There was harrowing darkness.
In that darkness the first thing he saw was blood.
A hand, slick with dark, half-dried blood, emerged in reality out of the void itself. Its fingers shook as they etched an uneven, almost frantic symbol onto a slab of blackened stone. The symbol pulsed faintly, alive with something ancient and utterly wrong.
Around the wrist of the hand, a single chain was wrapped tightly. It extended backward into the nothingness behind it. The chain reeked of rot and corruption, as though dipped in the souls of the damned. Where it touched the air, the space shimmered as if rejecting its presence.
There was nothing else.
Only that shaking, bloodied hand... carving a message no sane mind could decipher.
Then suddenly he was elsewhere.
The sky was dark and the crimson moon hung in the sky. He saw a pit, boiling, bubbling. He was standing before a pit filled with some black, roiling substance that hissed like a dying god. All around him, faceless figures cloaked in black robes carried infants, hundreds of them. The children's cries were like a spell for the ritual.
Somewhere in the background, a lullaby played. Out of tune. Inhuman.
The air reeked of copper and fear.
And then, he saw a tower taller than mountains, built of bone and sinew. At its peak, a thousand arms reached out for something unseen.
And then an eye. A single, terrible eye, opening above all things.
It turned.
And it looked directly at him.
---
What's going on...?
That was the first thought that formed clearly, fully in the mind of the newborn.
His body trembled, confused and overwhelmed. But his mind was not that of a baby.
I was in Tokyo... My room... I died?
The dream still clung to him. A clawing residue of fear pressed against the edges of his thoughts like an oil slick that wouldn't wash off.
He blinked just once as light flooded his vision. The warm glow of firelight, soft fabric, the subtle scent of sweat.
He was being held.
A woman's face hovered over him, tired, radiant, beautiful. Blonde hair framed tear-streaked cheeks as she clutched him close to her chest, whispering something in a gentle voice. He understood her. Not through study, but instinct.
"He's beautiful...."
A tall man stood beside her. Black hair, sharp eyes, and a noble bearing. His arms were crossed, his eyes unreadable.
And beside him a small boy. Barely three, clinging to the man's robes. The boy had the man's hair but the woman's kindness in his eyes. He looked at the newborn with awe.
The child whispered something, leaning forward with hesitant excitement.
The woman laughed softly, exhausted but happy.
But inside the baby, there was no peace.
That dream... What is going on?
That dream... was it really just a dream?
The chain. The blood. The eye.
It hadn't felt like imagination. It felt like... contact.
Somewhere, something immense and terrible had reached for him.
Not to kill him,
But for an unknown purpose..He didn't know what. He didn't want to know.
A whisper of dread stirred inside him, rooted deep in the pit of his soul.
That he was here for a reason he hadn't agreed to.
And he had an ominous feeling, that something, somewhere, was watching him.
Still watching...