* * *

Arriving back at the wooden house, El hesitated just as the man reached for the door.

A brisk gust of air swept past, carrying with it a cryptic whisper that grazed his skin. Overhead, a sliver of the crescent moon hung in the darkness, its faint glow barely piercing the night.

Taking a few steps to the side, El found himself peering into the shadowy alleyway between the wooden house and a neighboring structure.

There, a barbed-wire fence loomed, its jagged edges glinting under the dim yellow glow of a lone lamp attached to a pole. The light barely reached the deeper recesses of the alley.

"What’s up, kid?" the man asked, noticing El’s lingering gaze.

"Is that…?" El started, his voice trembling slightly as he turned to look at the man.

The man placed a steady hand on El’s shoulder, his voice calm but heavy with meaning. "Beyond that fence is what people call in this empire, the Downtrodden Region. Most know it as the underside."

"You mean… those kids from earlier?" El’s voice wavered, though he didn’t fully understand why.

It was as though the shadows in the alley mirrored something buried deep within him—an unspoken truth he could feel rather than articulate. Even without a detailed explanation, he began to grasp the weight of what the man had said.

"Yes," the man replied simply. "Let’s go." He opened the door, ushering El inside.

As the door closed behind them, El felt a swirl of emotions settling in his chest—uncertainty, confusion, and an unexpected flicker of hope.

It reminded him of the excuses he had clung to during his life in the village, the ones he used to defy death time and time again.

Yet now, it felt different, as though that faint glimmer of hope might actually lead somewhere.

* * *

Letting himself fall onto the bed, El let out a sigh. Whether it was heavy or light, he couldn't tell. After a moment of staring at the ceiling, he turned his face toward the window. The curtain was still ajar.

And he found… nothing. Only the night remained.

'What is it that I was sad about? I wonder…'

His eyebrows knitted together as he closed his eyes.

After mulling it over again and again, he eventually reached an imaginary crossroads in his mind. His consciousness was pulled by an unseen force to an unknown destination. The path was filled with flashing symbols and shapes—triangles, circles, squares, and unknown alphabets.

His heart raced. His ears hummed, overlapped with white noise. Images flashed in his head—strings of chaotic pictures flipping, alternating, shifting, and colliding against one another. Myriads of sensations and emotions clashed together; whispers buzzed in his ears intermittently.

Initially, everything was extremely indefinite.

However, as if a switch had been flipped, it all froze and became silent. The images paused into a blurry scene that was hard to discern. Gradually, his heart calmed down, but his body was soaked in sweat.

It wasn't long before he heard a young girl's voice calling out to him. The indistinct scene in his mind shifted.

"Hey. What's your name?"

"You mean me?"

"Yeah, of course. Who else is here?"

"Ummm, like you see on my shirt. It was C-013."

"Kekekek, not that, silly. I mean your name. Your real name?"

"I… I didn't have one."

"You didn't have one?"

"Yes…"

"Well, sorry about that."

"It's fine…"

*Bzzzztttt*

Once again, white noise filled El's mind.

He tightly clenched his fingers, his eyebrows frowning even harder. Eventually, the start of that conversation flowed back again. But this time, it wasn't what El had expected. It was a familiar voice, filled with a breathy, scratchy sound.

"I hope you die a terrible death. Your bones are crushed. Your flesh gnawed. Your eyeballs rotted. Blood drained. Skin peeled... I curse you... I curse you... I curse you… die, die, die, die, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE!!!!"

El opened his eyes and inhaled sharply. Propping himself up to sit on the bed, he gave himself a helpless smile.

"What did I even expect? It always ends up like this," El bitterly stated, panting from the mix of emotions, especially considering how he had listened to that grating man's voice cursing him in horrendous anger every single time he tried to dig deeper into his messy memories.

The words were always different, but the underlying message was the same: basically, it wanted him to die.

Another noteworthy detail was that the unpleasant old man's voice, likened to a steel rod scraping repeatedly against the flat surface of a mirror, always succeeded in making his brain feel itchy. He really wanted to rub it, if only that were possible.

*Knock knock knock*

Suddenly, knocks reverberated through the room. El subconsciously flinched.

"Yes?" he asked out loud, trying to sound brave, though he felt a twinge of fear. Whether it was a ghost or not remained to be seen, but El was certain it was the man who had knocked on the door.

And… there was no reply to El's question.

* * *

*Gulp*

At that moment, El's heart, which had barely managed to escape its flighty state, restarted itself with a giddy roar, fully awake.

Sharpened his ears, El caught the sound of wind blowing outside the window, growing stronger by the second. ‘It seems like it’s getting close to rain.’

Brought his focus back to the matters at hand, El heard the low creaking of heavy footsteps approaching from the outside of the door. The grinding sound of something heavy being dragged across the floorboards.

*Krrriiieettt… Krrriiieeettt… Krrrriiieetttt…*

*Ssssaassaaakkk*

*Thud*

The noise ended with a heavy object thumping against the ground right in front of his door.

*Gulp*

Swallowing hard, a cold sweat timidly covered El's back, caressing him with the realization that something was terribly wrong with what he was facing.

"El, are you there? Open the door?"

It was the man's voice, undoubtedly. Yet, for some reason El couldn't quite understand, he sensed something odd about the voice and the presence behind the door.

It was… eerie.

Especially today, his ability to vaguely pick up on the emotions of those around him was heightened. So, how was it possible that what he discerned radiating from the other side of the door was nothing like what a human could possibly emit?

It was filled with… malevolence and ice-cold grudges.

* * *