The vast city shimmered under the faint drizzle—
neon billboards bleeding colors across the slick asphalt,
while a swollen cloud smothered the moon.
That night, police sirens ripped through the hollow streets.
"Target heading east! Don't let him get away!"
The officer's voice cracked through the radio—sharp, trembling.
The man sprinting between the alleyways was gasping to the point of suffocation,
his clothes clinging to his skin, soaked and freezing.
He ran, mumbling to himself over and over:
"I'm not the thief… I'm not the thief… why are they chasing me?!"
He had been framed—
but he had no time, no breath, to explain anything.
All he knew was that if he stopped, he would vanish into a cell forever.
He turned left… then right…
slipping into a narrow alley where the lights flickered like something breathing through broken lungs.
With each step,
he felt the walls pressing in, tightening around him.
Suddenly—
a buzz, then a snap.
Tzzsh—
the lights died.
They returned—
then died again…
then returned, trembling violently.
His heart lurched.
Something… behind him… was watching.
He froze.
His eyes widened with feral terror.
The rain grew heavier, drumming like fists on metal.
Even his own breathing came out as a wheezing whistle.
And when the light returned for a slightly longer second—
he saw something the human mind should never comprehend.
The alley…
was no longer an alley.
It was filled with human bodies—limbless, emptied, rearranged,
their entrails draped like decorations,
their heads tossed aside like discarded toys,
faces twisted in grotesque, eternal screams.
It was as if a pair of unseen hands had displayed them—
like shattered dolls.
There were no words.
No logic.
Only a scene so vile it turned his stomach inside out—
and he vomited violently onto the wet ground.
The lights blinked again—
once—
twice—
then died completely.
The man stood trembling, dragging in ragged breaths—
his chest rising and falling like someone drowning on dry land.
He couldn't understand what he was seeing…
but something else had begun to move inside him.
The moment his eyes caught the smear of blood on the ground…
his entire body shuddered.
A strange sensation—
something not human.
A sharp gasp escaped him, followed by fast, uneven breaths…
but they weren't breaths of fear.
They were the breaths of someone starving.
He lifted his trembling hand, smeared it across the wet ground,
then raised it before his face…
His expression froze.
Something inside him opened.
A scream tore out of his throat—
long, guttural, inhuman—
its echo ripping through the alleys like it belonged to some ancient, buried creature.
His eyes…
were no longer human.
The whites had vanished,
and the black had spread until it swallowed everything.
His eyes bulged from their sockets, weeping blood.
As for his mouth…
It opened far wider than any jaw should,
as though the lower half of his skull had been forcibly unhinged.
His teeth stretched—long, uneven, predatory—
overlapping like a row of jagged blades.
He dragged his hand across his own face,
smearing the blood over his skin in slow, deliberate strokes…
and then he smiled—
a ravenous, starving smile.
The police unit finally reached the alley.
And when they saw him…
three officers stepped back instantly.
"W–what… is that?!"
The man stood unnaturally,
his body arched backward slightly,
his chest heaving in violent waves.
One of the officers raised his weapon, shouting:
"Stay back! His condition is… unstable!"
But the man turned toward them—
a sudden, whip-like motion,
as if his neck contained no bones at all.
A low growl vibrated from deep inside him…
a hungry, feral warning.
Emergency Broadcast
"Unit Three reporting! We have an abnormal hostile! Request immediate backup!"
"The suspect has completely lost control— he's turning feral!"
The creature—whatever scraps of humanity still clung to it—
did not wait for the officers to approach.
It lunged toward them with a speed no human eye had ever witnessed**.
It leapt as if it had ripped itself out of the darkness,
descending on the first officer before the man could even raise his weapon.
A short scream—
then nothing.
His body hit the ground with a sickening thud,
his face frozen in a terror that never had the chance to become a word.
"Stay back! FIRE! FIRE NOW!"
the unit commander shouted as he stumbled backward.
But bullets—
were meaningless.
The creature moved like a shadow fleeing from light,
bending, twisting, snapping into positions a human spine should never allow.
Its movements were quick, broken, and disturbingly fluid.
It lunged at the second officer from the side,
slamming him against the wall with monstrous force.
The man slid down, unconscious,
his eyes still wide with disbelief.
One of the officers tried to hold his ground,
shouting through his shaking breath:
"Fall back! FALL—"
But the monster was behind him
before the last syllable left his mouth.
A long, distorted arm
snatched the back of his vest—
lifting him off the ground for a brief, suspended heartbeat…
and then hurling him downward
with enough force to snuff out every last spark of resistance inside him.
The sound of his impact alone
sent the remaining officers stumbling backward.
Rain sprayed through the air,
mixing with the frantic, broken voices on the radio:
"It's taking them down one by one!"
"We don't know WHAT it is—request immediate backup!"
"It's not stopping… IT'S NOT STOPPING!"
And the creature…
began crawling slowly now,
as if its hunger had dulled for a moment.
But its wide, black, bottomless eyes
were still searching for the next heartbeat to silence.
Only one officer remained standing,
his hands trembling violently as he aimed his weapon at the creature's skull.
"Stop… please… STOP!!"
For the first time—
the monster paused.
It raised its head slowly,
the dim light glinting off its deformed, predatory smile…
And then—
it vanished.
One leap.
One motion.
One scream.
And the last officer fell.
The alley returned to its suffocating quiet.
The sound of rain drowned everything else.
The flickering lights finally died.
And the creature—
stood among the scattered bodies,
breathing… slow… deliberate…
waiting for its hunger
to wake again.
Deep beneath the ground—
where no light could reach,
and the only sound was the slow drip of water from the stone ceiling—
there lay a rotting basement, damp and heavy with the stench of mold and rust.
The only source of light was a swaying ceiling lamp,
its faint glow stretching the shadows across the walls,
making them look like hidden creatures breathing in the dark.
And at the center of the room…
stood a boy with black hair brushing the base of his neck, glassy black eyes, and a short-sleeved black shirt.
Arisu Saiko.
He held a piece of white chalk between his fingers,
drawing delicate, precise lines across the stone wall—
interwoven shapes resembling symbols no one but him could understand.
He hummed to himself cheerfully,
like a child delighted with his newest toy.
"Ah… I completely forgot to bring that little cake up to the surface."
He chuckled lightly, as if remembering a harmless joke.
Then added:
"But that's fine… at least I managed to stir up Arthur Brindleclair."
He lifted the chalk again and continued his drawing,
his mind racing at a terrifying speed—
as though he was constructing something grand… and deeply wrong.
In the corner,
a man sat slumped in a torn shirt,
his wrists bound tightly to an old metal chair,
his eyes drowning in terror.
He shouted, begged, screamed—
but his voice only bounced against the walls,
never escaping this underground tomb.
Arisu spoke without turning around,
his tone gentle… disarmingly gentle:
"You know… your son transformed even faster than I expected. Truly fascinating. I thought it would take at least two or three days…"
He paused his drawing.
Then slowly—painfully slowly—
turned toward the man.
His smile was far too wide.
Wider than any human smile should ever be.
"Maybe I should add a few finishing touches before phase two… what do you think?"
He asked it the way someone would ask a friend about a new recipe.
Then he wandered around the room with light, bouncing steps,
his hands folded behind his back,
his movements calm…
yet the air itself grew heavier with every step.
The bound man screamed at the top of his lungs:
"Please… please, let me go—where is my son?! What did you do to him?!"
Arisu stopped in the middle of the room.
Tilted his head slightly—
as if contemplating an answer.
Then he walked forward, slowly…
crouching down in front of the trembling man,
his black, unblinking eyes drilling straight through him.
"Your son?"
He smiled.
"Oh… he's wonderful now.
You should be proud."
The smile stretched even further.
"He's become… exactly the version you always wanted."**
The man trembled violently—
his sanity fracturing right before him.
The bound man sobbed until his voice dissolved,
tears dripping onto his trembling hands
as though his very soul had collapsed inside him.
"Arthur… my son… what did you do to him?! What happened to him?! Please, tell me he's okay… please!"
He screamed the words with a shattered voice,
as if calling his son's name could pull him back into existence.
Arisu stood in the middle of the room,
his hands tucked casually into his pockets,
his head tilted slightly to the left—
like a child listening to a bedtime story.
"Oh… Arthur?"
A slow smile spread across his face.
Gentle… in the most horrifying way.
"Arthur is going through a beautiful phase right now."
He stepped closer,
then another step,
until he stood directly before the man.
Arisu leaned forward slightly,
bringing his eyes to the same level as the father's.
"You know? Upstairs… he's still moving."
He said it cheerfully, as if sharing a small secret.
"His body is trying to adapt to the change…
though it seems like he can't keep up with the speed of the transformation."
The man's knees jerked violently.
"Please… stop…! I'm begging you!"
But Arisu continued, unfazed—
as though he hadn't heard a single plea:
"At first… he loses all sensation. That's the easiest stage."
He lifted a finger, counting it as casually as if explaining a dessert recipe.
"Then the heat begins to rise… not fever heat, no…
but the heat of melting."
He laughed softly.
"Very painful, apparently… he was screaming beautifully at first."
The man cried out:
"Arisu! Where is he?! What are you doing to my son?!!"
Arisu lifted his head toward the ceiling,
as if he could see straight through the stone and dirt.
His voice slowed.
Softened.
And became infinitely more terrifying.
"Right now…"
"his skin is starting to lose its normal shape… changing little by little."
The man tried to stifle a scream—
but failed.
He was breaking apart, suffocating between sobs and denial.
"And do you know the truly painful part?"
Arisu leaned in until his breath touched the man's ear.
"He doesn't die quickly…
his consciousness stays intact until the very last stage."
A smile unfurled on Arisu's face—
too wide.
Far too wide.
"And now… in this exact moment…
he can't scream anymore."
Silence.
A silence so thick it felt like another presence in the room.
Then Arisu whispered,
a deadly softness in every word:
"The final stage…
is when his heart simply gives up.
Not from blood loss, no…"
He closed his eyes, savoring the imagined scene.
"…but from fear.
Fear alone kills him."
The man sucked in a long, shaking breath—
then released a scream filled with pure horror and denial.
Arisu placed a gentle hand on the man's shoulder—
a calm, almost affectionate touch…
one that snapped the last fragment of the man's sanity.
"Don't worry."
He whispered with a soft smile.
"Arthur… is asleep now."
Then he stepped back,
turned toward the wall,
and quietly resumed his chalk drawing—
as though nothing at all had happened.
The man gasped, lifting his head with eyes red from tears and rage, and screamed with a broken voice:
"You… you're not human! No! This is impossible! You're… a demon!"
The air froze for a moment.
Then… Aresu smiled.
A small, childlike smile—yet something about it was completely wrong.
He raised his hand and waved at the shackled man as if introducing himself for the first time:
"A demon? Nooo… I'm very human."
He pointed at himself with an open palm, almost theatrically.
"Look closely… my shiny hair, the perfect length…"
He ran his fingers through his soft black hair as it slid down his neck.
"And my pale skin… isn't it lovely?"
He stepped closer, flashing those glassy, abyss-black eyes:
"Add to that my ideal height… and the voice everyone seems to adore…"
He winked, playfully—
as if they weren't talking in a rotting basement that stank of death.
But the man only stared back in deeper terror with every word Aresu spoke.
"Impossible… You… you can't do all this… and call yourself human!"
Aresu laughed—
a pure laugh… twisted only by the tone that followed:
"Why do humans always believe that humans can't commit atrocities?"
He tilted his head, placing both hands behind his back as he walked in a gentle circle around the man.
"And the police…"
He inhaled slowly, as if remembering something delightful.
"Ohhh… playing with them is so much fun."
He stopped.
Raised a single finger.
Smiled innocently.
"Every time they get close to catching me…"
His voice dropped, soft and cold:
"They die."
Then his voice brightened suddenly, almost cheerful:
"Killing is so wonderful!"
He burst into laughter—
a long, broken laughter that echoed against the moldy basement walls like the sound of a nightmare finally given form.
The man clenched his shackled fists, his whole body trembling, tears falling silently…
While Aresu…
kept laughing.
The man's sobs trembled through the old basement like waves slamming against stone walls.
His face was shattered, chest rising and falling in chaotic spasms, his eyes burning red.
Aresu stood silently, watching him.
The smile he always wore had vanished.
In its place… a gentle expression—
far too gentle for this place.
He tilted his head slightly and spoke with a calm, almost sad tone:
"You know…?"
"I'll show you your son… in your final moments."
The man jerked his head up, as if he didn't fully understand:
"W–what!? Really?! Aresu… please—!"
Aresu stepped closer, kneeling in front of him like a child comforting an adult.
"I hate… separating families."
"Especially a bond between father and son."
The sincerity in his voice was disturbing—almost nauseating.
Aresu slowly stood… and cracked his fingers.
The air shivered.
From the corner of the room, a thick shadow began to form—
the wall trembled, stretching like fabric under pressure…
Until something emerged.
A gray, shapeless mass… its features warped, steam rising softly from its body.
Like a huge, broken creature forced into a human outline.
A faint, trembling cry…
Then a single, fractured word:
"…D–dad…"
The man froze.
All color drained from his face.
Words gathered in his throat but couldn't escape.
"Aresu… no… no… what… what is that…?"
Aresu smiled—
a small, warm smile—
and gently released the man's shackles with a soft touch.
"This is Arthur…"
he said it softly, as if introducing a sleeping child.
The father collapsed instantly, crawling toward the gray creature that whimpered with a strangled voice:
"Dad… why didn't… you save me?"
A scream tore the basement apart.
The father shook violently, a broken sound scraping out of his throat:
"Arthur… I… I couldn't… I couldn't—"
Aresu watched from behind them, eyes shimmering with curiosity—
and enjoyment.
"Family drama…"
he whispered with a faint smile.
"It's painful… and entertaining at the same time."
Then he crouched beside the father and gently placed a hand on his shoulder.
"By the way…"
A sad smile—
too sad, too genuine—
spread across his lips.
"I'm sorry… for what I did to both of you."
But that sorrow disappeared instantly,
morphing into something else.
Wider.
Colder.
Too honest.
"And also…"
He leaned close to the father's ear.
"You're going to be eaten."
That single sentence—
that whispered truth—
shattered the last remaining fragment of the man's sanity.
And Arthur began to thrash violently, his voice twisting into a shredded wail:
"Dad!! Save me!! Why… why didn't you come?!"
The father collapsed to the floor, his hand trembling as he reached toward the gray creature—
toward what had once been his son.
"Arthur… please… please stop…"
But Arthur's voice was no longer a voice.
It had curdled into a torn, feral groan—
something between a child's sob and the wail of a thing that had forgotten mercy.
Then…
the creature lunged.
Its teeth—nothing like human teeth—
jagged, uneven, carved as if from pure nightmare.
They sank into the father's shoulder.
A scream split the basement in half.
He tried to push the creature away,
but a burning heat spread from the bite—
a heat that scorched from within.
His back slammed against the wall.
"Arisu!! Arisu, please!! Help me!!"
Blood slipped between his shaking fingers as he clutched his shoulder.
But Arisu?
The man fell to the ground, dragging himself toward his phone's glowing screen.
"Arisu! Arisu!! Please— help me!"
Arisu didn't look up.
His fingers danced rapidly across his screen,
lost in a world far from the screams echoing beside him.
"I told you before…",
he whispered, eyes glued to the game,
"…I warned you."
The father crawled, leaving a trail of red behind him.
"Please… he's… he's my son…! You're the one… you're the one who made him this way!! Stop him!!"
A small red droplet landed on Arisu's cheek.
He paused.
Blinking once, he wiped it away with irritated indifference—
as if it were dust interrupting his game for a mere second.
"Ugh… how annoying."
He returned to playing.
Before the father could form a reply,
Arthur lunged again—
this time toward his father's arm.
The scream that followed was weaker…
more like a soul collapsing than a body in pain.
"Arisu!! Please!! I'm going to die!!
Didn't… didn't you say… you hated… breaking families apart…?"
For a moment—
the father remembered the sad expression Arisu had shown earlier.
He still didn't understand it.
Didn't know if it was real…
or just another mask.
He forced out the last of his voice:
"What… was that… look…?"
Arisu didn't even glance at him.
He puffed out his cheek in childish annoyance.
"The dead shouldn't talk."*
Then, sharply—
"And no one asks me those kinds of questions while I'm playing!"
He jabbed at his screen harder, irritated:
"I lost the level because of you."
The father's eyes widened.
Arthur tore through flesh—
the wet, slow sound echoing through the basement.
The father tried to scream—
but pain stole the sound from his throat.
As he collapsed, half of him still trying to crawl,
he turned to Arisu one last time.
"Please… please… stop him… Arisu…"
Arisu sighed, voice low and annoyed:
"Shhhh…
If you love him… don't scream. Screaming scares him."
But the father no longer had strength to answer.
In the final moment,
as his vision dimmed,
he heard his son's broken, childlike whisper—
"Daddy… I'm hungry."
Then Arthur crushed his father's skull between his teeth,
devouring him as he leaned down to lap the blood from the floor
with desperate, hungry breaths.
And then he rose…
Arisu stood before the pool of red liquid the father had left behind,
while Arthur devoured it with ravenous, trembling hunger.
He stared at the stain for a moment… then allowed a small, bored smile to curl his lips—
as if he had just uncovered an old trick he'd seen a thousand times.
"You really shouldn't trust faces."
He lifted a finger, lecturing softly:
"Especially the faces of criminals and killers. How ridiculous… to believe one expression."
He turned toward Arthur.
"Arthur…"
He tilted his head, his smile widening with an eerie gentleness.
"Do you want to play with me?"
But the gray creature didn't even look his way.
He was utterly consumed by licking—
panting, scraping at the floor with his claws in desperate search of more,
letting out muffled, frantic noises.
Arisu froze.
The child inside him… felt ignored.
His brows lowered, and he puffed out his cheeks in a sulky pout.
"You're ignoring me?"
Arthur didn't react.
To him, Arisu's existence meant nothing.
Arisu's pout deepened into irritation…
then hardened into a childish scowl.
"I said… do you want to play with me?"
Still nothing.
And that was when Arisu snapped.
The softness vanished.
The innocence evaporated.
The childlike charm dissolved completely.
He straightened…
his black eyes hollowing into something utterly inhuman.
"I don't like…"
He raised his hand—slowly, deliberately.
"…being ignored."
Arthur lunged at him without warning,
all his frenzy and madness erupting in a single violent charge.
But Arisu didn't move.
Not a flinch.
Not even a blink.
And just as Arthur crossed the final few steps—
Arisu extended a single finger…
and touched Arthur's forehead
with the faintest, gentlest tap.
One finger.
A heartbeat of silence.
Then—
there was no explosion, no gore.
Instead… Arthur simply unraveled.
His gray body fractured into thin, dark ash—
floating upward like burnt dust,
breaking apart into the air and disappearing into the shadows.
He faded the way a reflection fades from a fogged mirror.
All that remained was the faint outline of a shadow on the ground…
and then even that dissolved.
Arisu lowered his hand, wiping his finger on his black clothes with disinterest.
Then he murmured, coldly:
"If only you had played with me…"
A deathly silence settled over the basement after Arthur vanished.
No movement… no breath… no screams.
Arisu stood alone at the center of the crimson stain where countless humans had fallen before.
He lifted his hand slowly and bit lightly at the tip of his finger—
a strange, childish habit he always had when he focused.
Then he began looking around…
left and right…
his brows drawn together in an almost genuine, childlike worry.
"Where is she…?"
He took a few short steps, turning in circles like a child who had lost his favorite toy.
Then he spoke in a soft, calling voice:
"Komira."
Immediately—
Arisu's shadow on the floor began to move.
It no longer held its shape.
It stretched… shrank… then grew taller than Arisu himself.
Two red eyes opened within the shadow—
eyelidless, shapeless, burning like embers in darkness.
A voice emerged, rough and stupidly enthusiastic:
"Yeeees, maaassteeer~?"
The shadow writhed across the ground like a rubbery creature,
lifting part of itself like a hand before dropping it again.
Komira… Arisu's first shadow.
Foolish, lazy, obedient without a thought.
Arisu folded his arms, clearly troubled:
"Did you notice anything strange?"
Komira tilted his misshapen body as if trying to think:
"Strange… thing…?"
He rubbed the empty spot where his head would be:
"Ummmm… no."
Arisu sighed sharply:
"Of course… I forgot you don't think."
Then he barked:
"Kinora!"
At once—
from within Komira's wobbling shape, another shadow slid out.
Narrow.
Straight.
Coiled like a ribbon of black smoke.
Two pale, expressionless eyes opened.
This was Kinora.
A second shadow—far more refined.
The opposite of Komira:
serious, precise, emotionless, always calculating.
"Yes, Master."
His voice was a cold whisper.
Arisu waved his hand lazily, as if dangling a toy:
"Did she appear?"
Kinora answered without hesitation:
"I sensed no presence at all."
Arisu froze.
He stared at the floor…
then let a small, sorrowful smile curl his lips.
"But I showed such wonderful fatherly love today… isn't that enough?"
Kinora glided a step closer, his form sliding soundlessly:
"Master… a father's love for his son was indeed present."
"But… she does not appear because of that."
Arisu's eyes widened, his voice dropping into something deeper:
"Then… why?"
Kinora spoke with the sharpness of a blade:
"Because what happened today…"
He leaned in, whispering into Arisu's ear:
"…was not love. It was fear."
Everything stopped.
Arisu didn't move.
Then—slowly—
a dangerous smile crept across his face.
"Ah… damn…"
He let out a short laugh.
"I was hoping she'd show up… the Shadow of True Love."
He raised one finger toward the air, a mad gleam flickering in his eyes:
"But it seems…"
"…humans don't love the way I expect them to."
His two shadows—Komira and Kinora—
bowed behind him,
patiently awaiting his next command.
Then suddenly, Arisu clapped his hands softly:
"Alright!"
He spun around with a bright smile—
a smile that was always just a little too bright… always wrong in some subtle, uncanny way.
"I think it's time… to go on a date."
Komira's red eyes widened in stupid amazement:
"Haaah?!"
Kinora, on the other hand, didn't move.
But his voice cut through the air like a blade:
"A date… with a girl?"
Arisu raised both eyebrows with a gentle, offended innocence:
"What is it? Why are you two looking at me like that?"
Kinora responded with his usual killing-cold tone:
"Master… you are widely accused of showing interest in humans only when you are turning them into puppets."
Arisu laughed lightly and pressed a hand dramatically to his chest, as though deeply wronged:
"I'm very interested! Especially in women!"
He twirled around in small, playful steps:
"Women are beautiful… delicate… fragile… and their expressions are fascinating when they're afraid."
He halted mid-sentence, bringing both hands to his face as if melting from shyness:
"I've always thought… I want to experience *love*. Something normal… like regular humans do."
A childish, sweet smile spread across his face—
but his eyes were entirely black.
"I want a real date… a warm feeling… something gentle… soft… romantic…"
Then suddenly, his smile snapped into a cold, empty mask:
"And also… I want to see what happens… when I love something."
Komira raised a trembling shadow-hand:
"M–Master… is this… safe?"
Arisu tilted his head toward him:
"Safe?"
"Of course not."
He waved his hand dismissively:
"But who ever said I cared about safety?"
Kinora stepped forward, his voice tightening with severity:
"Have you chosen the target?"
Arisu looked up at the ceiling, a childlike gleam of wicked curiosity in his eyes:
"Not yet."
Then he smiled—
wide, too wide—
a smile drawn as if with a blade.
"But I trust… that fate will provide me with the perfect girl."
He approached the darkness…
and it seemed to swallow him whole.
"A girl… with whom I can experience love for the very first time."
A moment of silence.
Then, softly, he added:
"And perhaps… she can help me summon the 'Shadow of Love' that still refuses to appear."
The shadows behind him stirred, attentive and waiting.
"Let us begin the next chapter…"
"Searching for a girl."