It hadn't been long before Touya opened his eyes, trying to take in his surroundings.
It was still cold, but the only difference was that he was inside a car, and his hands were shackled. The car came to a violent halt, forcing Touya to jolt forward from the trunk. The moment he found his footing, the rear doors swung open. His eyes were momentarily blinded by the light, but four pairs of hands seized him effortlessly, shoved a sack over his head, and began dragging him, attempting to force him into a palace that resembled an inn.
The light seeping through the torn parts of the sack wasn't sunlight. It was the artificial glow of a lamp, illuminating a palace shrouded in red and black, reminiscent of a structure under a starry sky woven from endless darkness. It was terrifying and blood-chilling.
'Fuck, fuck, fuck! Was there ever a place like this in the north?!'
'No, there can't be! Where am I? Let me go, you sons of bitches! I swear I'll trample on all your corpses, you motherfuckers!'
By the time a hand removed the sack from his head, they were already inside the palace. Before him stood a man with a scar on his face, wearing a pinstriped suit with a red bow tie, holding a deck of tarot cards.
One of the others began screaming and shouting. Yes, Touya wasn't the only one who had been kidnapped. And as if that weren't enough, it was already Touya's turn. He had no time to look around, but he had already noticed that all the men bore the same scar.
"Are you some kind of cartel? I didn't do anything to you, let me go!"
The man's voice was low and even as he spoke, carrying a tone of someone who took pleasure in this.
"Did you think we were mere street rats, like a cartel? No. We are a choice. A future. Freedom. Pick one. Based on the card you draw from the deck, you will know your future. Let's hope it's a good one. Life on the streets is hard. Why should a nobody like you die for nothing when there are so many people with potential among us?"
With an unsatisfied sigh and a trembling hand, Touya reached for the tarot cards.
The man instantly took several steps closer, his face inches from Touya's, and spoke in a chillingly loud voice.
"No, no, no. Pay attention. This is you."
When Touya drew a card, he nearly had a heart attack. But when he looked at the card in his hand, his face grew even paler.
It was the 0 of the Arcana deck – The Fool.
The man who saw it burst into loud laughter; it was utterly irritating. Everyone was looking at him with mocking, grinning faces.
The man spoke, clearly amused.
"You picked The Fool, did you? Hmm. They say it's a card of the novice, the freedom-seeker, the stubborn one. We rarely see those who draw this card live long. They usually meet their end in their naivety, falling for fate's little games."
Touya's expression fell further and further. He was aware his time was up here. After all, they could do worse than just kill a novice rebel. Finally, the man spoke.
"You're a slave now. A slave. You'll eat every kind of shit as a slave. Your card chooses freedom, doesn't it? Well, I can fuck destiny right in its face this way."
As Touya's anger, sorrow, and nausea intensified, the man's annoying laughter became vile and harsh, loud and piercing.
Touya lost consciousness again, this time from a kick delivered by the man in front of him. If he could have guessed, he would have thought his jaw was probably broken.
---
His current situation was not good.
He found himself chained up the moment he awoke. His surroundings were dark, but that wasn't the only problem. The problem was the dozens of portals around him. If sensing the presence of the creatures within those portals was this easy even for a normal human, then it meant each gateway truly concealed a powerful entity.
Right now, the main problem wasn't even the portals. This world had already spat on this young boy far too much. Now, as a slave, he was being led past these very gateways. His life had never been good, evident since his mother was gone. He never knew his father; he had left, run away when Touya was very young. But he often found solace in the memory of his sister, who had always vowed to protect him.
Until his father took her away from him.
After his mother vanished, life became worse. Hunger, poverty, the toxic air, the dangers of the streets, and the struggle for survival of a misfit child.
Looking back now, his life had been anything but beautiful. Yet, he had felt he could change it. That feeling, he supposed, had become real, but... not like this.
Shoved towards one of the portals, Touya came to a stop right in front of it.
In a rushed tone, Touya spat out, "What now? Are you going to throw me into a random portal? Is this how far human trafficking goes? Making me suff–"
The man's sudden kick made him want to clutch his stomach, to vomit the food that wasn't even there, but he couldn't. And in an instant, the portal's cold winds grew even colder.