Year: 2055
The storm came early.
Snow poured from the sky like the heavens had cracked open. Wind howled past the treetops, rattling windows and swallowing the highway in white. The forest on either side of the road was a blur—ghostly, frozen, and breathless.
Inside the car, warmth fought against the cold.
"Daddy," Lily mumbled, chin resting against the window. "How long will it take?"
"Just a few hours," Raegal replied, eyes focused on the road.
She pouted. "Aw…"
"Seatbelt," he said, not looking at her.
"I don't know how to put it on…"
Raegal sighed, leaned across, and reached for the strap.
Then—
A horn.
Headlights.
Screeching tires.
Raegal's eyes snapped wide.
Too late.
---
CRASH.
CHUNK.
THSSSS.
The world flipped.
Glass shattered.
Metal shrieked.
The car twisted through the air, rolled, then slammed into the frozen ground.
Silence.
Then the hiss of steam, the groan of bent steel, and the crunch of boots in snow.
---
A truck door slammed shut.
Two men approached the wreckage, snow dust swirling around them.
"Sir," one of them said, pulling a pistol. "I think I got them."
"Check if they're breathing," came the reply — calm, professional.
The gunman crouched beside the wreck. One hand reached through shattered glass. He checked Raegal's pulse.
"The girl's alive," he said after a pause.
"Excellent," said the other. "Bring her."
"And the man?"
The gunman stood. "He's dead."
"…I see."
---
Lily woke in a white room.
Marble floors.
Cold walls.
No windows.
Just a camera, a door, and a speaker.
She was lying on a bed she didn't remember. Her head throbbed. Her limbs felt heavy.
Then the door opened.
A man entered. Impeccable suit. Perfect posture. Cold smile.
Her breath caught.
"…The President?" she whispered.
"Yes, child," he said softly. "I am the President."
She struggled to sit up. "Where's my father?"
The President tilted his head.
"He sold you to us."
Her voice broke. "He… he did what?"
He raised a remote.
"Here," he said. "See for yourself."
A screen flickered to life.
---
Raegal appeared — alive, seated in a chair under white light, his expression unreadable.
"Do you love your daughter?" a voice off-screen asked.
He laughed.
"Do I love her?"
"Love's not the word I'd use."
"She was a mistake. Always needing attention. Always slowing me down."
"Look, I don't care what happens to her."
"If you're offering to take her off my hands..."
"be my guest."
---
Lily collapsed to the floor.
Her chest refused to rise. Her heart refused to beat.
She stared at the floor, trembling.
"No… no, he wouldn't…"
The President knelt beside her.
"I never knew a man could hate his own child this much," he said calmly. "But… aside from that—"
He stood up again.
"Congratulations, Lily."
"I want to go home.." Lily muttered
She didn't look at him.
"You're the first subject of our new experiment."
Her voice was barely a whisper. "What… experiment?"
He smiled.
---
"The White Rooms."
----
-------
Year 2055
The iron gates stood ajar.
Takumi Ryuzaki stepped through them in silence.
No guards bowed.
No aides ran to greet him.
Only wind.
Only snow.
And death.
He didn't flinch when he saw the first body.
He had seen corpses before — victims of politics, war, and his own design.
But this?
This was different.
A child, no older than six, lay crumpled by the steps.
A trail of blood curved around her like a failed attempt at a name.
Beyond her, the courtyard was littered with bodies — women, men, elders — collapsed mid-meal, mid-step, mid-prayer.
His entire family.
Gone.
Ryuzaki walked slowly, boots crunching glass and bone beneath him.
The estate — once a symbol of heritage, of control — was hollow now.
The windows were shattered, the lamps flickering.
Chairs overturned, weapons discarded.
And on the wall, scrawled in something thick and red:
"I'm… sorry."
He stared at it for a long time.
Not moving.
Not speaking.
Then his breath caught.
"No…"
He fell to his knees.
"No no no no… why… why me…"
"Why am I the one who gets to live…?"
His voice broke into the empty hall.
No one answered.
Only the wind.
He saw a paper fluttering in the corner of his vision — caught beneath a corpse's hand.
A page.
He crawled toward it.
It was old. Yellowed. Half-burnt. But the top was still clear.
Handwritten.
The White Army Tradition
His eyes darted across the text.
---
"Every decade, one child shall be chosen."
"They will be stripped of identity. Purged of emotion. Forged through pain."
"A perfect weapon, burdenless to the clan, flawless in loyalty."
"This is the path of our ancestors."
"This is survival."
---
He clenched the paper in his fist.
The Tradition.
It wasn't myth.
It wasn't bedtime whispers from senile elders.
It was real.
And this — this massacre — was its punishment.
Someone had failed to uphold it.
Someone let weakness infect the bloodline.
And the cost was genocide.
Ryuzaki stood slowly.
His coat fluttered behind him as the cold crept in.
He looked around the bloodstained halls of his childhood.
And he knew what had to be done.
"If they died because the tradition was broken…"
"Then I'll build it again."
He slipped the paper into his coat.
"No more family. No more honor. No more lies."
"Only obedience. Only pain. Only purpose."