Kian Emris [1]

I forgot to count, but I could estimate that a week had already passed since I woke up in this room. The bags and ruffled clothes were still lying on the floor, and Selene didn't even come back to get them.

"..."

I wondered why she ran. Neo seemed like a good person.

Every day, he appeared with the same regularity, his figure darkening the threshold as he walked in, hands filled with five pieces of bread.

He never explained why five.

He never explained anything. I had long stopped questioning it. His presence had become something familiar—perhaps even necessary, in this world where I know no one.

Today, however, was different.

He entered with ten pieces of bread.

I counted them immediately. My mind quickly noticed the change, but it wasn't just the bread. There was something else wrapped in a thin cloth. He set it beside the bread with an odd sort of reverence, as though it carried weight far beyond what it appeared to be.

Neo sat in the chair beside the bed, as he always did, stretching his long limbs with a fluid grace, tucking his neatly combed hair behind his ears, and his eyes catching mine for the briefest of moments.

There was always something unsettling about those eyes.

Without a word, he tossed me one of the pieces of bread, and I caught it instinctively. The bread was stale, as it always was, but I no longer cared.

Hunger had a way of dulling one's expectations, of teaching you to accept whatever was given.

I bit into it, chewing slowly, more out of habit than hunger. I wasn't starving anymore, not with Neo's strange generosity.

But I made sure to save one per day though. I was saving for that cute little creature.

'...I wonder if it was still alive out there?'

But the bread wasn't what interested me today. My eyes flickered toward the cloth-wrapped item. Neo noticed, of course. He always noticed.

"Curious, are we?"

"..."

I didn't answer. I only continued chewing as the taste of the bread turned into dust in my mouth.

Slowly, he began to unwrap the cloth. Beneath it was a small glass bottle, the liquid inside a dark, almost black color. He shook it lightly, and it fizzed in response, a sound so foreign in this place that it made me sit up straighter.

"A drink."

He held it up as if to admire it.

I frowned, the sight of it tugging at something buried deep in my mind. It… It was somehow familiar.

He twisted the cap off with a soft hiss and handed it to me. I took it hesitantly, the glass cold against my palm. The smell was sweet but there was something nostalgic about it. A smell that made my chest tighten.

I took a sip.

The taste—carbonated, sweet, with a hint of bitterness—was unmistakable.

"Cola…?"

Neo's smile widened, and for a moment, I saw something almost feral in his expression.

"Cola? That's a medicine made from a turd."

"...?! Turd?!"

I was about to spit it out, but thankfully he spoke.

"A flower named Turd."

I stared at him, the bottle clenched tightly in my hand.

"Because it only grows on shit?"

"..."

"..."

Neo stood up, turning towards the door with an all-too-familiar expression. "One more word and I'll turn you into a turd," is probably what he's thinking.

Still, looking at the bottle on my hand, I couldn't deny that not only the way it fizzed was the same as cola, but they even had the same taste. But I dismissed it. This world—this place—it had no room for such things.

"Why…?"

The question escaped before I could stop it.

'...Why is he doing me favors like this?'

Neo shrugged, as though the answer didn't matter. Or perhaps the answer was too obvious to state.

"Entertainment, of course. What else?"

"..."

I took another sip, feeling the bubbles dance on my tongue, the sweetness clinging to the back of my throat like a memory I couldn't quite shake.

Neo halted right before the door.

"Oh, well…"

He brushed the nonexistent dust from his coat.

"Today's the day, isn't it?"

I blinked. "Day for what?"

His grin widened, though there was something in his eyes that felt less human than ever.

"For you to leave this little tomb, of course."

Leave? The thought hadn't even occurred to me. This room, with its crumbling walls and sparse furnishings, had been my entire world for the past week. It was the only place that felt solid, even if it was suffocating.

"Let's go. You didn't think I'd keep you locked up in here forever, did you?"

"..."

"Bedsides, can't you walk already? Doesn't your soul feel bad about lying to me just to eat a lot of bought bread? Not those stolen…"

He sighed. Before I could protest, he walked towards me, grabbed my arm, and pulled me to my feet. The movement sent a wave of dizziness, but Neo held me steady.

"Time to see the world, poor soul."

He dragged me toward the door, and before I knew it, we were outside.

But the moment I stepped beyond the threshold, the world shifted. The door behind me vanished, the room I had been confined to evaporated like smoke. Instead, I found myself standing in a narrow alley, the walls around me painted in red splashes.

'It's not blood, is it…?'

The sky above was a dull, oppressive gray, and the sun—if it even existed—hid itself far beyond the space. Really, I have yet to see the daylight here.

Turning around, the town stretched out before me, an endless maze of crumbling old stone buildings. The ground beneath was slick, as though it had recently rained, but there was no moisture in the air.

And worse, there was no ground.

The surface I stood on shimmered faintly. It was a pathway made with bricks, some missing, some had cracks, and some had shattered completely.

I glanced at Neo, but he was already walking ahead. He looked like he knew exactly where we were going. I had no choice but to follow.

As we walked, I felt it. The weight of unseen gazes. Eyes, watching from the shadows, from the cracks in the walls, from the spaces where light didn't reach. It was an oppressive sensation, one that made my skin crawl and made my heartbeat faster.

'Some things never change…'

I didn't belong here.

I never had.

And then, ahead of us, a figure appeared.

The vendor.

I recognized him immediately—the man who had beaten me senseless for stealing a piece of stale bread. His face twisted in disgust as he saw me. His lip curled as though I were something filthy, something beneath him.

He clicked his tongue. "Thief."

It was loud enough for me to hear, but not loud enough to confront me directly.

I averted my eyes. But then again, I didn't need to steal now. Neo had fed me, filled me with bread and cola and strange words that left me feeling both fuller and emptier than before.

I had no need to take anything from the vendor.

…At least, not today.

We passed him without incident, but the weight of his gaze lingered long after we were out of sight.

Neo stopped suddenly, his attention drawn to something on the wall ahead of us. I followed his gaze and saw it—a tattered, weathered poster, barely clinging to the bricks.

The one in the poster looked like me, this body. Below, a name was written and a "Missing" title.

I read it aloud. "Kian Emris."

Neo's gaze shifted from the poster to me.

"Well."

His voice took on that familiar soft feeling, almost playful tone, though now there was something colder, something sharper beneath it.

"Kian, huh…? Isn't that interesting?"

As he looked at me, I swallowed hard.

"I don't… I don't know who that is."

Neo's smile widened, but it wasn't a kind smile. It was the smile of a predator. A smile that promised pain. A smile that promised suffering.

He stepped closer, his breath cold against my skin, his eyes boring into mine with an intensity that made me want to shrink away and to disappear.

He laughed. "I was right. No. I knew I was."

Neo's laughter was the only thing that filled the silence between us. He had a way of laughing that made you feel small, as though you were the punchline to a joke he hadn't quite finished telling.

I blinked, confused. "Right?"

Neo didn't answer immediately. Instead, he walked ahead, almost lazy. Once again, I followed, my feet moved without thinking.

He stopped suddenly, turning to face me, that grin still plastered across his face.

"Kian."

He said with a strange tone that almost sounded affectionate.

"As I've suspected, you're quite entertaining."

There it was again. That word.

Entertaining.

"Now."

Neo continued as he stepped closer, his voice lowering to a near-whisper, as if we were sharing some great secret.

"Let's begin the first step."

The first step. Of what? He didn't elaborate, of course. He never did. His words were always like that. And yet, I couldn't help but be drawn in.

Perhaps it was curiosity.

…Or perhaps it was simply that in this place, in this strange, dreamlike world, there was not a single boring thing.

He turned on his heel and began walking again. After what felt like five minutes, we reached a staircase, descending into the earth.

The air grew cooler as we descended, the dim light fading into a dim violet hue. At the bottom of the stairs, a door loomed before us. It was massive and was carved with intricate designs. The wood was dark, almost black, and the metal handles gleamed faintly in the dim light.

Neo stopped before the door and rested his hands on the handle. He glanced back at me, and without a word, he pushed the door open.

Creak.

The world beyond the door was nothing like the town above. It was a vast underground colosseum. The air was thick with the scent of sweat and blood, the sound of clashing swords and shouting voices filled the space.

The walls were lined with torches, casting flickering violet and indigo light over the arena, illuminating the three rings in the center of the space.

In each ring, battles raged on. Figures moved with a grace that seemed almost inhuman. Their bodies were twisting and turning with a fluidity that defied logic.

Some wielded swords, their blades flashing in the dim light. Others moved with their bare hands, their strikes precise and deadly.

And some… some had scales, claws, and tails that glinted in the torchlight.

"This," he said, gesturing to the arena, "is where it all begins."

I stared at him.

"What… is this place?"

He smiled.

"A place of survival. A place of strength. A place of entertainment."

I tore my eyes away from him and back to the arena. The battle raged on, and the crowd, the audience hidden in the shadows, watched with rapt attention as their voices rised in a cacophony of cheers and jeers.

At the center of it all was a path, leading between the three rings. And at the end of that path, a massive door loomed, even larger than the one we had entered through. It stood at the far end of the colosseum.

Neo's eyes gleamed as he followed my gaze.

"That is where we're going."

"Why?"

"Because, Kian, you're going to entertain me. And that's where the real fun begins."

Before I could respond, he kicked the nearest barrel with a resounding bang. The sound echoed through the arena, silencing the battles for a brief, breathless moment.

"Yo! Neo's here!"

The crowd, the fighters, even the torches seemed to freeze at the sound of his voice. And then, as if in response, the massive door at the end of the path creaked open, revealing nothing but darkness beyond.

Neo turned to me with eyes that seemed to embody the universe, as it glinted like stars and galaxies.

"Let's see how entertaining you really are."