Ruhan sat between his parents, laughing uncontrollably.
What strange happiness! Father on one side, Mother on the other. Right in front of him sat Akira and Linara, cheeks puffed out in annoyance. Looking at Linara's flushed, angry face after exposing their silly plan, Ruhan's laughter just wouldn't stop. The room was filled with nothing but joy, nothing but light.
Suddenly, the laughter died in his throat.
The lights went out. Ruhan found himself huddled in a dark corner, face buried in his knees, crying. Mother held him close to her chest, but her body was as cold as ice. Akira and Linara placed their hands on his shoulders, offering comfort.
But their touch burned like fire.
The ridicule of the Academy teachers buzzed in his ears like a thousand hornets. Even his mother's embrace couldn't silence that sound. Reality was clawing at him.
"Get out!"
The palace doors slammed shut in his face. He looked back. Mother was weeping, head resting on Father's chest.
But the clan elders...
They were no longer human.
Their bodies elongated, gray fur bursting through tearing skin. Their eyes glowed with fierce red fire. They were now a pack of hungry wolves.
Baring their fangs, the wolves lunged at him.
"No!"
Ruhan screamed in terror. Instantly, the entire scene shattered like a glass mirror. With a deafening crash, everything went dark.
Through the fragmented shards, Linara's face floated into view.
She was smiling, holding Ruhan's hand, saying, "I will stay with you forever, Ruhan."
Ruhan felt a strange, heavy object in his grip.
Bang!
Hot lead pierced through Linara's forehead. Her smiling face froze. She collapsed to the ground with a thud.
Ruhan looked at his hand. He was holding a smoking gun. Linara's blood dripped from the barrel.
"I... I...?"
Everyone rushed to kill him. To survive, he ran toward a deep forest.
Running blindly, he stumbled.
Opening his eyes, he saw he wasn't in a forest. The ground beneath him was wet soil, smelling of rotting corpses. He was standing in an ancient graveyard.
Right in front of him stood a tombstone. Engraved on it was the name—'Linara'.
Suddenly, a decaying hand burst from the earth, gripping Ruhan's ankle tightly. A bone-chilling touch.
He jerked his leg free and ran backward.
A blast of heat.
The Ahmed Palace was burning ferociously. Amidst the leaping flames lay the dead bodies of his mother and sister.
Standing over them was Azgar. A blood-stained knife in his father's hand. The reflection of the fire danced in his glasses.
Father turned toward him. A demonic gaze.
"You are next..."
Terrified, Ruhan darted to the right.
Something soft squelched under his foot.
Looking down, he saw he was standing on his father's corpse. Azgar's chest had been ripped open.
And in his own hand? His father's heart.
Ruhan laughed. A maniacal cackle. It was his own throat, but the voice was unfamiliar.
"I took your revenge, Father! I took it!"
In panic, he ran to the left.
There stood Aspia. At her feet lay the mutilated bodies of Akira and Tasnim. Aspia's face was smeared with blood.
She looked at Ruhan and licked the blood from her lips.
"The taste of blood is the best, isn't it, darling?"
Ruhan wanted to scream, but no sound came out. He kept running backward.
Darkness... nothing but darkness.
He ran and ran. Ten minutes, or ten years—no one knew.
Suddenly, lightning tore across the sky.
Not white, not blue—but red, like fresh blood.
It began to rain. Instead of water, hot blood poured from the heavens.
Ruhan looked up.
His breath caught in his throat.
Against the sky, layered within the clouds, hung millions of corpses. Swaying on gallows... swaying to the rhythm of the wind. A horrific sight!
A deep, mechanical voice resonated, shaking the entire universe—
"It is time... time for you to wake up."
A cataclysmic bolt of red lightning descended from the sky. Straight onto Ruhan.
BOOM!
Ruhan bolted upright in bed.
His body sprang up like a coiled spring. His chest heaved like bellows. He was drenched in sweat, yet shivering with cold inside.
Tears from the dream still rolled down his eyes.
Looking at the wall clock, his trance broke.
9:30 AM.
Dawn had passed long ago.
Ruhan touched his forehead, murmuring, "A nightmare... just a terrible nightmare..."
Composing himself somewhat, he got out of bed. As he stretched, the sound of cracking bones echoed in the silent room.
He placed his hands over his chest and stomach, tracing the symbol of an 'inverted triangle.' He whispered the morning prayer,
"All praise to the Goddess's feet... for granting me the chance to live another day."
Prayer finished, his gaze swept over his dilapidated kingdom.
A rusty, faded room. Furniture meant only a bed, a study desk, and a steel almirah standing in the corner. The upper part of the almirah was glass-encased, rows of dusty books inside; the lower part was a locked steel door—containing a gas lighter and some candles, his only reliance during load-shedding or stormy nights.
Scattered on the table were exam notes, two cold buns left over from last night, and a bowl of congealed soup.
He thought of changing from his sleepwear into regular clothes. Cheap t-shirts and trousers worth 100 or 250 'Baowa'. Utterly unfitting for an heir of royal blood.
Suddenly, a thought struck him—
"Did Mom and Dad return last night? If not, then there hasn't been any punishment regarding the result yet. But... if they did return, why hasn't anyone summoned me yet?"
As the thought crystallized in his brain—
Crack-crunch!
Something seemed to fracture inside his brain. Unbearable pain! Ruhan pressed both hands against his forehead. Thinking was forbidden for him.
When the pain subsided slightly, he picked up a cold bun from the table and took a bite. Chewing, he walked to the window. Outside, the vast boundary of the Ahmed Palace caught his eye.
His jaw tightened. "One day... one day I will reclaim all my lost rights. I will show you all!"
Suddenly, his gaze fixed on the gate.
A dilapidated bullock cart had stopped in front of the iron gate. Usually, this was used for transporting goods or lower-caste slaves.
Two silhouettes got off the cart and walked quickly toward the servants' quarters.
Ruhan frowned, thinking, "Who are they? Why a bullock cart in front of the palace? Mom and Dad, even Subha or Linara-Akira don't ride in bullock carts... then could it be..."
He tried to force himself to remember.
And right then—
Aaah!
It felt like a volcano erupted inside his head. Ruhan collapsed to the floor in intense agony. Darkness descended before his eyes. He was on the verge of passing out.
Gritting his teeth, he cursed, "This f*cking pain! It's been burning me my whole life...!"
A minute later, the pain subsided. Ruhan stood up, panting. A strange apathy washed over his mind.
"Whatever! What do I care what's happening? My job is training. Need to keep the body fit."
Leaving the room, he stepped into the corridor.
To his right were four more rooms. Three locked. In the fourth, extra leftover food from the palace was occasionally kept for Ruhan. The royal meals he used to eat in the past were now just memories. He swallowed hard, controlling the water in his mouth.
He froze as he descended the stairs. The steel collapsible gate at the entrance of the stairs was supposed to be locked. But it was open.
"Who opened it? Didn't I lock it last night... or did I? But the key is with me. Then someone else?"
He wanted to pressure his brain to solve the mystery. But immediately, a cold stream of fear ran down his spine. He knew, thinking too much would bring back that 'f*cking pain'.
Dismissing the thought, he pushed the gate open and stepped into the corridor.
The architecture of this building was quite strange. It could be called a 'Mirror-Building'.
The central staircase divided the building into two equal halves. Five rooms on the right, five rooms on the left. As if a mirror placed in the middle reflected one side onto the other.
However, the left section was abandoned and forbidden. Ruhan only used the right section.
Walking down the corridor, he entered the second room. It was the washroom.
There were no modern facilities inside. A high commode, a basin, and a mirror attached to the wall. No water taps or tanks.
Next to the house was a tube well.
The heir of the Ahmed clan had to pump the tube well with his own hands to fill the bucket.
He filled the bucket and splashed cold water on his face. He washed his face with the green herbal facewash kept beside the basin. Wiping his face with a towel, he stood in front of the mirror.
Seeing his reflection, he was mesmerized.
"Hey! I look quite handsome! Haha!"—a foolish grin spread across his face.
But suddenly—
The smile vanished. His pupils became fixed.
An expression of an elderly, serious man appeared on his face. He leaned very close to the mirror.
Looking into his own eyes, he muttered,
"I am forgetting something... something very important... I know it's urgent, but I can't recall!"
Again, that blow. The prick of invisible needles.
Snap!
In an instant, his seriousness vanished. His pupils became cloudy again. Intelligence seemed to leak out through some hole. That foolish, frivolous demeanor returned.
"Nah! I am so handsome, I'll surely charm Aspia and Tasnim! If I can become the head of the Ahmed clan, I'll make them my personal maids or wives. Haha! They are so kind to me!"
Alas! If only this boy knew what they had done to him and what they planned to do, what would his reaction be?
Ruhan whistled happily as he walked out of the washroom.
Right after he left, the atmosphere of the washroom changed.
The air seemed to tremble.
Suddenly, an invisible web became visible. Everywhere Ruhan had stepped, everywhere he had stood—countless threads like a spider's web were spread out.
Crimson red threads. These had bound him tight.
Suddenly—
In front of the mirror, right where Ruhan's head had been moments ago, a human skull materialized out of the void.
The skull floated in the air. Its color was pure white, ancient, and flawless. Its eye sockets held no eyes, only darkness like deep abysses. Looking into that darkness felt like staring at the end of time. No aura emanated from its body; its very existence was a profound mystery.
As the skull appeared, a strange phenomenon occurred.
The color of the invisible red threads connected to Ruhan's body changed instantly. From red, they turned into bright silvery-white—exactly like the color of that skull.
Clink-clank!
A sound like breaking glass. But no glass broke. What shattered was the illusionary web binding Ruhan.
In the spiritual world, it was as if an invisible prison had been pulverized. The silvery-white threads disintegrated into dust in an instant.
Outside the washroom, near the stairs, Ruhan suddenly shuddered violently.
He dropped to his knees. His chest felt impossibly light all of a sudden.
"What happened? It feels like... it feels like I've been freed from something?" he wondered in amazement.
But that freedom was fleeting. His mind was so broken that he lacked the capacity to hold onto that liberty.
He laughed again. Shaking his head, he said, "Whatever! True freedom is with Aspia and Tasnim! Next time I get money, I'll buy gifts for them. Haha!"
He stood up and went upstairs.
As he climbed the stairs, new red threads began to emerge from his back. The old web was torn, but a new cage was created instantly.
Inside the silent washroom, that skull still floated. Through its blind sockets, it stared at the newly woven web.
A raspy voice, like the friction of dry bones, whispered in the void:
"The time has come... I must be quick..."
Ruhan heard nothing. He was still holding the window grill, looking toward the gate.
The bullock cart standing there had started moving with a creaking sound. Dust rose from the friction of the wheels.
Inside the cart sat Shirin, Aspia, and Tasnim. Shirin's left hand was wrapped in a blood-stained bandage, but there was no trace of pain in her eyes; there was only a deep, sinister serenity.
"Mother," Aspia said in a low voice so the cart driver wouldn't hear. "Why did Master Azgar send us away for three days like this? Did he suspect something? Are we in danger?"
Shirin smiled. There was no life in that smile. She clutched her bag tightly, as if something invaluable was inside.
"Suspect? Azgar Ahmed doesn't suspect, he makes moves. He thinks by removing us, he will celebrate his son's birthday. Try to lift the curse from his son."
Shirin peered through the gap in the bag at the object inside. The needle-pierced eyes of that grotesque doll seemed to glow in the darkness.
"He doesn't know..." Shirin whispered, a demonic glint appearing in her gaze. "He doesn't know that the 'key to the mind' of his beloved son is now trapped inside this bag of mine. No matter how hard he tries, Ruhan will never be able to raise his head again."
She moved the window curtain and looked back once. In the distance, the Ahmed Palace was shrinking.
"We are not leaving... we are just loosening the thread a little. So that when we pull, the pain hurts even more."
The bullock cart disappeared down the village dirt road, kicking up dust.
And behind, in the storeroom of that dusty palace, the sole heir of the clan remained trapped in an invisible spider's web. He didn't know that a cosmic war had already begun inside his very own body.