Meanwhile, the truck driver twists a dial back and forth, slamming every button in reach each time like it's some kind of game and he's chasing a high score.
"Come on, you stupid piece of junk," he growls, twisting, then pressing and cursing, until he exhales in relief as a small light flickers on across the console.
"Finally!"
Hand dropping with the radio, he breathes out, steadies himself, opens his mouth to speak—
"Wha-at do you think you're doooing?"
He freezes.
The voice is warped, sometimes deep, sometimes high, crawling through the dim comfort of the cab.
The driver doesn't answer. He just sits there, staring at the microphone with his eyes wide open.
"Hmm? Don't want to a-answer me?" the voice presses, as suddenly a black, gaseous hand brushes against his throat.
"W-was I rude? O-or are you d-deaf, maybe?"
A little gulp escapes, as his gaze averts and his head turns around.
Slowly at first, hesitantly at last.
And never surely.
As his veins run cold.
As his thoughts scatter.
As he sees it.
A figure made entirely of shifting black fog, unreal, almost impossible—yet staring back. With two tiny red points at his eye level.
"W-w-what… are y-you?" the man stammers.
A mistake.
The shadow's expression twists. Beneath its piercing eyes, a thicker line forms, curling downward like the corners of a cruel mouth.
"Didn't anyone ever teach you…"
The voice sharpens and the gaseous hand clamps tight around his throat, pinning him against the roof of the cab.
"…that you never answer a question with another question?"
"Uh—agh… n-no I—I…", the driver chokes, but the lack of oxygen already strangles away the words.
"Haaaah…".
The shadow's sigh does nothing to ease the terror.
"Seems you're just as useless. Humans… you're all far too fragile."
"N-no… p-pleeease… f-family… my… family!" the man begs, clawing at the grip, nails scratching, pulling, doing anything—everything—to cling to life.
"Family? Had one too. And now? You think I'll spare you because you tell me about your life story? Ahahaha!"
The shadow mocks, squeezing until spit runs down from its plaything's mouth.
"U–ghhh… k-kids… m-my ch-children…"
"Tzz…".
A hiss precedes the final grip and it's following snap, as his eyes roll back.
"Well… hope dies at last, I suppose. In the face of death, you're all the same. But do you know what never dies? That's right…"
With a violent slam, the shadow smashes the lifeless body against the truck's window.
"Despair lives on! It spreads like a plague. First your friends. Then your loved ones. And in the end, it devours your whole world—until there's nothing left! Hehehi!"
The downward-turned mouth stretches upward, forming a twisted smile as the red points drop to the dangling microphone. Its static has gone silent.
"Okta 2, do you read? Message to Okta 2, night delivery—please respond!"
A voice crackles through, then pauses.
"Okta 2? Anyone there?"
It bleeds into the quiet cab.
But no one answers. Nothing answers. Nothing but the smile of a monster, the wavering shadow with its arrogant grin, its darkness dripping down the walls.
"Hehehi."
"Keep this up, and one day we won't even be needed anymore!"
Outside the truck, Shato's praise hits me. I've been standing there, lost in thought, watching the mist rise, creeping up and around the transporter.
Startled, I turn—only to realize five masked figures have already gathered at the scene, watching my work in silence.
"Oh, come on," I answer awkwardly after the moment passes, turning back to the truck.
"All unconscious," Zane mutters at the same time, his white mask painted with shaky crayon circles around the eyes, while he presses his fingers against the throats of the fallen bodies.
"You didn't kill them?" Rin's voice flares up, sharp and angry. But I ignore it.
"Hello? I asked you a question."
She presses, stepping in front of me, her fox mask gleaming in the lamplight, red rings painted around the eyeholes.
"You really should've finished them, kid," Talan's tiger face cuts in, piling on the pressure.
"Guys, let it be. They weren't even…" Shato tries to calm the others, but he's immediately cut off.
"No, Shato! You're way too soft on him. What if the enemy is just pretending to be unconscious? They could be planning an ambush, take him by surprise and overwhelm him."
The lecture comes sharp and angry. Still, my eyes stay fixed on the transporter.
"For once, Rin's right," Daclan's calm voice agrees, his breath almost pleasant despite the words. "You finish your enemy while you have the chance. Negligence can get you killed."
"Exactly… Wait, for once!?" Rin snaps, spinning toward the black mask split down the middle by a yellow lightning bolt.
"I get what you mean, but—" Shato starts again, trying to defend me, but this time I interrupt him, swinging my cloak through the air and planting one hand smugly on my hip.
"No, Shato. They're absolutely right. What if we had to fight those officers again? They'd be hopelessly outmatched!"
My provocation works. Rin's face twists, her right hand balling into a fist as she storms toward me, snorting through her rage.
"So you think this is funny, huh!?" she spits.
But before it explodes into a fight, the fog thickens at our feet, followed by a mocking, almost playful laughter that ripples across the paved street, rolling from one grassy embankment to the next.
"Was that…?" Rin's voice hardens, her fist dropping as the danger sinks in.
"Sounds like our cargo," Talan mutters, moving to her side.
"But nowhere did it say the cargo was alive," Daclan replies, his towering frame letting him see over our heads, watching as the license plate disappears into the deep fog.
"Ahahaha! Hehehehi! Mihihihi!" The laugh bursts out—strained, forced—sliding past us as though it wants to come from behind.
All at once, every head turns. Mine too, hesitant at first, but then certain, because even Shato is staring into the darkness, into nothing.
The correct choice, I realize, the moment footsteps rise from that very nothing. Quiet, crackling. Louder, pounding. Then still. Then silent.
"Still the same as always. You haven't changed a bit, hahaha," a voice follows the steps, young, caught between boyhood and the drop into a deeper register, clinging stubbornly to its childish edge.
It's the voice of a boy, pale-faced, empty black eyes. His body shrouded in fog, and yet there—an outline, a silhouette blurred into the night.
He's barely taller than me. Barely older. Hardly the monster he try's to be—and yet here, at the edge of the flickering lamplight, he seems disturbingly sinister.
He smiles, but does not move. He blinks, almost human—and still more like a spirit, some supernatural phantom leaning ever so slightly toward us.
"What are you?" Talan demands, more threat than question, overeager, skipping right past the most important part of what was said.
"What does it matter? If I'm going to kill you tonight anyway."
The boy, or the ghost, or both, grins higher, his mouth stretched as if it was already broken.
"You sound pretty confident," Talan snaps back, slamming his tiger fist into his open palm.
From the corner of my eye, I catch Rin sliding her cloak aside, her fingers curling tight around the golden hilt of the sword peeking from its sheath. Always the cautious one.
"A little full of yourself, aren't you," Zane chimes in, his voice sharp. It's as if none of them are even trying to listen to him.
Maybe I'm the only one thinking about it. Because Daclan takes a step forward, ready to fight, ready to strike, when the question itself deserves more weight than anyone is giving it.
"Well, what can I say? I'm so confident I'll even give you a short break. After all, you've already nearly taken care of my revenge for me."
The boy answers, fog pulsing at his feet, his eyes flaring with brilliant black.
My thoughts stop. My inner voice falls silent. My eyes sharpen, darting left and right, catching glimpses of the fog—the cops—and then, suddenly, black hands shoot up from the ground, yanking them one by one into the shadows.
"How thoughtful of you," Zane mutters, voice dripping with sarcasm.
The boy only lifts his right arm, conducting the nightmare with a flick of his hand.
On cue, I forget the question. Forget the why. Forget reason.
My head lowers. My left hand clenches into a fist.
My right hand gathers a violet shimmer, thin as silk, same glow as my eyes behind the dragon mask.
"He'd rather go after innocents? Helpless people who have nothing to do with this…"
The words escape me in a whisper, my head lifting, sunken eyes locking on him.
It feels like a wall collapsing.
In the face of this act—a wall that everything, absolutely everything in me, was built upon. My thoughts. My feelings. Myself. That one principle, that single foundation—broken. A line he never should have crossed.
He attacks innocents.
People who make no difference in this war.
Like fire, my violet veil ignites again, flaring from head to toe, wrapping me whole, as though the air itself were oil, waiting only for the spark.
From my right hand bursts a triangle of violet light, shaped like a blade, wide at the base, narrowing to a deadly point. A perfect triangle, nothing but pure, flickering light.
It burns like my veil, like the glow that surrounds me.
It blazes like my fury, like the principle broken, like the fallen wall.
And it has only one target.
I launch forward.
"Vio!" Talan roars instantly.
"What are you doing!?" Rin calls, panic in her voice.
"Stop!" Daclan lunges to catch me.
"Hey—!" Zane blurts, rushing after.
Shato moves first, leaping ahead.
His eyes lock on me.
On how I charge, reckless. On how I don't slow down, not even for a second, how I even catch my enemy off guard before I vanish into the fog.
He closes in, scraps of my cloak brushing the reach of his hand—just a little further, almost there—yet still too far.
Because the ominous boy leaps back, swallowed by the darkness, while
I dive after him, just to vanish in the fog.
Right in front of Shato, who still runs, sprints and just stops, as he finally bursts out on the other side, onto the empty stretch of concrete road, which he scans hesitantly with his eyes.
But there's nothing.
No sign of me.
No sign of the boy.
He lost us.