The twin moons of Mars— Phobos of fear and Deimos of Terror.
They say when the sky bears two moons — one silver, one red — it is a night when the heavens open their ears to mortal cries.
If you wait with earnest heart until midnight, and offer your wish with a soul scraped bare, the lunar gods, ever mercurial and cruel, might grant you a speck of mercy.
Avis had nothing left but that whisper of superstition.
For five days — five long, maggot-ridden, breathless days — no one visited her. No footsteps echoed in her prison, no trembling maid dared peek through the wooden door. Not a cup of water. Not a word. Not even a glance to check if she was still capable of rotting while clinging onto her puny life.
The flesh on her arms had already bloated, some layers ruptured into dark red fissures that oozed pus and death. The stench could bring gods to gag. But Avis… she had long stopped gagging. Her nose was used to the scent of despair.
She stared up, past the peeling rafters, through the hole in the roof — her only window to the world. Through it, the moonlight dripped like pity upon her face.
Was it midnight? She didn't know. Time no longer belonged to her. Her hours had been bartered long ago for a family's shame.
But this… this was surely the end.
Her lips parted.
Even that was agonizing — as if her jaw had rusted from disuse, the bones locked in defiance. Tears slid down her cheeks, hot, silent, meaningless. Her ribcage rattled like a broken cage, where every breath felt like a war.
The girl cried — cried more violently than the rain that drowned the world outside her hut in the past days. She sobbed not from fear, but from injustice. For though she had the soul of a gentle wind, the world treated her like a plague. For her face. For her skin. For the despicable horns. And for the sin of being different.
How cruel that kindness made no difference in a world built for the beautiful. No matter how much kindness and goodness she showered the world, the world will always be unkind to her for appearing like a monster.
So how could she not ask the gods for mercy? That night she earnestly whispered — a trembling, shaking voice barely louder than a mouse's sigh.
"If there is a god… if you're really there… I beg you. Please… have mercy and take away my pain. I'm so tired of this treatment. Why did I have to live like a curse? Please, if there is a second life for me… anywhere, even if it is hell… let me be beautiful. Just once. I want to be seen. Not feared. Not hated. Just… seen. Please…"
A wish that was frail and foolish but that's what made her human in the end. Because that is what humans do best: to crave, to hope, to beg gods who rarely listen.
To wish.
And to realize too late.
The wooden door creaked, and a shadowy figure appeared. Its eyes glowed lethal and red under the twin moon's eerie light.
"This dumb bitch is finally dead. Now, I can— shit!" before the person could even touch her body, a strong gust of wind manifested like a god's sneeze and struck the hut in a matter of second.
It was too sudden that it caught the person off guard, leaving him in tatters with a few bones snapped after colliding with the surge and flying off the grid.
However, by the time he recovered his footing and return to the scene, the body was gone. All gone!
It was too sudden yet felt deliberate. For this reason, the man instantly rage in fury with his predatory eyes bloodshot filled with brimming murderous intent.
"Unforgivable! Who dares to steal this Zaskan's prey?! I will kill you! Insolent trash, I will find you and fucking tear your bones and spit on your remains, argh!"
The furious man let out a blood-curdling roared, clearly losing his mind.
---
(Note: The places mentioned are highly fictional.)
Spring arrives just when you've forgotten the warmth of it — that is why it strikes so deeply. That is why it is so beautiful.
But so was chaos.
It arrived with the same suddenness, blooming not in cherry blossoms, but in the shrieks that tore through the outskirts of Wuhan.
Inside an inconspicuous clinic in a dark alley...
"N-Nurse Han! What's happening to you?! AH!"
The scream was sharp enough to slash open the veil of unconsciousness. Avis jolted awake, pulled from the depths of darkness that had engulfed her.
She wasn't dead?
The smell — antiseptic, iron, rot — stabbed at her nostrils. Her eyes fluttered open to a ceiling too white and lights too blinding. Machines beeped frantically. Her arms, once raw and fetid, were now bound in clean gauze. Even the linens beneath her were fresh.
The festering agony that had consumed her days earlier was now muted beneath a strange, electric hum beneath her skin.
Where... was she?