Nu'al pressed her face against the damp gaps in the window boards, her eyes squinting to pierce the darkness. Outside, the world seemed to be holding its breath. The ominous tolling of death bells had ceased, and the hysterical screams of the horse-headed fanatic were gone. Only the remnants of destruction remained; small fires still licked at the skeletal remains of wooden houses, and giant black roots coiled around buildings like ancient serpents strangling their prey. It was silent. Too silent. A false calm before the next storm arrived to flatten what was left.
"Tch."
Nu'al spat the rest of the coffee candy from her mouth. The brown lump hit the floor with a wet splat. The taste had turned into a disgusting acid, like swallowing a leaking battery. She rubbed her cracked lips with the back of her hand, trying to wipe away the artificial flavor clinging to her tongue.
She stood up, stretching her stiff body.
CRACK... POP...
The sound of her spine shifting was loud in the cramped room, a small symphony from a body too exhausted but forced to endure. She walked over to the shattered vanity, sifting through the glass shards on the floor. Her hands, now steadied by cold adrenaline, picked up a large, sharp, pointed piece of mirror. An improvised weapon. Simple, brutal, and sharp enough to tear an artery.
Nu'al: "Alright, Nu'al. Breathe. We can do this. Most geniuses die stupidly because they're too busy standing still in the 'planning' phase. Time for execution."
She walked steadily toward the exit. The heavy wardrobe she had dragged earlier still faithfully blocked the way. Mustering the remaining strength in her aching shoulders, she shoved the teak furniture aside.
SKRRRRREEEEEEEKKK...
The sound of the wardrobe's legs scraping against the old wooden floor was deafening, like the scream of a trapped ghost. Nu'al froze instantly. Her heart leaped into her throat, thump-thump-thump, her eyes wildly scanning the door, waiting to see if any root monsters or masked fanatics heard the commotion.
One second. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Silence.
No rush. No shouting.
Nu'al: "Phew... safe."
She let out a trembling sigh of relief. Her cold, sweaty hand gripped the brass doorknob, which felt slippery. She turned it slowly.
Click.
Nu'al: "Damn Horse Girl... just enjoy your temporary victory. I'm going to roast you along with your rotten 'Father' in this giant bonfire. Just watch."
Driven by ambition and burning vengeance, she threw the door wide open, stepping forward bravely to challenge the night, intending to show Danica that she had picked the wrong prey—that this rat had venomous fangs.
...
...
...
Her step halted in mid-air.
Nu'al: "What?..."
She was back here. In the exact same room.
The wardrobe was in the same position before she moved it. The door was shut tight in front of her. The vanity with the cracked mirror. And on the floor, the spat-out coffee candy lay mockingly near her shoe.
Nu'al stepped back, hitting the wall behind her. Her legs went weak. Cold sweat the size of corn kernels began to drip from her temples.
Nu'al: "I... right, this must be dehydration. I'm hallucinating. How many sips of water have I had in two days? Zero?"
She tried to rationalize this madness. It must be a side effect of the dense Aura of Sin. The spiritual pressure from the Dome must be scrambling her brain synapses, making her walk in circles, or maybe she just dreamt she got out when she hadn't moved an inch.
Nu'al leaned her sweat-drenched back against the closed door. Her hand groped behind her, desperately searching for the doorknob.
Nu'al: "Calm down, Nu'al. Find water first. Yes, water. The brain needs fluid to distinguish between real and illusion..."
She turned the knob again. Click.
The door opened.
And once again, the same scene greeted her. The musty bedroom. But this time... something was different. The room wasn't empty.
In front of the shattered vanity, a young girl sat. Her back was to Nu'al. Her hair was flaming red, the color of fresh arterial blood, falling in waves down her slender back.
Polgha?: "Hmm~... hmm~... hmm~ 🎶"
A soft, melodious hum drifted from the girl's lips, a foreign tune that felt both nostalgic and terrifying.
Nu'al stood frozen in the doorway, her tongue numb. Her brain screamed danger, but her feet were nailed to the floor.
Nu'al: "W-What the hell is this?"
CLACK.
The sound of a lock turning. Nu'al flinched. The door behind her closed on its own with a soft but final slam, as if reality had just been rewritten and she was forced to be a character in this new chapter.
Pure panic took over. Nu'al turned, grabbed the knob, twisted it, pulled it, kicked it.
Locked.
No, worse. Her hand passed through the knob as if it were made of smoke. She couldn't touch it. She was trapped in this loop.
The red-haired girl's humming stopped abruptly. The silence that followed felt heavy and oppressive, as if the air in the room had suddenly solidified.
Polgha?: "Please don't be dramatic. I heard everything, you know? Everyone will hear your racket... including him up there~"
Her voice was light, cheerful, but had a cold, piercing undertone.
Nu'al: "Y-You heard?"
Nu'al turned slowly, her back pressed against the door. Her hand gripped the glass shard tighter until it cut her palm. Who was this girl? She had never seen her in the cell. She had never seen her among the cultists.
Nu'al: "Y-you... You're the Horse Mask's lackey, aren't you?! Answer me!"
Nu'al stared at the girl's back, then her eyes shifted to the broken mirror in front of her. The girl's reflection was fragmented by the cracks, making her look like a wrongly assembled puzzle. But Nu'al could see it—the girl was putting on makeup.
On the table that should have been empty, strange cosmetic tools were now scattered, coming from nowhere. Blood-red lipstick, powder made of fine bone dust, and small brushes. The girl applied lipstick to her pale lips in the mirror.
Polgha?: "Pretty, huh, huhu~. Belnog is much more comfortable than Luav Rez... the air suits my skin better. Luckily Uzha didn't like it there much, so we could travel..."
The girl puckered her lips at the cracked mirror.
Polgha?: "Chu..."
She kissed her own reflection, leaving a red lip stain on the dirty glass surface. It was a grotesque parody of what Nu'al had done moments ago, but this girl's kiss felt far more... possessive.
The girl's eyes in the mirror—a pair of sharp, mocking eyes—glanced at Nu'al through the shards.
Nu'al: "You didn't answer my question, delusional girl... Who are you?!"
Polgha?: "Oh? Is that so? Sorry, I didn't hear~ Too busy admiring a work of art."
Nu'al: "What do you want?!"
Nu'al raised her glass knife, ready to strike. If this girl was an illusion, she would dispel it. If this girl was real and connected to Danica, she would slit her throat.
Polgha?: "Me? Nothing, really. I just want to check one small thing..."
The reflection of the girl's eyes in the mirror shifted, no longer looking at Nu'al's face, but focused on one specific point: the dirty bandage wrapped around Nu'al's head, covering her blind left eye.
Polgha?: "A beautiful eye... comfortable, isn't it?"
Nu'al frowned.
"Eye? What eye? This tired, grey, baggy eye? Are you mocking me?!"
But then... the sensation came.
An itch.
Not on the skin, but inside the eye socket covered by the bandage. The itch grew into a subtle throb. And... light.
Nu'al could see a faint beam of light penetrating the thick bandage cloth.
Impossible.
Nu'al's hand trembled violently as she touched the bandage. Her heart stopped beating for a moment.
No...
With bated breath, Nu'al covered her healthy right eye with her palm.
And she could still see.
She could see the fibers of the bandage from the inside. She could see the faint outline of the room in a strange bluish tint.
Impossible...
That... The surgery... The Hourglass Woman...
IT WAS REAL??
Nu'al: "N-No... no, no, no!!! That's impossible—!"
She staggered back, immense nausea hitting her stomach. The nightmare in the operating room wasn't a dream. It was a memory that had just happened.
Polgha?: "Honestly, I'm a bit disappointed..."
The girl's voice cut through Nu'al's panic, her tone changing drastically. The playfulness was gone, replaced by a cold, disdainful disappointment.
The girl picked up a bone comb from the table.and began to fix her hair into more better form.
Polgha?: "Who were you going to use as a shield earlier? The masked man? Hah... Even though he's the key to saving your pathetic life, you parasite... how could you be the heroine?"
Polgha?: "I had high hopes, you know? I thought you were special. Turns out you're not as pure as I thought for the role... Oh well. Trash will always be trash, you can't deny your stench just by sprinkling pretty flowers on top."
She combed her red hair roughly. Scritch... scritch... Every pull of the comb was followed by drops of fresh blood flowing from her scalp, as if the hair was forcefully implanted.
She was angry. Very angry. Even though she was still sitting with her back to Nu'al, her aura of wrath filled the room like poisonous gas.
Polgha?: "You can go now. Isn't there... someone you have to save so your pathetic ass can see the real sun out there? The gates of hell won't open themselves, right? And you need him to break them down."
The girl leaned forward, staring at her own reflection in the cracked mirror. She smiled, but the smile didn't reach her eyes.
Suddenly, the expression in the mirror changed. The girl's reflection was no longer smiling. Her eyes widened, staring at something behind her—or rather, something coming from inside the mirror itself.
A skeletal hand—white bones polished by sea salt—emerged from the depths of the glass reflection. The dead hand gripped a cutlass, a rusted sailor's sword with a serrated blade.
Polgha?: "You... Uninvited stepchild..." she hissed, her voice full of venom upon seeing the hand. "Always trying to interfere in our little family affairs—"
SLASH!
The movement was too fast for the eye to follow. The sword blade slashed from inside the mirror world, cutting outward.
The mirror didn't shatter; it split.
A perfect black line, thin as a hair but deep as an abyss, appeared vertically in the center of the glass, splitting reality in two. The line split the girl's reflection, split the vanity, and split the air where the girl sat.
The red-haired girl's figure was cut into two halves. No blood, no scream. Her body simply faded, glitched like a broken recording, then dissolved into thick red smoke that smelled of rotting roses and old blood.
Silence.
The girl vanished. The skeletal hand and sword withdrew back into the darkness of the mirror.
The neatly split mirror held on for a moment, fighting gravity, before finally giving in.
CRASH...
Both halves of the mirror fell to the floor, shattering into pieces.
Nu'al stood there, alone again. Her body shook violently, the glass knife in her hand falling with a clatter. Her breathing was ragged, her eyes—both the brown one and the blue one behind the bandage—wide, staring at the empty space in front of her. Shocked, confused, and terrorized by a reality that was becoming increasingly nonsensical.
BANG!!
The bedroom door slammed open, hitting the wall with a violence that shook dust from the ceiling. Nu'al didn't look back. She ran, her feet pounding down the creaking wooden stairs with the speed of someone chased by demons. Her heart wasn't beating anymore; it was hammering frantically against her ribs.
She burst into the dark, musty kitchen. The smell of rotting food scraps and dead rats greeted her, but her survival instinct overpowered her disgust. Her eyes caught sight of a clay pitcher on a tilted table. Without thinking, she grabbed it with both trembling hands.
GULP... GULP... GULP...
The water tasted brackish, earthy, and maybe mossy, but to her desert-dry throat, it was ambrosia. She guzzled it greedily, water spilling down her chin and neck, soaking her dirty shirt.
"Hurk!—Hurk!"
Her empty, shocked stomach rejected the sudden flood. Nu'al hunched over the dry sink, her body convulsing in painful retching reflexes.
"Ugh..."
She clamped her hand over her mouth, holding back the rising bile. Her eyes watered. Luckily—or unluckily—her stomach was so empty there was nothing to vomit but a little acid and saliva.
Once her breathing steadied slightly, her wild eyes scanned the kitchen. Food. She needed fuel. She saw a woven basket in the corner. Inside, there were a few shriveled apples starting to spot brown and a piece of hard bread that could probably be used to hammer nails.
Nu'al grabbed it all. She stuffed the apples under her fur coat and bit into the hard bread, pocketing it.
She moved to the back door. Her hand, still clutching the glass knife, raised, ready to stab whatever was behind the rotting wood. Very slowly, she opened it a crack.
Creeeeak...
Her brown eye peeked out. Empty. The back street was quiet, only shadows of black roots coiling around the fence.
"Good," she whispered.
Nu'al stepped out, closing the door behind her soundlessly. The cold, smoky night air slapped her face instantly. She wiped the cold sweat flooding her forehead with her sleeve.
Her hand stopped when it touched the bandage on her left eye. Her fingers felt the rough cloth. Beneath it, she could feel something blinking. That foreign blue eye... an eye that saw the world in the wrong spectrum. She pressed the bandage hard, trying to deny the existence of the terrible transplant organ.
Nu'al: "(Focus, Nu'al. Don't go crazy yet. Find the monster. Find the Man in the Iron Mask. He's the only ticket out of this cage.)"
She was just about to step into the shadow of the alley when the voice spoke. A voice heavy, wet, and sounding like waves breaking against a reef.
Sheepman Sailor: "Don't follow her will..."
Nu'al's reflexes were faster than her thoughts.
WHOOSH!
She spun 180 degrees, her glass knife thrusting in a deadly strike aimed straight at the eye socket of the figure leaning casually against the wall beside her.
But there was no impact. No blood splatter.
The glass knife passed through the sheep skull head as if through thick fog. Nu'al's hand went through the figure's face, feeling a bone-chilling cold, but touching no solid matter.
Nu'al stumbled back, her breath catching.
Nu'al: "W-What... what the hell is this?!... W-who are you?!"
Her eyes widened in horror. This figure... he was the one standing on the bell tower earlier. A tall skeleton with a sheep's head, draped in a rotting sailor's uniform and a cloak made of giant seagull wings.
The figure didn't even blink—if he had eyelids. He puffed on his long pipe casually.
Fwoosh...
He didn't exhale the smoke through a mouth. The thick grey smoke seeped slowly out from the gaps in his exposed ribcage, drifting eerily in the cold night air.
Sheepman Sailor: "Don't save that man..."
His voice echoed, calm yet authoritative, as if reading a weather report, not a matter of life and death.
Nu'al stared at him with a mix of exploding fear and anger.
Nu'al: "You... you're crazy! You heard everything too?! You were spying on me?!"
Nu'al brandished her trembling glass knife, though she knew it was useless.
Nu'al: "Listen here, Sea Ghost! If I don't save that man, I might as well sit tight waiting for my turn to rot in this damn village! I need him to break out! And... and why should I trust you, huh?!"
The Sheepman Sailor tilted his head slightly, his neck joints cracking softly.
Sheepman Sailor: "There is always something far worse than death, child... Surviving is merely the funniest joke on this cosmic chessboard."
The sailor's dark eye sockets stared straight at the bandage on Nu'al's left eye.
Sheepman Sailor: "That eye... It seems this stage play has a will of its own. A wild script out of sync with her who gazes arrogantly from behind the moon... A being of limitless power burning with envy."
Nu'al frowned. From behind the moon?
Nu'al: "(Lunarians? Does he mean those moon dwellers? No... no. This figure's aura is different. It's not technology or light magic. It feels... old. Far more ancient than any creature I've heard of in fairy tales.)"
The figure chuckled. It wasn't an evil laugh, but a hollow, pitiful one.
Heh... heh...
A puff of salt-scented tobacco smoke escaped again, seeping from between his breastbones.
Sheepman Sailor: "Sea Goddess... Poor mother. Your ego is too big, exceeding even the chalice of Almighty power you hold... Look now. Your stage is being burned to the ground by its own spotlight."
After uttering that riddle, the Sheepman Sailor fell silent. He went back to smoking his pipe, his eyes staring blankly into the distance, penetrating the burning wooden walls, looking at something Nu'al couldn't see.
He stood there, leaning casually against the damp wall, as if Nu'al didn't exist anymore. As if the girl was just passing dust, no longer worthy of attention from an entity as ancient as him. Silent, cold, and absolute.
SQUELCH... SQUELCH... SQUELCH...
The sound of hurried footsteps hitting wet mud broke the post-battle silence. Nu'al ran, her breath ragged, white vapor escaping her mouth in the freezing night air.
Nu'al: "The aura... it's insane. Getting closer. Feels like walking into the mouth of a newly dead oven..."
Her steps halted abruptly, her boots slipping slightly on the slick ground. Her eyes widened, pupils constricting. Before her, a museum of horror opened up. The bodies of cultists who had exploded from the inside were scattered like leaking trash bags, spreading a piercing smell of iron and filth.
But what seized her attention most was the monument in the middle of the road.
A pitch-black statue towered high. It was Grog. Or what was left of him. The figure had turned into cold black metal, frozen in his final terrifying pose—a faceless giant who had skinned himself.
Nu'al: "Statue... that's kinda... really creepy. Okay, don't look at him, Nu'al. Don't look."
She shook her head vigorously, banishing the nightmare image. Focus. She had to focus. Her eyes swept the charred surroundings, looking for her only ticket out.
There.
Among the smoking charcoal debris lay a massive figure wrapped in the remains of a tattered military coat. The Iron Masked Man. Oldred.
Nu'al rushed over, her knees hitting the muddy ground as she slid next to the giant body. With trembling hands, she pressed her ear to the man's broad chest, right over the heart. She held her breath, waiting.
...thump...thump...thump...
Weak. Slow. Like an old engine running out of fuel, but still turning.
Nu'al: "Still alive. Good. You're not allowed to die yet, Bastard. You're my shield."
With firm resolve, Nu'al slipped her hands under Oldred's neck and shoulders. The plan was simple: lift, support, run. She took a deep breath, tightening her thin muscles.
Nu'al: "One... two... HUP!"
She pulled with all her might.
Nu'al: "KYAH?!!"
The laws of physics slapped her hard. She hadn't accounted for the absurd weight of the super-soldier's frame, let alone the dead weight of the solid steel bionic arm hanging at Oldred's right side.
Instead of lifting Oldred, Nu'al lost her balance. Gravity pulled her backward, and Oldred's body, weighing hundreds of kilos, rolled with her, falling on top of her.
THUD!!
Nu'al:"Guh—!!"
Her breath was knocked out. She lay flat in the mud, pinned under Oldred's broad chest and iron arm. It felt like being crushed by a tombstone.
Nu'al:"Mmmpphh!! Heavy! Hey! Wake up!!"
She struggled frantically, her legs kicking the air like an overturned turtle. Her hands pushed against Oldred's chest in vain. The smell of blood, gunpowder, and engine oil from the man's body filled her nose. This was humiliating. This was pathetic. A genius dying because she was crushed by a living corpse? Not funny!
Nu'al:"Come on! Grrrghh... Move! What does this guy eat?! He's as heavy as a bear that eats iron!"
After an intense struggle for two full minutes filled with grunting, cursing, and earthworms getting into her hair, Nu'al finally managed to roll Oldred's body to the side. She crawled out, panting, her shirt now completely brown with mud.
She stood up straight, her face flushed red with embarrassment and anger. She kicked her legs in the air to shake off cramps.
Nu'al:"You useless heap of junk! Look what you did to me!"
Driven by irrational annoyance, Nu'al swung her leg with all her might to kick Oldred.
BANG!!
The toe of her boot hit Oldred's bionic arm. Not flesh. Solid steel.
Nu'al: "GAH!!!!"
That wasn't a war cry; it was a pure squeal of instant regret. Nu'al froze. Her eyes bulged, mouth open soundlessly. The pain came a second late, but when it did, it exploded. Her toe felt scorching hot, then throbbed with a cruel rhythm of torture. Her toe... must be pulp.
She slowly squatted, hugging her knees, and buried her face there.
Nu'al:"Sob... sob... stupid... stupid..."
She cried quietly for a few seconds, mourning the fate of her poor big toe.
...
...
...
Enough. Time for self-pity was over.
Nu'al stood up straight again quickly, wiping her tears roughly with her dirty sleeve. Her face returned to cold and pragmatic.
Nu'al: "Fine. The hard way."
She limped towards Oldred's feet. She wouldn't try to lift him again. She grabbed Oldred's left ankle with both hands, then started pulling him backward. Just drag him. Screw patient comfort.
However, just one step into dragging...
The world stopped.
Not metaphorically. Literally, reality pressed the pause button.
Tongues of fire licking the remains of the ruined house beside them froze into silent sculptures of orange light. Billowing black smoke hung in the air like dirty cotton balls suspended by invisible threads. The wind died. The sound of Oldred's body dragging on the ground vanished. Even the flying dust hung motionless in the air.
Nu'al froze in her bent position, unaware of anything, her brain frozen, including every creature in this world, her body locked in absolute time stasis.
Behind Nu'al, the void split.
SHHHIIING...
A rusty cutlass blade appeared out of thin air, slicing vertically from top to bottom. The cut was clean, separating air atoms, opening a dimensional rift as if drawing a stage curtain.
From that dark fissure, an old boot stepped out, treading on stopped time.
The figure emerged fully. A tall skeleton with a cracked sheep skull head, wearing an ancient sailor's coat wet and smelling of salt, with a cloak of gull wings motionless even though time had died.
He walked casually, passing the frozen Nu'al as if the girl were just street furniture. He approached Oldred.
Sheepman Sailor: "Oldred Vas Linsman..."
His voice was heavy, echoing without breaking the frozen silence.
Sheepman Sailor: "You don't even know what kind of tangled threads are strangling your neck and playing with your fate like a marionette puppet."
He towered over Oldred's unconscious body. His skeletal hand raised the cutlass high. Suddenly, the rusty iron blade ignited.
FWOOOSH.
Not orange fire, but deep sea blue fire—cold, spectral, and deadly. The fire spread, burning away the rust on the blade, leaving metal shining pure silver and sharp.
Sheepman Sailor: "You deserve what you have earned... rest. And I... I WILL take back what was stolen from me."
The tip of the blue-flaming sword pointed straight at the eye slit in Oldred's steel mask. At the brain.
Sheepman Sailor: "Sea Goddess... I will burn this puppet stage of yours to ash and salt."
He swung the sword down. Execution thrust.
SPLOOOSH!
There was no sound of flesh being pierced. No sound of denting metal.
What was heard was the sound of a large rock being dropped into a deep, calm lake.
The tip of the sword penetrated Oldred's face, but didn't touch it. Instead, the point of contact turned into a water surface. Ripples of blackish-red waves spread from Oldred's face, turning the entire dirt floor into the surface of a vast, dark ocean of blood.
The frozen world vanished. The village vanished.
Sheepman Sailor now stood in the middle of a city, bright sunlight illuminating a grim city filled with slaves.
Luszha slaves walked past him busily while watched by Rans Augumm troops.
The smell of coal, carcasses, filth, and blood. Sheepman Sailor walked past the slaves. Smoking his pipe, following a pair of blind children—one with bandaged eyes and a rose slave mark on his neck, and a red-haired girl walking beside him.
Uzha: "Hey sis! Any new stories tonight?!" he said cheerfully despite the pain in his body.
Polgha: "Hmm, not yet!~"
Uzha's face looked a bit sullen, Polgha gave a small nervous laugh.
Polgha: "Oh come on, give me a night and I'll give you a day's journey in another world!~" she waved her hand slightly.
A tall shadow engulfed them both from behind.
Uzha: "Hmm?"
In slow motion, Uzha turned to look at the Sheepman Sailor.
Uzha: "You-"
Uzha's head fell into Polgha's hands, who reflexively caught it, severed by an unseen slash, one she could even feel, a slash that cut even the smallest sub-atomic gap.
Polgha: "U-Uzha?"
.....
.....
.....
Polgha: "AGH!!!!!!"
Polgha: "No!! N-No!! No! NO!!"
Her crying was hysterical, drawing shocked stares from other slaves.
Sheepman Sailor just puffed smoke from his pipe, then calmly sheathed his sword. However, in the blink of an eye, everything changed...
No city, no slaves, no sky, no Uzha, Polgha... just girls, everywhere.
Girls here, girls there, girls replacing the ground. Houses made of flesh, skin, bodies, limbs, torsos, backs, eyes; streets made of skin, meat, breasts, eyes, brains; loudspeakers replaced with gaping mouths; the sun was just a giant eye staring from a sky made of red hair.
Red rain fell heavily, soaking the world, no, the universe... of this girl.
Sheepman Sailor: "So that's how it is."
He couldn't execute her; the threads were still too thick. It could be that he was the one to be executed here.
SQUELCH-SQUELCH-SQUELCH
A disgusting squishing sound was heard with every step he took.
"HEEHEEHAHA" "HAHAHAHA" "KEHKEHKEHKEH" "HEEHEEHEE" "KHUKHUKHU"
The sky laughed, the walls guffawed, everything laughed—universe, stars, clouds, walls, ground, all the girls laughed mocking him.
Sheepman Sailor stared at Uzha's blood flowing beneath his feet; he didn't see himself, only a faceless red-haired girl staring back.
DO
NOT
DISTURB
US
Said the entire universe; nothing was real here, no reality, no time, only... girl. All reality, linear time, air, and space itself had been rewritten by flesh and space itself.