"Carten… Carten!"
A voice pierced through the fog of my dreams—light, desperate, trembling.
When I opened my eyes, I saw her.
A little girl stood beside me, her blonde hair glimmering like gold against the dim, blood-soaked sky. Her crimson eyes—too ancient for her tender face—stared down at me, wide with something I could not name. She wore a white kimono splattered faintly with dust and red, the fabric whispering in the wind like the last breath of the dead.
I blinked, disoriented, my body heavy with pain and the stench of iron.
"Who… are you?" I asked, my voice cracking like a forgotten blade.
She tilted her head, confusion flickering across her face.
"You're my brother," she said simply.
Her words struck me harder than the chill of the battlefield.
Brother?
I tried to remember—but the memories slipped away like smoke.
The world around me spun. The air reeked of decay. I realized then—
I was lying amidst the dead.
Bodies stretched across the ground, a crimson sea of silence.
Swords half-buried in mud.
Helmets cracked open like shells.
Crows hovered above the corpses, their wings black stains against a red sky.
"Carten," she called again softly.
"Why were you lying here?"
I wanted to answer—but the words refused to come.
She knew my name.
And yet, I did not know her.
I turned my gaze downward. A weight pressed against my legs.
I pushed it aside—and froze.
It was a man.
A red-haired soldier, his body mutilated—no head, no arms, no legs.
The flesh was freshly torn, but the head beside him was rotten, as if time had touched each piece differently.
Who would do this?
Who would torment even the dead?
Was madness all that was left in this place?
When I looked back at the girl, she was smiling.
That same soft, mischievous smile—a child's grin hiding something eternal.
"Who are you?" I whispered again.
She stepped closer, her eyes glowing faintly in the dying light.
And in her voice—calm, pure, and unshaken—she said,
"It took more time than it usually does."
Then I saw it.
Behind her—
where I had lain—
was my body.
Cold.
Lifeless.
Staring into the heavens with glassy eyes.
"What… am I?" I asked her, my voice trembling, caught between fear and disbelief.
She turned toward me slowly. The wind played with the hem of her kimono, carrying with it the faint scent of smoke and steel. Her crimson eyes softened—no longer sharp or ancient, but filled with something achingly human.
"You," she said gently, "are a soul. A fragment of life left behind. One who still carries a regret so deep… it binds you here."
Her words felt like chains settling around me—quiet, invisible, cold.
"A soul?" I echoed, my voice barely more than a whisper. "But… I don't remember anything. Not from birth. Not from death. Nothing. Just… emptiness. A blank screen inside my head."
The confession left me hollow. I pressed a hand to my temple, searching for something—anything—a memory, a name, a face that wasn't my own. But there was only silence.
Above us, the crimson moon hung low and vast, bleeding its light across the dead earth. It was terrible, and yet unspeakably beautiful—like a wound that refused to close. I stared at it, mesmerized. The shadows around us stretched long and thin, whispering in the wind like forgotten prayers.
She followed my gaze, her small voice breaking the silence.
"That moon watches every soul that wanders," she murmured. "It remembers when we do not."
Then she turned to me once more, her expression distant yet tender.
"Find your purpose," she said, her tone now soft as falling ash, "and come to me when you understand."
"My purpose?" I asked, taking a step closer. The world seemed to tilt beneath me, as if resisting my question. "What is my purpose in this life? Tell me."
She looked up at the moon again, and in her eyes I saw a reflection of all the pain I could not recall.
"You have suffered too much already," she said, her voice trembling like a song about to end. "Your purpose cannot be given—it must be found. Only then will your soul be at peace."
Her figure began to fade, as if dissolving into the light of the moon itself.
"Only then," her voice echoed, "will you be free to reach the afterlife."
And I stood there, alone beneath that crimson sky,
watching her vanish into the silence—
wondering what kind of life
leaves behind a soul with no memories,
only regret.