Hoshi stared at his brother, who was crying bitterly as if begging for milk. He noticed that the boy's features resembled their mother's—especially his shining blond hair—while he himself still didn't know what he looked like.
The brown-haired father looked at the twins and laughed, saying:
"Looks like Astrom will be quite the crybaby! Unlike Hoshi—he seems very calm."
Hoshi muttered inwardly with faint sarcasm:
"Of course I'd be calm… I'm eleven years old, not a newborn like this one."
The father studied Hoshi's face more closely, then said in surprise:
"By the way, where did Hoshi get that blue hair from? I don't recall anyone in our family having it… strange indeed."
The mother answered as she nursed Astrom, who was starting to calm down:
"I don't know, but he looks special. In fact, I really love that color."
Hoshi smiled inwardly, as if the warmth of her words touched something he had long lost. He thought quietly to himself:
"This is what I truly wanted… a normal, loving family, nothing more. It seems my new life will be far better than the last one."
The father gently lifted Hoshi into his arms, and the infant looked up innocently into his blue eyes. At that moment, he remembered that this was the same color as his real father's eyes on his previous planet—but the difference was immense. His old father had been cruel, sold him without hesitation, and beat him repeatedly for no reason. He remembered the day he fell and scraped his knee; he had run crying to his father for a hug, but the man slapped him harshly and knocked him down again.
Tears welled in Hoshi's infant eyes as he gazed at his new father, then he began to cry in a trembling, childlike voice—as if longing for that warmth and embrace he had never known… as if begging for it now with his whole being.
Tiny Hoshi clutched his father's collar with his small hand, as though pleading not to be abandoned. His grip was weak, yet it carried the fear of a lifetime of loss. Inside, a heavy thought whispered:
"I don't want to lose this warmth… not again. Let me stay here longer… please!"
Hoshi burst into tears in his father's arms, his broken sobs carrying more than one meaning. It wasn't the cry of a hungry child, but an eruption of a soul that had hidden its pain for too long. His small body trembled, and his ancient memories choked behind tears that no one else could understand. For the first time, he allowed himself to collapse in arms that did not reject his existence.
The father froze, unable to comprehend his child's sudden crying. He stared at Hoshi's face and saw something older than his age—a strange sorrow that did not belong to infants. He held him tighter, patting his back slowly, trying to soothe him without realizing he wasn't calming a baby, but easing a soul that had sought this embrace for ages.
At that moment, a mysterious beam of light pierced the city's sky and crashed toward the ground with immense force. A sharp whistling sound followed, as if the air itself were being split in half. Shimmering blue fragments scattered in every direction, turning the sky into a painting of light and storms.
Outside the house, the technological city stretched beyond imagination—streets of glowing glass, buildings floating above the ground supported by energy fields, connected by transparent bridges pulsing with light. Vehicles hovered in layered airways, some the size of cars flying in the sky. High above, massive towers exhaled blue steam.
The father quickly laid the baby in his crib, then turned to his wife with anxious eyes and rushed outside as she followed. He shouted in panic as he ran through the lights and noise:
"What's happening here?!"
When he reached the street, he found crowds gathered in the central plaza, staring in shock at a huge meteor that had fallen in the middle of the city. It didn't look like ordinary rock; its surface was smooth like metal, glowing with shifting violet lines that pulsed like living veins.
The aliens murmured in their various languages, filled with both confusion and fear. Suddenly, an old man stepped out from the crowd—a long violet beard, bald head gleaming under the lights. His features radiated age and wisdom, and his eyes shone with mysterious depth. He held a strange staff, a fusion of living metal and pulsating crystal, wrapped with a moving golden light.
He approached the meteor with slow, steady steps, stared at it for a long time, then bent down to touch its glowing surface with his fingertips. The moment he did, his eyes widened in sharp astonishment, and the violet light reflected on his face like the flash of a prophecy.
He turned his head slowly toward the crowd, his face drained of color, the glow almost leaving him. His voice trembled, yet carried enough strength to cut through the silence:
"Planet Vidamus… has cast a curse upon us!"
The crowd exchanged uneasy looks, murmurs rising on all sides. Some stepped back, others began running in primal fear, while a few remained frozen in curiosity—among them Hoshi's parents, staring intently at the old man.
The elder raised his staff slightly and spoke in a hoarse voice, trembling with dread and memory:
"This has happened before… two hundred years ago. I was a young boy then—I witnessed the end with my own eyes."
One man interrupted angrily, his voice shaking with both fear and rage:
"What do you mean by a curse?! Speak clearly!"
The old man sighed deeply, sorrow weighing on his face before he continued:
"It's a long story… As you know, we've been at war with Planet Vidamus for centuries. Their Emperor never forgets—he seeks revenge and the annihilation of our kind. He found only one way to do it: by sending one of their own here, disguised… inside the body of a child born today!"
The people's murmurs grew into a wave of panic. Their eyes filled with terror and suspicion, especially those who had newborns that day. Hoshi's parents looked at each other, fear creeping into their faces despite themselves.
A man from within the crowd shouted, his voice slicing through the chaos like an arrow:
"Then search every hospital! Every home where a child was born today! We must kill that curse before it grows!"
The mother's face tightened as she slowly turned toward her husband, her eyes trembling with silent dread:
"H—Harvmar…"
Harvmar quickly placed his hand on her shoulder gently, trying to reassure her despite his trembling fingers:
"Don't worry, my dear… everything's fine. Our children… they're perfectly normal."
But his voice, calm on the surface, could not hide the faint doubt taking root in his heart. They walked home in tense, heavy steps, as if the ground itself resisted their movement. When they opened the door, both froze in place.
Hoshi's cries were tearing through the walls of the room. His tiny body trembled on the bed, his face twisting as if trapped in an endless nightmare.
Inside, Hoshi was screaming though no one could hear him:
'Wh-what's happening to me! Ahh… my head! My chest—it hurts!!'
Every cell in his body was exploding with unbearable pain. On his cheeks, dark black lines began to form—two on each side—as if something was being carved into his skin. And above his eyes, from the center of his forehead downward, a sharp yellow horn started to grow, slowly pushing through the flesh as if his body were being reshaped.
As for his eyes… they did not shed tears. Instead, they bled hot blood that streamed from their corners while his cries continued until the walls of the house shook. The pain was beyond comprehension—greater than his new body could endure.
From the shock, his parents froze in place, not taking a single step. Their eyes were wide open, their mouths half parted, unable to speak or act. Time itself stopped for a moment; the screaming filled the room, and the infant's blood flowed endlessly.
Hoshi lifted his gaze toward them through the agony, his trembling, blood-stained red eyes staring at his parents. He didn't speak, but his look was enough—it carried a silent plea…
'Save me… don't leave me again…'
The father felt his legs fail him, but he forced himself to take a step forward. His hand trembled as he approached the crib, every voice inside him screaming with fear, doubt, and something he dared not name.
The mother covered her mouth, tears streaming down her face in silence—not from fear of her son, but because something deep within her told her that what she was seeing… would not end here.
Hoshi screamed again, but this time his voice was weaker, distorted, as if his vocal cords no longer belonged to this body. The black lines on his face began to glow faintly, and the yellow horn neared completion.
Inside, Hoshi cried out in despair:
"I'm burning… I'm tearing apart inside… help me… please!"
But his inner voice went unheard. Within seconds, everything stopped. The screaming ceased. Hoshi's body froze. The glow faded from the markings. The room fell silent, as if the entire world paused to witness that moment.
The father stepped closer, reaching out his trembling hand toward his son and whispering in fear:
"Hoshi…?"
Hoshi slowly opened his eyes. They were no longer the same—now completely black, with no white left at all… even the glow from the markings returned! Then he spoke in a voice that was neither child nor human:
"…I… am not from here."
The mother screamed in terror, clinging to her husband's arm, her body shaking, her eyes unable to believe what she saw. In the corner, Astrom burst into hysterical crying from the overwhelming noise, his wails trembling with fear rather than hunger.
And Hoshi… stood up—despite being a newborn. He raised his head, his pitch-black eyes staring firmly ahead, as a dark magical orb began to form slowly in his tiny hand, pulsing like a separate heart. At that instant, the mother could no longer bear it. A sharp gasp escaped her chest, and she ran toward the kitchen. Moments later, she returned holding a knife in her trembling hand.
Hoshi, with his infant body and shadowed eyes, tried to direct that dark energy toward Harvmar, his small hand shaking, the magical orb about to burst. But the mother acted first, driven by blind, primal instinct—she dashed toward him, the knife raised in her quivering hand, her eyes filled with terror more than anger.
Harvmar shouted, his voice erupting from his chest:
"Nirara… stop!!"
But his cry came too late. Nirara had already reached Hoshi and plunged the knife straight into his abdomen. In that instant, Hoshi's dark form shattered, the glow from the black markings fading away, and his innocent features returned. He lifted his head toward his mother, his eyes wide with despair, real tears this time streaming down as his short breaths escaped.
Inside, he screamed:
"Why… ah… why, Mother?!"
Blood poured heavily from his stomach, painting the crib in the color of death, while Nirara slowly pulled the knife from his tiny body, her hands trembling, her face collapsing under the horror of what she had done.
Nirara staggered backward, her hands drenched in blood, the knife slipping from her grasp and clattering faintly against the floor. The room filled with silence—broken only by the faint, uneven breaths escaping Hoshi's small mouth.
Harvmar did not move at first. His eyes followed the scene as if unable to process it. Then he took a step forward, kneeling beside the crib, his trembling hands reaching for his blood-soaked son.
"Hoshi… no… no, it can't be…"
He lifted his head toward his wife, then toward the ceiling, his chest shaking like a volcano erupting after ages of silence. His voice burst from the depths of a heart utterly broken:
"NIIIIIIIIIRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
The entire house shook, and the sky outside the window blazed with a strange violet hue, as if the universe itself responded to his scream.
And there… the true curse began.