Casimir's disciple

He was middle-aged, his brown hair slicked back, not a single strand out of place. His tailored coat moved gently with the breeze. In one gloved hand, he carried a handgun — loose but ready. He smiled, a quiet, amused smile that never reached his eyes.

It wasn't Casimir.

"No," the man said with a soft chuckle, cocking his head ever so slightly, like a teacher correcting a child. "Not Casimir. His disciple."

BOOM.

The gun roared, and one of the men dressed as a security guard dropped like a sack of flour. The bullet entered cleanly through his forehead and tore out the back, splattering blood across the cracked cobblestones. He collapsed backwards with a twitch, then stilled.

Chaos detonated.

Natalie, eyes burning with terror, acted before thinking. In one swift motion, she drew her knife, the blade gleaming briefly in the headlights behind her. She twisted her body, whipped out the knife she'd been hiding against her thigh, and stabbed the cab driver's hand with all her strength, who was gripping her wrist.

"GAAAH!" he screamed as the blade drove through flesh, knocking him to his knees in pain, letting go of Natalie.

Natalie didn't wait. She flung herself off the ground, boots hitting the ground hard, and sprinted toward the mossy stone stairs that led toward the exit.

A man lunged after her, grabbing her by the back of her coat. She shrieked, flailing, and kicked him savagely in the shin.

"FUCK!" he cried, stumbling back.

"Natalie!" Kazou yelled, breaking free from the two men beside him. He ran toward her, reckless, desperate. "You can get killed! You should've stayed sitting!"

But it was too late.

A pair of arms snatched Kazou mid-run. One of the fake security men grabbed him by the shoulders and hurled him backward, slamming him into the gravel. Kazou's breath left his lungs in a single, painful gasp.

Before he could recover, the cold steel of a gun barrel pressed into his throat.

The man above him sneered. His finger twitched over the trigger.

"I guess you should die if you don't behave, little Japanese man!"

Kazou lay still, staring up, eyes wide and unblinking.

He didn't plead. Didn't cry.

His thoughts spun to the same face: Casimir. And behind that, the faces of the children from the lab. Four, Eight, Six, Nine, Ten...

He waited for death.

The disciple's voice drifted in from the mist, almost a whisper.

"You're ruining it," he said.

BOOM.

The man pinning him recoiled, a hole torn through the side of his head. Blood sprayed across Kazou's face. The man crumpled sideways, lifeless, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Kazou scrambled upright, gasping for breath.

The brown-haired man was approaching now, gun lowered, that smile still perched on his lips like a vulture.

"Dr. Kuroda," the man said. "You always make things... messy."

Kazou's heart pounded.

Natalie was now standing over the corpse of the man who'd threatened Kazou. She picked up the dropped handgun with trembling fingers, turned, and pointed it at the brown-haired stranger.

"Don't move!" she screamed. "I'll shoot you! I swear!"

The man didn't flinch. He kept walking.

"Natalie," Kazou said hoarsely, rising to his feet, wiping blood from his cheek with a trembling hand. "Put the gun down. He's not going to kill us."

"How the fuck do you know that?!" she snapped, her aim wobbling, clear she had never picked up a gun in here life.

The disciple stopped a few feet from her. His hands were still at his sides.

"Because," the man said with a smirk, "we can't kill Casimir's guests."

The air went silent.

"He wants to see the ending," the man continued. "With you."

His eyes lingered on Natalie as he said it. She shivered.

"You're important to him, Sasha."

"That's not my name!" she shouted, hands shaking violently now. "Stop calling me that!"

The man took a step forward.

Kazou instinctively stepped in front of her.

The man's gaze flicked to Kazou, and for a moment, something darker passed across his expression—something familiar, something twisted.

"You must be tired," he said, voice low and velvet. "All that running. All that guilt."

Kazou stared at him. "What are you?"

The disciple smiled wider, almost gleeful now.

"I'm just a man with a mission," he said. "Like you. Like Kuroda."

Kazou froze.

"Don't worry," the man added. "Casimir is close. He's watching everything. He has been since the beginning."

Natalie's breath caught.

The castle behind them stood like a monolith, ancient and dead. A great eye, unblinking.

The disciple gestured grandly with one hand.

"Shall we go inside? The curtain's rising."

Behind him, more figures began to emerge from the shadows — armed, silent, masked. But none of them raised their weapons. They stood still, like statues. Waiting.

Kazou didn't move.

Natalie's gun began to lower.

The disciple turned his back on them, walking slowly toward the castle gates.

"You want to know the truth?" he called back to them. "We killed your kidnappers even though they are also Casimir supporters. Why? Because they aren't like us. They thought that they would be able to see it. See the end. But no. Casimir wouldn't allow it. He is only following Sasha's orders."

And with that, the doors began to open.

Darkness waited beyond them.

Kazou looked at Natalie. She looked back, pale but unbroken.

She nodded.

Together, they walked forward.

Silently, the disciple turned toward Kazou and Natalie, walking backwards as he led them deeper into the castle.

Hastily, Natalie brought back up the pistol, her breath came in ragged bursts. She walked with her arms locked in front of her, aiming the pistol directly at the disciple. Her hands shook.

Kazou turned to her. "No. Natalie—don't."

Her finger twitched. The disciple didn't flinch. He even stepped forward, arms slightly out, as if inviting it. "Go on," he said, grinning. "Shoot me. But you'll never make it out of here alive. You think this place is just stone and wind? No. It's been waiting. Casimir's been waiting."

Natalie's eyes burned. Her arms trembled harder."You're lying. You're just another brainwashed dog!"

"Natalie… put the gun down," Kazou tells Natalie calmly.

"I CAN'T!" she screamed. Everything in her cracked open in that moment — months of nightmares, of trauma she couldn't name, of a name she didn't remember. Sasha. Why did they keep calling her that?

The disciple just chuckled and walked forward, bending slightly to meet her eye. His voice softened, almost fatherly. "You're more like him than you know. Do you feel it yet? The hunger?"

The three stop in their tracks. As a response to Natalie's gun, the man pulls out a pistol from his blazer and aims it at Natalie.

Natalie's chest heaved. Her grip loosened. The gun dropped from her fingers and clattered against the stone floor.

Kazou rushed forward, stepping in between her and the man.

"Stay away from her," he said, chest rising and falling. "You want someone to shoot, shoot me. But she's not part of this."

The disciple blinked — then laughed. "Dr. Kazou Kuroda. Always the self-sacrificing one. You remind me of him, you know. The first guest Casimir ever invited here. A kind soul, broken by guilt." He leaned in, smiling so wide his teeth showed. "Want to know what happened to him?"

Kazou didn't answer.

The man whispered, "He begged to die by Casimir's hand." The wind screamed through the broken windows above. The silence that followed was unbearable. Footsteps echoed in the distance — more coming. Reinforcements. Or worse.

Natalie sank to her knees, staring at the gun. Kazou reached for her, gently pulling her back toward him.

"We're going to be okay. I promise."

"No," the disciple said, raising his gun again. "You won't with this behavior." But he didn't pull the trigger. Instead, he smiled. And walked away, slipping the gun back into his pocket, his other hand behind his back signaled for Natalie and Kazou to follow. And so, they did.

"W-will we see him?" Natalie asks, her voice shaking, "Casimir? Will we see Casimir?"

"His presence is in the eye of the beholder... Sasha."