*Night, Wednesday, 16th of March 2011, Residential District, Mitakihara, Japan.*

Madoka wasn’t able to sleep that night.

She sat in the corner of her room and stared blankly at the ceiling, and she doubted she would ever be able to sleep, not after all that happened. Her mind replayed the scenes of the fight she witnessed that night over and over again each time she tried to close her eyes. The gunfire, the violence, her friend being wounded, bleeding, screaming, the monsters and the Magical Girls, and all the things she never imagined could be real. But they were real, she said to herself.

That the principal actor and instigator of that shocking memory, a dark-haired girl now armed with a shotgun, was currently standing in her room, made her traumatic experience even worse. It terrified Madoka. She quickly gave up on any attempt to reason with, or even converse, with the Magical Girl, and chose to stay silent, desperately hoping it will prevent this clearly and obviously dangerous stranger from harming everyone else. But the dark-haired girl, Homura, as she had introduced herself a little bit earlier, didn’t pay attention to Madoka. Instead, she was peering cautiously out of the window, watching for potential enemies. Whether Homura was afraid that monsters could come for her or whether she was nervous about the police and the flashing blue lights down the street, Madoka couldn’t tell.

At least Sayaka got away, she thought. At least her own mother was too drunk after celebrating with her colleagues to visit Madoka in her room. Madoka’s father was probably asleep too, as well as her little brother. Less chance her family would run into the crazy girl with the gun.

It had been a terrible night, with all its weirdness quickly turning into the essence of nightmares, Madoka thought to herself as she was sitting there, recalling the events that transpired earlier today.

She had been walking home with her classmate, Sayaka, tonight, perhaps a little bit later than usual, but aside from a few fire department trucks rushing down the mostly empty street it had been a pretty uneventful evening after the long day in school, and some activities memories of which were probably forever rewritten by the horror it all turned too.

Her first experience with all the unknown had been her encounter with the other Sayaka, almost a perfect twin of the girl she knew if it wasn’t for her strange, almost eerie yellow eyes with the slit pupils, a stranger tint in her hair color or she sharp teeth she had unintentionally shown when she had been talking. As scary as she had looked, she had been quite friendly and had known things only Sayaka had known, and more.

She had told her strange things, crazy things about Magical Girls, about contracts they make, and about wishes they made, only to have those wishes turned against them. Or wishes they will make, as past and present had seemed as vague concepts for that strange girl and one couldn’t tell if her words had been prophetic in the way, or just recounting the different life she had lived. It has been confusing. Madoka wasn’t certain if she had believed all those words, if they hadn’t been told to her with the perfect twin of her classmate, with glowing eyes and hair that shined like blue fire.

But everything turned from bad to worse, and from worse to nightmare. In a shockingly sudden turn of events, they heard gunfires. Then Sayaka, the real one, had almost died from a bullet and was saved only through assistance from unlikely sources. The twisted, snake-eyed version of her friend used strange powers to fight back against the assailant, revealed to be Homura, but ended up dying by her. More monsters arrived with a vengeance, and there was that demonic-looking version of Hitomi. She was the one that saved Sayaka, again through the use of equally mystical powers. Then the monsters almost had killed Homura, then another Magical Girl came to save the first one.

It was insane. Madoka had to wonder if Hitomi was like that in secret, or if there were two versions of her. Does Hitomi have an evil twin, in the same way as there are two versions of Sayaka? Or if that second Magical Girl, one who could heal, would have healed her friend if the “evil” Hitomi didn’t do that first? Did she, Madoka, have an evil twin, too? Were their evil twins actually evil, or were Magical Girls actually wicked despite the fact that they didn’t look the part? Questions burned in Madoka’s mind, with no chance for her to actually find the answers, only promising a long, sleepless night to her, filled with worries.

Then she remembered something, an item, a ring Hitomi’s twin had dropped when she had disappeared in a whirlwind of strange, sinister energies.

Madoka stood up, which immediately triggered the reaction from her unpleasant and armed visitor.

“Where are you going?” Homura growled and quickly moved to grab her by the arm.

“T-to the b-bathroom,” Madoka replied, carefully.

“If anyone ever offers you to fulfill all of your wishes, don’t believe him.” Homura insisted. It felt out-of-place considering the circumstances, and even if Madoka knew what that meant after she had been told about how the contract the Magical Girl supposedly worked, it didn’t make Homura look any less crazy. She had been hostile towards everyone, including the small white creature that briefly appeared on the scene after the attack that was supposedly the source of her power.

“No-no. I won’t. I just need…” Madoka whispered. It wasn’t wise to provoke a person who nearly held her at gunpoint to this point.

Homura was seemingly satisfied with the answer and only glared at the pink-haired girl in response, allowing Madoka to slip out of the room and into the house’s darkened hallway, and then into the empty bathroom. She washed her face with cold water. It didn’t help in any way to calm her down.

Her heart raced, and she had all the reasons to be worried, if not straightway terrified, briefly considering simply running away. Out of the house, perhaps down the street, assuming the police were still there, or just out into the city to hide, or to find anyone able or willing to help her.

She cast that idea away. As much as she was scared, she couldn’t just run away as Homura was there, in her house, and considering how forceful and erratic she acted, there was a chance that she might harm her family instead. And Madoka couldn’t put people she cared for in danger that easily.

And who would believe her that there is a gun-toting Magical Girl in her house? She asked herself and realized that there weren’t that many. And those who knew what Homura really was could be the same as her.

This brought Madoka’s thoughts back to the ring. She fished it out of the pocket and held it against the light. It seemed to be a simple, obsidian black band, its surface gleaming with silvery-blue energies passing on, forming strange symbols and disappearing as they pleased, without any regard to the source of illumination, only to turn dark a moment after. Metal it was made from, assuming it was metal at all, felt like it followed its own rules.

She didn’t know what to do with the enchanted piece of jewelry - after all, realizing that magic exists didn’t make one proficient in using one.

She tried to remember, struggling against all the unpleasant if not straight away traumatic events her memories still offered to her to find one specific moment. It seemed futile, and she was just about to give up when she finally recalled the right moment of that fateful event - Hitomi, or perhaps Hitomi’s strange twin, had to blow through the ring and then, the whirlwind came and they disappeared into the nothingness.

Briefly, Madoka considered doing the same thing, holding the band between her fingers and blowing through it. Then she stopped herself. If this was going to do what she thought it might, it was the same as running away. Should Madoka disappear into who-knows-where now, there was a real chance Homura would turn her weapons against Madoka’s family?

Madoka decided to go back to her room, where Homura probably still waited. She had to endure this; she thought.

Instead of putting the strange object in her pocket, she unwittingly slipped the ring on her finger as she crept through the hallway and came to regret it nearly instantly. A flood of strange, indescribable sensations immediately assaulted her. The ominous sense of dread made it clear that something bad had just happened, but she couldn’t tell what it was.

Madoka stumbled into her room, feeling suddenly dizzy. Homura sat on the chair, asleep, shotgun on her lap with the finger on the trigger.

“Do you hear me, Madoka?” said the voice, male, authoritative, booming, that seemingly came from nowhere.

She yelped in shock, which woke up the still dozing Homura. The Magical Girl answered with the violence on waking, grabbing still confused Madoka and dragging her forcefully into the room, even briefly aiming her weapon at her. Then she closed the door shut.

“If you can hear me…” the voice suggested, “Don’t tell her that.”

“What happened? Tell me!” Homura growled

“I heard…” Madoka started, but immediately reconsidered her options as all of them were quite dire, and trying to do anything that might provoke an already a bit deranged girl into doing something even more rash was, without a doubt, a terrible choice.

“Tell me!” Homura pressed her further.

“Nothing.” Madoka corrected herself while repeating to herself it was probably for the best, but the Magical Girl kept interrogating her.

“Was Incubator here?” She asked.

“No.” Pink-haired schoolgirl answered, truthfully and immediately added: “I don’t want to have anything to do with it”

Homura seemed to be satisfied with the answer, though, and didn’t question the poor girl more, but it wasn’t the end of it. Schoolgirl sat on her bed, and after briefly looking at her captor she put her head into her hands, despairing.

“I admit I am being a bit cruel to you here, Madoka.” The voice quipped in, and Madoka wasn’t sure if it was amused by the situation or was actually sincere. The tone of the voice was strange and hard to pinpoint, just as its source - but one thing was certain: Homura couldn't hear it.

“The ring you wear allows me to do it, it’s an unintentional side effect of its power. Even my followers dislike the sensation. I wouldn’t do it to my precious Divas if I can avoid it, yet you are suffering from no fault of your own. Cruel and undeserving, I must admit.” The disembodied voice continued. It was speaking the truth, listening to the voice become increasingly more unpleasant, almost like each word was delivered to her by the tiny needle that pierced the poor girl’s brain, and even though the headache dissipated after the speaking was done, it promised an agony should the voice keep talking. Madoka considered removing the cursed piece of jewelry and opted against it. She felt powerless against the crazy girl sharing her room right now. Compared to that, the unpleasantness of the voice was nothing.

“I don’t want to be part of it,” Madoka said.

“I can’t let you become a Magical Girl, you will never be happy as one.” Homura reacted to Madoka instead, “Incubators are just using you, using all Magical Girls.”

She wanted to reply, but the alien voice echoing through her head was faster and offered its commentary.

“She is telling you the truth. Incubators are using you, you, all of humanity, like cattle. It’s just not the entire truth.” it said, “But did she tell you what’s her role in this? You are like a little lamb, and she is one feeding you, so you are fat enough for the slaughter. Albeit, in a metaphysical way, it’s your soul, your potential, not your body.”

“I am not…” Madoka protested. The pain she experienced from listening to the strange voice almost deafened her from the argument her captor had. She clutched the palm of the hand where the ring rested on her finger, a source of that agony, and watched Homura with glassy eyes. Voice simply talked for far too long, and it had consequences, yet Madoka still didn’t remove the ring.

She almost preferred this way, no matter how absurd it was. She didn’t want to hear Homura’s answer, as what sympathetic response would be from the person who would kill Sayaka in cold blood. The entity behind the voice reacted to that.

“We can kill her. A problem is that killing Homura doesn’t solve the problem,” it answered, almost at the same time as the Magical Girl tried to speak, further fuelling the magical migraine it caused.

She wanted to say something, but the whisper from the ring added: “Your death doesn’t solve anything either. Stay alive, Madoka.”

“Go away.” Madoka cried out. Tired of the entire situation, she herself wasn’t sure if she said that to the whispers from the ring, or to the girl in front of her.

Homura replied. This time Madoka was unimpeded by the ring that spoke to her, but her ears were deaf to Magical Girl’s argument just the same, if not more. Her vision was blurry with tears.

“Go away,” she said, trying to push the Magical Girl away. She was overpowered, but she didn’t stop repeating the words again and again, like the mantra, and didn’t stop struggling, either.

“Go away.”

“I hate you!”

“Go away!”

“I don’t care about your Magical Girls. I don’t want to be one. Go away. Leave my family alone. Leave my friends alone.”

“Go away!!! I hate you!”

She couldn’t tell how much time passed, or how many times she cursed her captor. It was the voice of her father that woke her up from her near trance.

“Madoka? What’s wrong?” He asked, looking at her with the worried expression in his voice. She looked around. Her room was empty, the Magical Girl was gone, it was just her, and her understandingly concerned father looking at her.

“It’s nothing. Just a bad dream.” She lied. Her voice was hoarse from her cries, and her eyes burned.

“I am fine. It was just a bad dream, dad.” Madoka assured her father - hated to do this, she loved her family, but she had no choice as she didn’t want her parents to get involved in this horror they didn’t even know about.

“You should really change from your school uniform. And close that window, you might get cold.” He said.

Madoka nodded absentmindedly, her thoughts again running towards all of those unpleasant memories she had and couldn’t share with anyone. She closed the window, as she was advised, and collapsed on the bed.

The Magical Girl was gone, at least for now, and what changed her mind from holding Madoka prisoner longer, she couldn’t comprehend why the sudden change, but her tired mind refused to work. She collapsed on the bed.

Briefly, Madoka looked at her finger, where the dark ring still sat, feeling the presence of the mysterious voice that seemingly wanted to remain silent, and even with the promise of the pain she didn’t remove the enchanted band.

She wasn’t able to sleep that night.