get out! Don’t ever come back!”
After that, I never saw her again.
I thought my delusions had finally stopped.
Until today.
One month later, her photograph appeared on a solicitation card.
I was furious. I thought someone had stolen her picture.
It never occurred to me that I would see her again.
And that this time, she wasn’t a hallucination.
Sophie crept up to us and lowered her voice. “Claire, don’t forget my cut. I’m the one who brought him here.”
Claire smiled and nodded. Then she took my hand and led me outside.
On the way out, she picked up a bottle of mouthwash and rinsed her mouth.
The sight hit me like a blow.
Sophie could see Claire.
And so could everyone else around us.
A terrifying thought took shape in my mind.
What if Claire wasn’t some hallucination? What if she was real… or a ghost?
I stopped dead and gripped her icy hand. “What are you? Are you alive, or are you dead?”