"Some nights... I even forget how to breathe."
That was the first thought that crossed his mind when he awoke that morning.
The air was gray, the sky was gray, even the endless sound of the falling rain... was gray.
Luin sat at the edge of a cracked wooden roof, above an old shack in the Black Eastern District —
a place nobles only entered with soldiers... or in coffins.
He tilted his head slightly, letting the raindrops slide down his weary face.
"Someone once told me that life is precious... Perhaps they said it as they were dying."
⸻
Below him, people moved like ghosts.
A vendor quarreled with a petty thief.
A woman scolded her child because hunger had dragged him out of bed.
A blind priest murmured prayers no one cared to hear.
Luin was not one of them.
He merely watched.
⸻
He turned his gaze eastward — toward the domes of an abandoned church, and behind them, the white palaces that had never seen the sun.
"There... live those who decide whether we deserve to eat today."
"And here... we decide whether we wish to keep breathing."
⸻
He descended from the roof with calm steps. His left hand trembled slightly;
the scar behind his ear had begun to ache again.
He didn't remember who had made it... or when.
But he dreamed of it.
Sometimes, he saw it burning — as if it were a seal of something... forgotten.
⸻
In the narrow alley, he stopped for a moment.
On the stone wall — a small, dried stain of blood.
No one would notice it...
But he did.
Because he had seen it before — perhaps yesterday, or ages ago.
He approached it, raised his finger, and touched it.
"Blood... but not from this world."
"Am I imagining this?"
"But what if I'm not?"
"What if what I see now... is the only truth, and everything else is the lie?"
⸻
He heard footsteps.
He raised his head — and there, at the end of the alley, she stood.
A girl... who did not belong there at all.
Her face was clean. Her hair was hidden beneath a sky-blue scarf.
Her eyes studied him, as if searching for something within him.
But her gaze wasn't fearful... it was compassionate.
"Don't look at me like that."
"I'm not a story worthy of pity. I'm merely a chapter that hasn't been written yet."
Luin didn't move.
One look — calm, cold, empty.
Then he turned away and walked off.
No words. No questions. No emotion.
And she... didn't move either.
⸻
And in the moment he turned his head...
He saw it.
A faceless child, standing in the corner of the wall.
Looking at him with the eyes of a hero who thought he could save him.
Then the child vanished.
And when he turned back toward the girl... she was gone too.
⸻
Luin stood where the child had been, his hand resting on the cold wall.
His breathing quickened... but outwardly, he remained calm.
"Are the hallucinations returning...?"
"Or is something... awakening inside me?"
Suddenly, the rain fell harder — as if the sky itself was bleeding.
And in his ear came a new whisper — unlike anything he had ever heard before:
"You are the seal... the key... and the punishment."