Riju sat alone in his room, staring at the Bloodmoon Flower resting quietly in his hand.
Then he laughed.
At first, the sound was soft and uneven, almost breathless.
"…He actually went."
The words slipped out slowly, like a secret he could no longer keep to himself.
His fingers curled tighter around the flower. The crimson petals brushed lightly against his skin, delicate and strangely warm.
Alive.
A faint smile appeared on his face.
"I barely even had to try…"
His voice lowered, thoughtful and quietly amused.
"He liked her. Of course he did."
The smile widened slightly.
"Everyone does."
He leaned back against the wall, replaying the memory in his mind again and again.
"All I said was, 'Misha wants to meet you. Alone.'"
A quiet breath escaped him.
"And he followed immediately."
For a brief moment, something darker flickered across his expression.
"At first, I thought the ghost would only scare him," he admitted softly. "After all, he took the Bloodmoon Flower."
His gaze drifted toward the dark corner of the room.
"But instead…"
His voice became quieter.
"It tore him apart."
The memory surfaced clearly in his mind.
Kiupa had barely stepped out into the corridor before the atmosphere changed. The hallway was silent except for the faint sound of his footsteps. In his hand, the Bloodmoon Flower trembled slightly as he walked.
Then a voice called out softly.
"Kiupa…"
He stopped immediately.
Misha.
It sounded exactly like her.
Hope lit up his face as he turned around quickly—
—but there was no one there.
Only darkness.
Only silence.
Then came the laughter.
"Hehehehehe…"
Children's laughter echoed through the corridor, high-pitched and wrong.
Kiupa's smile disappeared instantly.
"One finger… two fingers… three fingers… four fingers… five fingers…"
The sing-song voice circled around him slowly, almost playfully.
"Now tell me… how many fingers are there~?"
Kiupa's breathing turned uneven.
His grip tightened painfully around the flower.
He tried to step backward.
Tried to run.
Tried to scream.
But his body refused to move.
It felt heavy.
Frozen.
Like something invisible was holding him in place.
Slowly, trembling violently, he forced his eyes open—
—and saw her.
A little girl stood directly in front of him.
Her head tilted at an unnatural angle.
Her smile stretched far too wide across her pale face.
And her eyes—
Empty.
Completely hollow.
Yet somehow still staring directly at him.
"How many fingers are there~?" she repeated cheerfully.
Kiupa opened his mouth to answer.
No sound came out.
The girl's smile widened further.
Then suddenly, her small hand shot forward.
Cold fingers wrapped tightly around his wrist.
And she dragged him deeper into the darkness of the corridor.
The laughter followed endlessly behind him.
Sharp.
Echoing.
Until everything suddenly fell silent.
Back in the present, Riju slowly exhaled.
The amusement on his face twisted into something uglier.
"That pig…" he muttered bitterly before letting out a hollow laugh.
"She liked him."
His grip around the Bloodmoon Flower tightened.
"He used to hit me like I was nothing," he whispered. "Like I was just a punching bag."
For a few seconds, the room remained silent.
Then suddenly—
Riju burst into laughter again.
This time louder.
Sharper.
Completely uncontrolled.
"And now look at him."
The laughter stopped just as suddenly as it began.
Silence filled the room once more.
Heavy.
Suffocating.
Slowly, Riju closed his eyes.
And the past returned immediately.
A younger version of himself stood alone in the corner of a classroom while whispers spread around him like poison.
"Look at him. He's such a freak."
"Who would ever like someone like that?"
Riju's fingers twitched slightly.
That was when he learned the truth.
People did not care about intelligence.
They did not respect effort.
What they admired was something else entirely.
Faces.Charm.
Presence.
People like Misha.
People like Yug.
The kind of people who walked into a room and instantly became the center of attention without even trying.
And Riju?
No matter how hard he worked—
he was never truly seen.
Dining Hall — Morning
The dining hall felt strangely quiet that morning.
Sunlight poured through the tall windows and spread across the long wooden table, but the warmth never reached anyone sitting there. The air remained heavy, tense, almost difficult to breathe in.
No one spoke.
No one even looked up properly.
Every person in the room was thinking about the same thing.
Kiupa was dead.
The memory of the blood-stained corridor still lingered in their minds like a nightmare that refused to fade.
Sian finally broke the silence.
"From now on, the game will become more dangerous," he said calmly.
His voice was steady, but it carried enough weight to make everyone look toward him.
"The death rate will keep increasing. If we want to survive, we need to be careful."
His eyes swept across the table before he continued.
"Do not go outside at night. Lock your doors and windows."
He paused briefly.
"Those were the elder's rules. We cannot afford to ignore them anymore."
Silence followed again.
This time, nobody questioned him.
Nobody argued.
Because deep down, everyone understood the truth now.
This was no longer something they could treat lightly.
After a few seconds, Sian spoke again.
"After breakfast, we're going to the village. We need to investigate Mia."
A few people exchanged uneasy looks.
There was hesitation in the room.
Fear too.
But in the end, everyone quietly agreed.
Right now, clues mattered more than fear.
The atmosphere remained tense until Sreyan suddenly leaned back in his chair with a lazy grin.
"If another ghost appears," he said casually, "it'll probably be because of Xingxing."
He paused on purpose before adding,
"Ghosts seem to like dramatic people."
For a second, Xingxing stared at him in disbelief.
Then her eyes narrowed sharply.
"…You—"
"I am not dramatic," she snapped immediately. "You people are the dramatic ones."
Sreyan looked completely entertained.
"That reaction literally proved my point."
"Shut up."
"Make me."
The two glared at each other across the table while the others silently watched.
Oddly enough, the tension in the room eased a little.
Not completely.
But enough to remind everyone they were still human.
Astha sat quietly nearby, watching the argument unfold.
For the briefest moment, a faint smile appeared on his face.
Small.
Almost invisible.
But Xingxing noticed it immediately.
"What?" she demanded suspiciously. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
Astha didn't answer right away.
He continued eating calmly, completely unaffected by the chaos around him.
Every movement he made was slow and precise.
After a moment, he finally looked at her.
"Why are you in a bad mood?" he asked softly.
Then, after a small pause, he added,
"Did you not sleep well last night?"
Xingxing instantly stiffened.
The question sounded normal.
But the meaning behind it clearly wasn't.
Her expression darkened slightly.
"It is none of your business," she replied coldly.
Astha simply nodded once and returned to his food as if the conversation had already ended.
He didn't push further.
Across the table, Yug quietly watched the entire exchange.
A faint smile slowly appeared on his lips.
But his attention wasn't really on the conversation anymore.
It was on Astha.
More specifically—
the way Astha was eating.
Even now, surrounded by tension and fear, Astha remained perfectly composed.
His back stayed straight.
His sleeves were folded evenly on both sides.
His plate sat exactly at the center of his space, aligned with careful precision. Even the cup beside it was positioned neatly within easy reach.
Nothing looked out of place.
Not a single detail.
Astha picked up his toast.
Then he began spreading butter across it in smooth, careful strokes.
Corner to corner.
Perfectly even.
No missed spots.No overlap.
Yug rested his chin against his hand while watching him with open amusement.
"…Do you measure that or something?" he asked.
Astha didn't even look up.
"Don't you?"
A short silence followed.
Then Sreyan snorted loudly from across the table.
"No normal person does that."
Astha paused for exactly one second.
Then he slowly lifted his eyes.
Calm.Blank.
Completely serious.
He carefully placed the knife down beside his plate, adjusted it once, then adjusted it again until it sat perfectly parallel to the edge.
Only then did he speak.
"…You should."
The worst part was—
he genuinely meant it.
For a moment, nobody said anything.
Then Yug laughed quietly under his breath.
Not mockingly.
Just entertained.
Without saying a word, he gently pushed a small dish toward Astha across the table.
The movement was smooth and deliberate.
The dish stopped slightly crooked.
Astha immediately noticed.
His eyes dropped toward it.
A small pause followed.
Then he reached out and rotated the dish carefully until it aligned perfectly with the table and his plate.
Only after fixing it did he finally look back at Yug.
"…Thank you."
Yug's smile deepened slightly as he watched him.
"Cute," he murmured softly under his breath.
:
Astha's Mind — Beneath the Calm
Kiupa's death was not random.
Astha had already confirmed that much.
He sat quietly at the dining table, holding his cup with steady fingers while the others talked around him. Outwardly, he looked calm as always.
But his thoughts were moving rapidly beneath the surface.
Kiupa had gone out at night.
That alone was important.
The elder had specifically warned them not to leave their rooms after dark, yet Kiupa still went outside. Which meant something had convinced him to ignore the danger.
Astha slowly took another bite of food.
His movements remained perfectly measured.Controlled.
But his mind kept organizing the information piece by piece.
Kiupa responded to a voice.
A familiar one.
Misha.
Astha lowered his gaze slightly.
So the thing in the villa could imitate people.
Or perhaps it could lure targets using voices they trusted.
That possibility alone changed everything.
His fingers adjusted slightly against the cup.
Which meant the victim needed to respond first.
Engagement.Recognition.Acceptance.
A trigger condition.
Astha's eyes narrowed faintly.
There had also been no sign of resistance at first.
No struggle.
No screams heard by others.
That part bothered him.
If Kiupa had been attacked immediately, there should have been noise.
Which meant the entity probably did not attack right away.
Something happened before that.
Fear?
Paralysis?
Some kind of restriction condition?
Astha exhaled softly through his nose.
Still incomplete.
Night.
Isolation.
A familiar voice.
A response.
Restricted movement afterward.
The pattern was beginning to form inside his mind, but gaps still remained.
And Astha hated incomplete systems.
Across the table, Xingxing avoided looking in his direction.
Astha noticed immediately.
Of course he did.
Very little escaped his attention.
He lifted his cup and took another slow sip as though none of it mattered.
Outwardly, he remained calm.
Untouched.
But inwardly, the unfinished logic continued bothering him.
"...Just leave it," he told himself silently.
"I want to be a salted fish."
After that, he returned to eating as though nothing had happened.
At the far end of the table, Riju remained unusually quiet.
He barely touched his food.
Instead, he observed everyone else carefully.
His eyes moved slowly across the group.
Xingxing.Sian.
Yug.
And finally—
Astha.
A faint smile appeared on his lips.
Small.Subtle.
Easy to miss.
While the others were still trapped in fear and confusion, Riju was already thinking ahead.
Outside the villa, the village waited.
And somewhere inside it—
the truth about Mia.
Or perhaps something much worse.
Village — Late Morning
The village felt wrong the moment they arrived.
Not abandoned.
Not ruined.
Just… wrong.
The narrow dirt paths twisted between tightly packed houses whose walls were stained by age and dampness. Half-open windows watched them silently from every direction.
The villagers pretended not to stare.
But they were staring.
The moment the group entered the village, conversations quietly disappeared.
Not suddenly.
Not dramatically.
The sounds simply faded away one by one until only silence remained.
Sian slowed slightly.
"Stay together," he said quietly.
Nobody argued.
Even Sreyan stayed silent this time.
Near the well, a woman continued drawing water with steady movements, but her eyes flickered toward them before quickly looking away again.
Too quickly.
Yug noticed it first.
"...They're avoiding us."
Astha said nothing.
His eyes calmly moved across the surroundings.
The doors.
The windows.
The distance between buildings.
And then he noticed the first real anomaly.
There were no children anywhere.
Not a single one.
Xingxing moved slightly closer to Sian.
"...This place feels strange."
"It is strange," Sian replied.
They eventually approached an old man sitting beneath a large banyan tree.
At first glance, he looked relaxed.
But Astha noticed the repetitive tapping of his fingers against his knee.
A pattern.
Rhythmic.Nervous.
Sian spoke first.
"Excuse me. We wanted to ask about Mia."
The tapping stopped immediately.
The old man slowly raised his eyes.
For just a second, fear flashed across his face.
Then it disappeared.
"No such person," he replied flatly.
Sreyan frowned immediately.
"That's obviously a lie."
Yug shot him a warning glance.
Too aggressive.
The old man's expression sharpened slightly.
"...You people should not stay here long," he muttered.
Astha stepped forward quietly.
Not threatening.
Not forceful.Just precise.
"You know her," he said calmly.
It was not a question.
The old man's jaw tightened.
Silence stretched between them.
Finally, he spoke again.
"I will answer your questions," he said slowly, "but first you must help me with something."
The group exchanged uncertain looks.
Sian remained cautious.
"What do you need?"
The old man pointed toward the distant jungle beyond the village.
"My Sila is lost in the forest," he said quietly. "Bring her back."
Yug frowned slightly.
"...Sila?"
"Your daughter?" Sian asked.
The old man shook his head.
"No."
A brief pause followed.
"It is a goat."
The group fell silent.
Sreyan blinked several times.
"...You're risking our lives for a goat?"
Nobody laughed.
Then Astha spoke calmly.
"Okay. I'll find her."
Everyone turned toward him at once.
Even the old man looked surprised by how quickly he agreed.
"Wait," Xingxing interrupted. "You're serious?"
"The jungle is dangerous," Sian added. "You already know that."
Yug stood up beside Astha.
"If he's going, then I'm going too."
Astha did not react.
His decision had already been made.
Sreyan rubbed his forehead tiredly.
"...You two seriously have a death wish."
Still, neither of them changed their minds.
The old man quietly watched them.
This time, his fingers were no longer tapping.
Astha noticed that immediately.
And that detail mattered.
Jungle Edge — Noon
The moment they stepped beyond the final house, the atmosphere changed.
Not darker.Not colder.
Just quieter.
Too quiet.
Dry leaves crunched beneath their feet while the forest slowly swallowed them whole. Sunlight filtered through the branches overhead in broken fragments, scattering unevenly across the ground.
But there were no birds.
No insects.No wind.
Nothing.
Yug walked slightly behind Astha with his hands casually tucked into his pockets.
"...You didn't agree to this just for a goat," he said.
Astha kept walking.
"No."
A small pause followed.
"You're testing something."
"Yes."
Yug smiled faintly.
"I figured."
Silence returned between them.
Then suddenly—
Astha stopped walking.
Abruptly.
Yug stopped as well, but he did not ask why.
He simply waited.
Astha's gaze shifted slightly toward the trees on their left.
Not directly.
Just enough.
"...It's starting," he said quietly.
Yug's faint smile remained.
"Already?"
Astha ignored the question.
Instead, he spoke calmly, almost as though organizing notes aloud.
"Rule hypothesis," he said.
"Condition one: the entity initiates contact using a familiar voice."
A short pause followed.
"Condition two: the target responds."
Another pause.
"Condition three: movement becomes restricted afterward."
Yug tilted his head slightly.
"You sound pretty confident."
Astha's expression remained calm.
"I am not."
And then—
"Misha..."
The voice came softly from behind them.
Warm.Familiar.Human.
Yug's eyes flickered slightly.
Then he sighed.
"...That is definitely not me."