Rain had fallen for three days straight.

Thin. Cold.

A sky weeping without sound, as if it mourned the world in secret.

In Marlock Village, mud and ash painted every corner of the slums. Roofs sagged under the weight of water, fires sputtered with every gust, and children slept in gutters—if they dared sleep at all. At night, whispers warned against venturing near the lake. Most heeded the warning.

All but him.

A silver-haired boy moved barefoot through the puddled alleys, dragging something behind him.

She.

Nini.

Her limbs broken, patched with black threads, dressed in tattered rags. Her eyes glassy, yet attentive. Her smile unmoving—but deliberate.

She did not move with life. She moved with purpose. Each joint twitched under invisible control, each step tapping the mud like a metronome for some dark symphony.

The boy hummed as they walked. A lullaby that clawed at the edges of sanity:

"Rain, rain, don't fall here,

Little Nini's voice is clear.

Sleep, sleep, silver thread,

Play with me… though I am dead."

The villagers called him cursed. They called him a monster. They whispered at the edges of the night, yet none dared confront him. Not when every night, the aristocracy lost another victim—nobles discovered twisted, impossible corpses in their homes. Limbs bent like marionettes, eyes gouged, mouths stitched. Blood painted floors as though theater curtains had been drenched in cruelty.

And sometimes… in the silence after the storm of death… they heard the faint sound of clapping.

As if the show had ended.

The blacksmith Abell, once a man of pride and calloused strength, trembled behind shuttered windows.

"I tried to stop him," he whispered to his wife, hands shaking, the hammer of fear clanging in his chest. "His eyes… they weren't eyes. They were threads. I swear I saw the corpse of that girl smile."

His wife held their child closer. "God forgive us…"

The truth was, no one challenged him now. No one dared step between the silver-haired boy and the lake.

One evening, the sky choked with clouds and the rumble of distant thunder, Mormond sat at the lake's edge. A fishing rod rested in one hand; a strand of black thread twined through the other.

Beside him, Nini mirrored him, her joints moving smoothly, unnaturally, as though her broken bones had been replaced by invisible strings of shadow.

Her head tilted. Her mouth opened.

"Brother… hungry."

Mormond smiled, serene and deadly. His voice slipped like silk over the water.

"Don't worry, Nini. We'll eat soon. The nobles have parties tonight."

In the heart of the slum, laughter rose like smoke. Not joyous, but mocking—a pack of noble youths drunk on wine, arrogance, and entitlement. They had stolen a child no older than six, dragged him from a gutter, dressed him in feathers, and forced him to dance for their amusement.

The child cried. They laughed.

Until the candles blew out.

Until the room chilled.

Until one whispered, wide-eyed: "Did anyone… hear humming?"

The darkness answered.

"Dance for me, noble swine."

Strings lashed through the shadows. The boy's powers revealed themselves: black filaments, thinner than a hair yet unbreakable, wrapping, twisting, controlling.

One noble screamed as his legs bent backward with a sickening snap. Another's mouth was sewn shut in a heartbeat, screams cut short. In the center of the chaos stood Mormond, barefoot, smiling. Behind him—Nini. Her eyes glimmered faintly. Her limbs twitched under his command, sharpened knitting needles in hand like daggers.

The last noble tried to flee. The filaments caught him mid-step, lifting him, forcing him to dance, each jerk of his body a grotesque parody of celebration.

"Look, Nini," Mormond whispered with mock cheer. "He dances for you. Shall we give him applause?"

Clap. Clap. Clap.

The kidnapped child, huddled in the corner, watched wide-eyed. Mormond knelt, brushing tears from the boy's cheek, placing a silver coin in his hand.

"Buy bread. Run. Live."

The boy did, disappearing into the alleys as noble screams drowned in the tightening, snapping of puppet strings.

Days passed. Whispers spread through Marlock.

The Slum's Lullaby.

The Bloody Puppeteer.

Mormond the Showman.

Though his lips rarely curved for the villagers, he never harmed them. He brought bread to orphans, defended the tavern woman who had once fed him, cleaned the lake of corpses while murmuring to it like a friend.

But his home had transformed. A room now crowded with threads, masks, and puppets made of bone and porcelain. And at the center—Nini. Still dancing. Still dead. Still smiling.

A week later, under a full moon silver as bone, a messenger arrived from the Grand City of Umuk. Towers scraped the sky there, nobles bathed in stolen youth, and corruption ran like blood through marble halls.

A decree was read aloud:

"By order of the High Circle, the rogue slum child known as Mormond is to be captured. His soul is to be extracted and studied for the advancement of noble bloodline preservation."

The villagers murmured, but remained silent. Fear held their tongues.

The messenger departed, confident his words carried weight.

But he never reached the road. His horse returned the next day. Alone. Its rider's skin folded over the saddle like a macabre quilt. Expression locked in a silent scream. Black threads twined through the leather, as if it had been arranged for a performance no living being would forget.

Whispers of fear, curiosity, and awe spread through Marlock. Some secretly admired Mormond, daring to call him a savior of the slums. Others prayed for his downfall, swearing that the boy had no right to play god with life and death.

Yet rumors of missing children from other slums had begun even before the messenger's arrival—disappearances quietly noted by nobles who preferred their atrocities hidden behind polite gossip and "health checks."

Foreshadowing rippled through the night, threads tightening around Umuk even before Mormond arrived.

He practiced in silence, pulling Nini's strings until she could move like wind through the reeds, each twitch a violent ballet. He experimented on smaller puppets—rats, birds, scraps of flesh shaped into grotesque forms. Every night he hummed, a lullaby for the damned, each note teaching her limbs to obey with a grace no living body could ever possess.

When he walked the slums, he was a shadow. When he moved in the night, he was a storm. And when he looked toward Umuk…

The city's golden towers were ripe for a show it would never forget.

"The show begins soon, Nini," he whispered to the wind, to the moon, to the strings themselves. "Let's teach them what horror really feels like."

Far above the city walls, a noblewoman sipped blood wine, watching her mirror crack for no reason she could comprehend. A shadow passed, silent. And somewhere, in the city's heart… the strings twitched.

The stage was set.

And Mormond, the Marionette of Blood, would dance.

🕸️TO BE CONTINUED🕸️