The villagers froze where they stood. The fire crackled, but even its flames seemed to bend away, shrinking from the presence that had descended upon them.
A figure floated above the ground.
Shrouded in darkness, his long robes twisted and swirled in the air as if alive. His face could not be seen—only an abyss, deeper than night itself.
But his eyes…
those blood-red eyes glowed like burning coals, piercing through every soul that dared to look upon them.
Whispers rose among the crowd—fearful, broken. Some dropped to their knees, trembling. Others stumbled back, clutching each other as if that could shield them from what had come.
No one could speak his name, but everyone knew.
The Devil had arrived.
And with him came the silence of judgment.
The air grew heavy, suffocating.
No one dared to breathe too loud.
The faceless figure drifted closer, robes hissing like serpents on stone.
The red glow of his eyes swept over the crowd. Wherever it fell, people felt their very bones turn to ice.
Children whimpered. Elders clutched their chests. Even the strongest men couldn't move a step.
And then—
A sound tore through the night.
A scream.
Shrill, ear-splitting, inhuman.
It was not just a voice—it was a blade of sound, slicing through the silence, rattling every soul, shattering courage into dust.
Before anyone could even cover their ears—
it happened.
A blur of motion.
A storm of steel and shadows.
In less than a heartbeat, the villagers were no more.
Their bodies, cleanly cleaved in half, fell in grotesque silence—some with eyes still wide, mouths frozen in screams that never left their throats.
And then—
silence again.
A silence heavier than death.
When the priestess and her people arrived, they did not find a village.
They found a graveyard.
The cold ashes of Mia's mother lay scattered, her sacrifice now dust.
Little Mia sat in the center, her tiny body drenched in blood, her sobs breaking the stillness.
Around her lay horror—limbs, torn flesh, lifeless eyes.
Every villager cut down in a single moment.
And Charora?
Gone.
Swallowed by the darkness he had come from.
Only the red glow of his vanished eyes lingered in memory—like wounds that would never heal.
The priestess knelt, her silken robes brushing against the blood-stained earth as she gently gathered Mia into her arms. The child's body trembled, her tiny fists clutching at the priestess's garment as she sobbed, broken and desperate.
"M-mother… where's my mother…? Please, bring her back…" she cried.
The priestess placed a trembling hand over Mia's head. A faint glow spread from her palm, and within moments, Mia's sobs softened, her eyelids growing heavy until she drifted into a deep, merciful sleep.
Rising slowly, the priestess turned to face the rest of the villagers—the ones who had kept their distance, or had not taken part in the unholy crime, or perhaps had simply been too cowardly to stand against it. Their eyes darted from the crimson soil to the torn bodies, to the girl sleeping peacefully against the priestess's chest. Fear gripped every heart.
The priestess's voice quivered as she finally spoke, her words cutting through the silence like a curse.
"This little girl… carries the blood of Charora within her. His shadow has already touched her. She is bound to him now."
Gasps broke through the crowd. Some covered their mouths, others stepped back in dread. The name itself carried centuries of fear—Charora, the faceless terror, the wandering shadow of wrath.
And now… he had chosen her.
The announcement rippled through the villagers like a storm. Their fear was no longer of what they had done—but of what was to come.
After that night, Mia's life became a shadow of what it once was.
No one dared to harm her, but no one dared to love her either. People avoided her eyes as though they might invite death itself. When she begged for food, some threw scraps at her out of fear, while others turned away as if she were invisible. She grew up in silence and hunger, a child surrounded by people yet utterly alone.
By the time she turned fourteen, whispers had taken root. Children would vanish in the dark, their terrified parents searching desperately, only for the little ones to be returned by dawn—shaken, but alive. Each time, someone swore they saw a fleeting shadow of him near Mia.
The air grew heavy with strange happenings: livestock dying overnight, fires sparking without cause, whispers slithering through empty homes. It was as if the village itself was being watched.
Then, a year ago, the skies turned cruel. The rains abandoned them. The earth cracked beneath their feet, and crops withered into dust. Every well seemed cursed, their water bitter and shallow.
And finally, just one month ago… he revealed his hand.
Charora bound the entire village within invisible chains, cutting them off from the world beyond. None who tried to leave returned. None who cried for help were heard. The villagers realized the truth too late—
They were his captives.
Mia grew not with joy or love, but with the weight of isolation, her soul pressed thin by the burden of a curse she never asked for. She became the girl no one touched, the child no one claimed, standing at the edge of her village as if she belonged to another world entirely—one far darker, and far less forgiving. A world where shadows whispered her name and silence greeted her footsteps, where every stolen glance from the villagers reminded her that she was both feared and unwanted. She lived in that space between belonging and exile, close enough to see the warmth of others yet forever barred from it, as though fate itself had drawn a line she could never cross.
She learned to move like a shadow, quiet and unseen, her small hands and feet tracing paths where no one dared follow. The wind became her companion, the rustle of leaves her lullaby, and the distant calls of birds her only reminder that life existed beyond her suffering. Nights were the hardest, when the memories of fire, screams, and loss pressed against her chest like a weight she could never lift. Yet even in that darkness, a strange resilience grew within her—a flicker of something fierce and unyielding, buried beneath the layers of fear and grief, waiting for the day it would rise.