She opened her eyes to find herself imprisoned within a pitch-black void; a darkness that stretched endlessly, like an eternal shroud woven from the threads of a night that knew no dawn. She turned left and right, frantically searching for an exit from this gloom, but it was in vain. The abyss here possessed a terrifying grip that left no room for escape. In the midst of that funerary silence, she caught the faint sound of bitter weeping. She moved toward it with heavy steps, only to find a little girl cowering in a corner of oblivion.
Hana froze in her tracks. That child was her—the same brown hair, the same boyish clothes that had witnessed days long gone. The child lifted her head, and hazel eyes drowned in tears met Hana's vacant, lifeless gaze. The little one reached out a trembling hand, clutching the edge of Hana's hand like a drowning person grasping at a straw, and asked in a voice that could shatter stone:
"Do you know how I can go home? Please... where is my home?"
Hana pulled her hand away with a slow, chilling coldness. She spoke in a calm voice, unusual for her—a silence that either precedes a storm or follows total destruction:
"There is no home... I'm sorry. Heh, no such thing exists. The place you long to return to is filled with monsters that feed on nothing but the tearing of your soul."
The child hung her head in bitterness and said, "But they are my family... they are the place where I belong."
Hana replied with a cruelty that masked an unbearable agony: "Not every house is a place fit for living, and not everyone bound to you by blood is family. Blood is merely a frail bond, easily severed. They are not your family, even if the same poisonous fluid flows through your veins."
The child pushed Hana away with a cry of despair and ran into the darkness, chanting, "It's not true! They won't abandon me!" until she vanished into the abyss.
Hana whispered behind her, "They did something worse than abandoning you... they utterly destroyed your soul. Heh, truly... you were too small to carry this ruin alone."
Suddenly, the shadows shifted to form a distorted image of a man and a woman in an endless quarrel. Between them stood the child, pressing her hands against her head, trying to block her ears as she wept in silence. Hana (Huliniya) watched with a face as cold as ice and said, "Do you want to see the remaining chapters of this miserable life now?"
The image changed. Hana found herself standing before a fourteen-year-old version of herself. The teenager screamed with pure hatred: "It's your fault! If only you were never born, everything would have been better! Your very existence is a curse... Why didn't you die? Why?"
Hana replied with a faint, hollow smile, "I, too, fell in love with death... but as you can see, it was a one-sided love, unfortunately."
The fourteen-year-old girl collapsed to her knees, clutching Hana's clothes in total breakdown: "I'm tired of trying... tired of the looks of contempt. Everything has turned black in my eyes... Why didn't you help me? Why did you leave me alone?"
Hana let out a dry, wounded laugh, "I'm sorry, but there was no point. Why should I do something that wouldn't change a single thing about the bitter truth?"
The girl evaporated, fading with the wind as she moaned, "Please..."
Hana spoke into the emptiness: "I'm sorry, me... but there is no use in saving you after you've been completely shattered. I died while I was still alive, so what is the point of trying to revive ashes?"
She raised her head toward the darkness and screamed, "Take me out now, System!"
A dark reflection appeared before her—a woman with strange features but a matching cruelty. Hana looked at this reflection and said mockingly, "Truly... I love this distorted form."
The reflection spoke: "You are merely a person who sold themselves to death."
Hana replied with a broken pride: "And I am proud of it. If it required killing you again, I would do it with joy. I no longer need a heart that searches for false happiness; luxury was not created for the likes of me. I don't care what they say about me; I forgot what feelings were a long time ago. The blow that doesn't kill you makes you forget who you are."
She concluded, swallowing the darkness within her: "I will seek my salvation no matter what happens. If death does not come to me on its own feet, I will go to it... but only after I take my revenge on those who made my soul a lifeless corpse. I am dead, and I am alive... there is no longer a big difference."