6:00 AM.
General Crane is sitting in his office. A cup of tea rests in front of him. On the wall monitors, the surveillance footage from the research laboratory is playing. Suddenly, there is a loud knock on the door.
"Enter!"
A soldier rushes inside. His face is pale, his hands trembling. Even after saluting, he struggles to speak.
General Crane frowns in irritation.
"What happened? Speak quickly!"
The soldier says in a shaky voice,
"Sir… news from that prison."
The General immediately stands up.
"What news? Tell me now!"
The soldier lowers his head.
"Sir… last night, in the special prison… all the guards were found dead. Their throats cut. Twenty-seven of them. No survivors. And the prisoners… they've all escaped. The entire nation."
The General's eyes widen. He quickly moves to the monitor and checks the prison camera footage. At 2:00 AM, all the cameras shut off. After that, nothing was recorded.
He shouts,
"How is that possible? That is our most secure prison! No one can get inside! And an entire nation escaped? Impossible!"
The soldier whispers,
"Sir… we believe… this is the work of IDFC."
The General freezes. He slowly turns toward the soldier.
"IDFC? Are you certain?"
The soldier replies,
"Sir, judging by the bodies with slit throats, it looks like their style. No doors were broken, no walls damaged, and the cameras shut down on their own. The guards were asleep, and then in a single moment it was all over. No other organization can operate this perfectly. They came, took the prisoners, and disappeared—like they were never there."
The General slowly sinks back into his chair, placing a hand on his forehead. After a long silence, he begins to speak.
"IDFC… International Dark Forces Corps. The most powerful and most terrifying terrorist organization in the world. I know quite a lot about them. Once, while trying to track them down, half of my soldiers died."
The soldier listens quietly. In the General's eyes there are memories now—memories soaked in blood.
The General continues,
"No one knows where their headquarters is. No one knows who their members are. No one knows where their funding comes from. They are like shadows. Wherever they go, life does not return. No one sees them, yet they see everything. No one hears them, yet they hear everything."
He takes a deep breath. He lifts the tea cup but never drinks from it.
"Even the name of their leader is unknown. Intelligence agencies across the world tried to find out. All failed. So everyone calls him by one name—Dark Psycho."
The soldier whispers,
"Dark Psycho?"
The General nods slowly.
"Yes. He's a madman. But not just mad—a brilliant madman. His intelligence, his strategy, his cruelty… extraordinary. He doesn't wage war; he plays games. People are puppets to him. When he decides someone should be removed from the game, they disappear. And when he decides to save someone, he saves them—even through all our security systems."
He looks at the monitor again. The footage now shows only the last frame—the empty prison cells, rows and rows of them.
"In that prison there was an entire nation. We brought them from different countries. They spoke against our project. So we destroyed their homeland. The survivors were brought here. They worked for us—from morning until night. They were barely fed. They were beaten. Those who got sick received no treatment. They died slowly."
The soldier says quietly,
"Sir, I've seen that prison. Their condition was terrible. Women cried. Children had no food. The elderly died, and we threw away their bodies."
The General looks sharply at him.
"Are you feeling sorry for them?"
The soldier remains silent.
The General continues,
"Dark Psycho saved them. Why? Because he wants to save them… or because he has another plan? Will he turn them into his soldiers? Will he use them to fight against us?"
He stands and walks to the window. Outside, the sun is rising over Imolodia—but in his eyes there is only darkness.
"Another terrifying thing about him—no one has ever seen his face. Those who have… didn't survive. Some rumors say there is no face beneath his mask. Others say he has a thousand faces. I once came close to him myself. Fifteen years ago. We had a mission to locate one of their bases. We almost succeeded. Then one night… I saw only a shadow. A black shadow standing among my soldiers. The next morning… half of them were dead. The rest had gone insane. They kept repeating only one thing—his eyes… his eyes."
The soldier asks in a trembling voice,
"Sir, why did they take the prisoners from the jail? What will they do with them?"
The General narrows his eyes.
"That is the biggest question. Among those people were many strong individuals. Many talented ones. We used them as labor. But now Dark Psycho has taken them. He might train them. Turn them into fighters against us. Or hide them somewhere… for some bigger game in the future."
He returns to his desk and presses a button. A world map appears on the screen. Red marks indicate possible IDFC bases—but most of them are only guesses. Many locations are labeled "Unknown."
The General says,
"You may go. Alert all soldiers. Declare a state of emergency. From now on, every prison and every research facility will have double guards. And don't tell anyone about this. Keep the prison incident secret. We will say the prisoners were transferred to another facility."
The soldier salutes and leaves.
The General remains alone in the room. His eyes filled with thought. A pen spins slowly in his hand.
He whispers,
"Dark Psycho… you've returned. After so many years. And you took all the prisoners from my prison. But why? What did you see in that nation?"
He opens a confidential file containing everything known about IDFC. Most pages are empty. Only a few blurry images. On the final page, a single sentence is written:
"Whoever chases Dark Psycho begins to fear even their own shadow."
The General closes the file and looks out the window.
Outside, the sun has risen. A new day begins in Imolodia. But this day is different. Because from today, Imolodia faces not only an enemy—but a mystery.
The prison is empty. The soldiers are dead. And somewhere, in some unknown place, Dark Psycho is sitting with a mysterious smile.
Behind him stand the people of that nation—now free. Learning how to live again. Gratitude in their eyes.
And in the eyes of Dark Psycho… what is there?
No one knows.
The General whispers,
"Where are you, Dark Psycho? And where are the prisoners from my jail?"
No answer comes. Only a name drifts through the air—
Dark Psycho.
And inside the empty prison cells, there is now only silence.
A silence that foretells the storm to come.