One day...
The night was of the kind where the sky devours itself.
The wind did not howl… it groaned, like a body on its deathbed.
Thick clouds wrapped around the moon like a white shroud covering a corpse of light.
In a remote village, isolated from the Kingdom of Valentine,
the houses leaned as if they too were dying,
the earth cracked, as though bleeding from its heart.
People barely ate… barely dreamed… barely survived.
But that morning…
their hearts were eaten—literally.
Screams. The neighing of horses. The gleam of armor.
Knights bearing the crest of Valentine, their faces hidden,
their eyes cold as death,
stormed the village without warning… without mercy.
Four children.
Among them… "Kyore."
They were torn from their mothers' arms like flesh ripped from bone.
One mother screamed—not just a scream,
but a hemorrhage of sound from her throat—
as she ran after the knight dragging her son away:
> "Nooooo!! Kyore!! Don't take him!!"
But no one turned.
No one spoke.
They were like machines of silence and slaughter.
One knight remained after the others left.
He wasn't masked.
His face was bare… yet featureless,
as though skin had been stretched over a mask of nothingness.
The mother stared at him with maddened eyes,
gasping like a drowning woman:
> "W–why? Why my son?"
He stood before her. He didn't blink. Didn't flinch:
> "I pity you. So I'll be generous…
Your son? He'll be more useful than he is now.
He'll undergo an experiment… that will make him something extraordinary."
> "What… do you mean?"
He smiled faintly, but it was a nightmare of a smile:
> "Human experiments.
We'll turn the children into beings that protect the kingdom.
Monsters… walking on two legs."
The mother gasped.
Her tears spilled with her curse:
> "Experiments?! On humans?! You're insane!
I can't even imagine my son being tortured!
I don't want him to be a monster! I don't want him to be crushed just to protect your filthy kingdom!!"
She collapsed to the ground.
Her scream was not a sound, but the bleeding of a soul:
> "Bring him back… bring back the piece of my soul you've torn away…
Bring back the fragment of my flesh you've stolen!!"
The knight stepped closer, his voice cold as the edge of a blade:
> "Your screams mean nothing.
My brief sympathy… is over."
A voice rose from the crowd, a father's desperate shout:
> "You're demons! Return our children! We're human! We—"
A sudden cut… like a tree being felled.
His head dropped.
Silence.
Blood sprayed across Kyore's mother's face.
She froze, mouth open, breath stolen.
The knight looked at her and asked, with deathly calm:
> "Do you still oppose us?"
Her voice was broken, yet steady, as though it was the last shred of hope she possessed:
> "Yes… and may everything burn in hell."
The second head flew.
Her body fell to the ground,
her eyes still wide open,
chasing a ghost that no longer existed.
Then the village fell silent.
Everything… shattered.
---
The castle — the underground laboratory
The stench of iron… sweat… and death.
The children were herded into stone cells,
windowless, lightless…
as if carried from their mothers' wombs straight into solitary graves.
In his cell sat "Kyore."
His body trembled,
his eyes drowned in tears.
His voice came only as broken whispers:
> "Mom… Mom, I'm scared… these people are dangerous…
Mom… help me…"
But the darkness was deeper than any call.
Then…
the door creaked open.
The knight who had slain his mother stepped inside.
In his hand, a small box, bound with a red ribbon.
He knelt before the child, his voice a blend of mockery and cruelty:
> "A gift… from the kingdom… to please you."
Kyore opened the box with trembling fingers…
And the head fell out.
His mother's head.
Her hair clotted with blood.
Her eyes frozen,
just as they had been in her final moment…
but this time…
resting in his hands.
Kyore screamed.
It was no human scream.
It was the shattering of a heart into a thousand echoes.
He clutched the head to his chest,
as if his breath could force life back into her.
His face twisted with grief, with terror, with madness.
> "Moooooooom!!!"
The knight laughed, his voice dripping like an open wound:
> "Didn't you like the gift?"