Yosu tried to pretend he was asleep. His breathing slowed, eyes shut tight, muscles frozen. But the knife was glowing.
It pulsed with a dim, sickly red light, casting flickering shadows across the mold-stained walls. The ritual had stopped, yet the room had grown colder—like the air itself had recoiled from something that had entered. His brother stood at the foot of the bed, silent, still, eyes wide and gleaming. His smile twitched at the corners, too far, too crooked to be human.
Then he laughed.
"HaHaHHaa HAHAhaHAhA!"
It wasn't a laugh. It was a collapse of meaning. A sharp, hysterical noise that echoed like broken glass dragged across concrete. The sound scraped against Yosu's spine.
"I know you're not sleeping, little brother."
Yosu's eyes snapped open just as the knife came down.
He screamed—too late to dodge. His hands shot up to block the blow, but the blade wasn't just sharp. It was something else—something wrong. The moment his fingers touched it, flesh peeled like fruit, tendons split, and blood sprayed into the air.
The blade slammed through his hand and drove into his right eye.
A flash of red.
Agony like lightning.
His world shattered into screaming.
He couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't understand how pain could be this sharp, this deep, this blinding. His screams became sobs, wet and desperate, his vision a swirl of blood and tears.
He kicked, flailed, threw his broken body toward the door. He had to run. He didn't care where. Just away.
The hallway was pitch-black. He couldn't see. His footsteps slipped on the warped floorboards as he staggered through the darkness, half-blind, half-conscious. He turned sharply and—
His foot missed the first step.
He fell.
The staircase rushed to meet him.
His head hit something hard. Stars exploded behind his eyes—what was left of them. Warmth spread from his scalp. He tumbled down, limbs flailing, bones screaming. Then everything stopped.
Blackness swallowed him whole.
He woke hours later. He didn't know how long. Time had no shape here.
The first thing he noticed was the smell.
It clawed down his throat and pulled the bile from his stomach. Sour. Metallic. Rotting. Like blood mixed with shit, with fire, with something... ancient.
He was in a room. No windows. One door. The air was thick. Symbols were smeared across every surface—walls, floor, ceiling. Red. Too red. Some glowed faintly, pulsing in a slow rhythm, like a heartbeat.
Yosu sat up, then immediately hunched over and vomited. Dry heaves. Nothing came out but spit and panic.
Then he saw them.
Bodies.
Ten of them.
Lined along the far wall. Not lying. Not collapsed. Arranged.
Their forms were twisted, brutalized in ways his mind couldn't process. One had their face caved in, another had no eyes. One was skinned entirely. A man's jaw was torn off and nailed to the wall beside him. Their blood had dried black, but the stench remained fresh, thick as smoke.
Yosu's stomach clenched. His breath came in chokes. He scrambled back, only to slam into something soft.
A girl.
She was chained upright in the corner, unconscious or nearly there. Cuts covered her arms, her legs. Her hair was matted with blood. Her chest rose and fell in weak, broken rhythm. She was still alive.
Then the door creaked open.
Yosu didn't move. Couldn't.
His brother entered.
Same patchy coat. Same glowing knife. Same leather-bound book clutched to his side, its symbols shifting across the cover like they were alive.
He walked past Yosu without a glance, stepped to the girl's side.
She woke instantly, eyes wide in terror.
"No… no please… please, I told you everything—I swear—I told you what they said, what they planned—don't kill me, I—I did what you asked—"
She sobbed. She shook. She begged.
The man didn't say a word.
He raised the knife—and, with one smooth motion, split her skull open.
There was no ceremony. No flourish. Just steel and flesh and the wet sound of life ending.
Yosu screamed.
It wasn't a conscious choice. It ripped out of him like a reflex. His voice cracked. His throat burned.
He scrambled backward until his back hit the wall, hyperventilating, heart a jackhammer against shattered ribs.
"What… what are you… what is this—what did I do to you?!"
His hands trembled, still stained with blood—his own or others, he didn't know.
"I didn't do anything to you! I—I don't know who you are—I'm not even from this place! I'm not Leonard—I don't belong here! Please—I'm begging you—just let me go! I don't know anything!"
The man stopped.
He turned slowly to Yosu. His expression was blank. Cold.
And then—he smiled again.
A broken, crooked smile.
"I know. That's why I could fool you so easily."
He laughed.
Quietly this time. Like he was savoring it.
"We are not even brother. And I don't know what is ur real name "LEONARD" "
Then he started laughing again.
"Hahahhaha!"
Yosu's blood froze.
The man took a step forward, then another. He opened the book.
His voice dropped. A chant began—guttural, wrong, heavy with weight. The air shifted. The room seemed to breathe.
Yosu felt it in his teeth.
The symbols on the walls glowed brighter.
The corpses twitched.
One hand spasmed. Another leg jerked. A jaw cracked open with a dry snap.
They began to move.
To crawl.
To rise.
To merge.
Bone snapped to bone. Flesh tore and reformed. A wet sound filled the room, like meat grinding into meat. The corpses climbed over each other, folding in, stretching out, limbs fusing, torsos expanding, eyes multiplying.
A single mass of agony and hatred.
A thing born of murder.
A monster.
The man closed the book, knife still glowing.
He stepped back, eyes never leaving Yosu.
"That's your meal," he said. "And you're the offering."
The beast lunged.
Yosu tried to run. Too slow. Too weak.
A claw struck his stomach.
Fire.
Ripping. Tearing. Heat.
He looked down—and saw his own intestines spill from a gaping hole. Blood gushed. He screamed. Collapsed. Crawled. His hands slipped on the floor, slipping through his own blood.
He tried to scream again—but no voice came out.
The beast howled, dozens of mouths opening across its back and chest.
It grabbed him.
Dragged him back.
And then—
Blackness.
No pain. No sound. No time.
He opened his eyes.
And he was back.
Back in the alley.
Cold cobblestone beneath him. Fog curling through the air. Rats chittered nearby. His clothes were dry. His hands—whole. His eye—fine.
No wounds. No corpses. No brother.
But the memory remained.
The girl's skull splitting.
The monster's teeth.
His own guts on the floor.
He sat there for a long time.
Then he started screaming.
Loud. Violent. Unstoppable.
He clawed at his face, at his stomach. Nothing. No scars. No holes.
He wanted to vomit—but he had nothing in his belly.
Tears streamed down his cheeks. His body shook. His heart pounded in terror that couldn't be reasoned away.
He remembered the voice. The knife. The words:
"We are not even brother."
He stumbled to his feet and ran.
Down the empty streets.
Into fog.
Into shadow.
Screaming. Begging for help.
But no one stopped.
No one saw.
No one listened.
The world moved on.
And Yosu ran through it like a boy who had glimpsed hell—and brought some of it back with him.