On a dark night, the stars disappeared behind the clouds, as if hiding from something frightening. In a small village on the edge of the world, a baby named Saka was born. The wind was howling, and the tall trees swayed as if fearing something was coming. Even the ground beneath the midwife's feet trembled, as if she sensed that this child was not normal.
When Saka was born, his mother screamed in labor pains, but her screams were drowned out by the sudden thunder that exploded in the sky. But Saka's first scream wasn't like any ordinary baby's—it was like the roar of an angry beast, emerging from the depths of darkness.
Everyone in the room stopped moving. Even the doctor, trying to help the mother, froze. No one realized that anything serious had happened.
When they wrapped the baby in cloth, they noticed a strange mark on his chest—the shape of half a demon's face, with a red eye glowing like fire. The mark moved with the baby's breathing, like a living creature trying to escape!
Everyone in the room was terrified. The old woman made the sign of the cross, and the doctor whispered:
"He's half-demon!"
His mother, dying of exhaustion, looked at him one last time and whispered:
"Forgive me... I didn't know he'd be born like this."
Then she died.
Saka had no father.
His mother left him only his name—Saka—and a mysterious will she'd heard from a strange man in the night:
"If the sign ever appears, don't leave him among humans, for he won't be safe for them... nor for them to be safe for him."
But she died before she could explain what it meant.
And so began Saka's life.
He was no ordinary child. He was a monster in the eyes of humans, and a stranger even among other monsters.
The world Saka lives in
The world is divided into two parts:
The world of humans: large, developed cities, but their laws prohibit any non-human being from living among them.
The land of monsters: a land filled with forests and high mountains, where supernatural creatures live.
But Saka belongs neither.
He grew up in a poor village on the edge of the human world, where everyone feared him and called him "the son of the devil." He learned how to defend himself from those who tried to harm him and how to escape the hunters who hunted people like him.
Every time he was expelled or humiliated, he would ask himself:
Why was I born this way?
But no one gave him an answer.
Elsewhere in the world:
In the major cities: Human leaders plot to eliminate any non-human threat—including Saka.
But he doesn't know anything about this yet.
All he knows is that the mark on his chest sometimes hurts, and his future is uncertain...
As dark as the night he was born.
Between the wall built by humans with advanced, sophisticated tools, and the wall constructed by monsters from stones, trees, and lava, lived the six-year-old outcast, Saka, surviving on the water that falls from the sky, what comes out of the earth, and everything that is spent.
A life I wouldn't wish on even my enemy.
Saka was a child born half-beast. It wasn't his fault. The scar on his chest wasn't his choice, but it sealed his fate.
Humans saw Saka—despite his half-demon status—as something they could tame, pit him against the monsters, and use him as a weapon to fight us, no different from any broken bone in a dirty street brawl.
Six-year-old Saka had seen a lot of people, from beatings to starvation. He knew he was born in hell. His instincts taught him that humans are never friends. Four years of humiliation taught Saka to fight monsters.
One day, a scientist decided to put a collar around Saka's neck, telling him that it would explode if he left them. He took Saka's head with him, and that he would release Saka in exchange for a live monster.
Saka immediately agreed and headed toward the forest, knowing he only had one day to offer a monster's head.
As he ran through the forest, Saka realized that these monsters he was about to kill... hadn't harmed him, and he didn't know them. Saka looked at his reflection in a swamp and asked himself:
"Am I a monster?"
Perhaps he was answering to himself because he knew there was no place for him in the human world.
He ran toward their world, saying:
"Maybe I'll find good people... Maybe behind this wall are people who will accept me."
Saka stopped at the monster listening posts, asking for their help. As soon as they saw him, all the monsters rejected "Saka" because he was human.
No matter what Saka did, he would never be a true monster or a true human. He literally looked at his reflection in everything, like a monster rejected by all classes. They despised him; he was the black sheep of this world.
He noticed that time was running out and that this collar would explode in minutes. He looked at himself, literally doomed to death from both sides.
Saka's hatred was intense...
for both sides.
Seconds counted for Saka. He headed deeper into the forest, believing that death alone was the only way out.
The collar exploded, but instead of killing him, it burned Saka's neck and jaw, leaving him in agony and hell. Saka remained in place between the two walls. He looked at the amount of pain the humans had caused him... and the monsters who had abandoned him as if it were nothing...
Saka: "Oh, I'm bleeding... This hurts... Why? What did I do to them and why did they abandon me?..."
Saka: "Am I a monster?... The sound of blood dripping from Saka's jaw."
Saka: "Or am I human?... The sound of flesh burning from the explosion."
Saka: "Oh, it doesn't matter anymore... Because if I die now, that's fine... But if I live until tomorrow, I will just suffer in this hell again! for... today.... and . Aaaah!!"
Saka looked at what remained of his mouth in its reflection in the pool of blood beneath him... As his sight and hearing began to fade, he lost all senses, overcome by a heavy, unquenchable sleep, tears streaming from his eyes.
He lost consciousness.