Neska slipped into the bathroom, moving quickly, as if racing against the sunrise. The space was small—more of a carved-out cubby than an actual room. No sink, no tub, no mirror. Just a bucket with a lid.
A lid... with a small hole.
For a moment, his mind tried to argue with what his eyes had already figured out. But the situation didn't allow for any dignity. Not here. Not now. So he sat.
Five minutes passed, and the tension in his gut eased. A strange sense of relief washed over him, so ordinary that it felt almost wrong in a place like this. He exhaled shakily.
Wow... I'm really in a new world.
His thoughts wandered. This place must be filled with mysteries—things he'd never seen before, making him happy.
Then his eyes dropped to his forearm.
Bruises.
Purple-black streaks, fingerprints of violence. They'd probably come from raising his arm to protect his head while he was getting beaten with a stick.
His stomach tightened.
What's wrong with this place? Why would anyone beat a sick child? And then he... died.
Cruel. Pointlessly cruel.
"I'll report it," he muttered hoarsely. "To the supervisor. Whoever runs this place."
But as that thought formed, something else hit him—an itch at the edge of his attention. Something wasn't right.
He stared at the bruises again, this time closer.
They weren't healing, and the color wasn't resembling normal bruises. Is the biology of humans different here? But that's a bit too weird.
No swelling. No inflammation. When he pressed his thumb into the darkest part, expecting sharp pain—
Almost nothing. Numb.
Wait...
A cold line crawled down his spine.
That's...
Using cold water to wash, he quickly got the bucket.
He didn't walk back to the room.
He ran.
When he slipped inside, he slammed the door shut and locked it with shaking hands. Then he tore open the mattress seam, yanking out a handful of stiff straw.
"Come on... come on..." he muttered under his breath.
He rubbed the straw hard against the bruises until the skin reddened and the tips darkened, trying to collect whatever clung there—if anything at all.
Next, he went to the lamp.
The flame inside was small and dirty, fed by oil that smelled like old cooking fat. He held the straw to the fire.
It caught.
But not with the expected yellow-orange flicker of dry fiber.
It burned with a red flame.
A thin, bitter scent rose—sharp, metallic, fishy, threaded with something faintly sweet.
His heartbeat slammed against his ribs.
His mouth went dry.
"Shit..."
The words came out as a whisper, but his whole body screamed them.
"That's... akraba."
His mind flashed back to Earth when he was in the Amazon jungle, and one of the researchers was hospitalized: Akraba. A poison from the kriko fish. The kind you didn't eat. The kind you didn't even touch unless you wanted your veins to betray you.
Akraba, the fish poison.
Just contact—a smear—thinned your blood until it refused to clot. Death didn't come quickly, like a blade or a bite. It came slowly, from the inside out.
In forty-eight hours, the person would bleed out from every opening. Mouth, nose, eyes, ears... even places you didn't think could bleed.
And then he remembered.
The iron flood rising in his throat earlier—blood vomiting that didn't make sense for ordinary sickness.
His body hadn't been strong enough to survive long enough for the full horror to bloom.
So someone has tried to kill me? But wait...
Maybe I got it from the river while washing clothes?
He took more straws and rubbed them on different parts of his body, but they burned with normal color and the normal scent.
His hands clenched around the burned straw until it snapped.
So that's why the man looked at me like that.
Those strange eyes this morning. That moment of hesitation—like he was watching a candle wick and wondering when it would finally go out.
Neska staggered back and locked the door again—as if that would somehow make it stronger.
He pressed his back against it, listening.
Nothing. Only the distant sound of water and footsteps, indifferent as the wind.
I can't go outside.
Not alone.
His thoughts spun like a wheel losing bolts.
But why would someone kill Neska? Why would someone want to kill a child?
Fear rose first—hot and breathless.
Then anger—heavier, darker.
The kind that didn't ask questions. The kind that promised answers.
He forced himself away from the door and sat on the bed, cross-legged, spine straight despite the ache in his ribs.
"Okay," he whispered, "Focus."
If he was going to survive here, he couldn't just rely on his own memories. He needed Neska's.
He closed his eyes and began the technique—one he'd invented on Earth. A meditative hammering, striking at the mind's sealed rooms by asking questions tied to emotion—the strongest keys.
Where is my family?
Who is my family?
Who do I love?
Again. Again. Again.
He didn't let his mind wander. He didn't let it soften.
After twenty seconds—twenty seconds of relentless pressure—the darkness behind his eyelids shifted.
A face appeared.
A woman.
Her hair was tied back, loose strands clinging to sweat. Her eyes were tired, but warm. She held a baby in her arms, rocking him gently.
His breath hitched.
"Mom...?"
The baby blinked, a tiny fist curling.
That's... my little brother.
The memory carried weight—aged by time. The smell of smoke. The creak of a wooden floor. The softness of a blanket woven by hand.
Then—another memory crashed into place, like a door kicked open.
He saw himself smaller, thinner, standing at the threshold of the house with a bundle in his hands.
That's when I left...
At eight years old.
And the baby had just been born.
His thoughts turned to another missing shape.
Where is my dad?
As soon as the question formed, a pain surged so hard it felt physical—like someone had reached into his chest and twisted.
Two soldiers at the doorway.
Mud on their boots. Steel on their belts. Faces carved into expressions men wore when they were tired of delivering death.
His mother's hands trembled.
A single sentence.
Your husband is dead.
Killed by a monster in the Dark Forest.
The law of the Starka Kingdom states that every household under the protection of Floating City must give one person to serve at all times. Now that your father is dead, you need to send your son to work as compensation. Otherwise, you will be driven out of protection and lose all benefits. That's when Neska said goodbye to his mother and came here to work just two days after his father died, so his little brother could grow up in peace.
His eyes snapped open.
Tears ran down his face.
Damn,
What a burden to carry by a child. In his days of playing with friends, he left his house and then...
And then poisoned.
At the end of everything, someone still wanted him dead.
"How..." he breathed, voice cracking. "How cruel..."
He wiped his face with the back of his hand, furious at the weakness of tears, furious at the world for making them exist.
I usually don't care about this stuff, he admitted to himself. I call it nature. Survival. The strong and the weak.
But this—
This wasn't nature.
This was choice.
He rose, unsteady. The medicine he drank in the morning was kicking in; warmth threaded through his limbs, loosening some of the stiffness. He was still weak, but he could move.
He checked the latch again, then released it.
If someone was after him, hiding forever wasn't an option. He needed information.
He stepped out.
The courtyard hit him like a different world inside the world.
A tree stood at the center, under the arch of surrounding rooms. Its leaves were shaped wrong—long and twisted, like blades of green glass. The air smelled of wet stone, soap, and river wind.
He forced himself to slump, to look weak.
Walk like you're sick. Breathe like you're weak.
Acting wasn't optional; it was a necessity.
He moved toward the strange tree, pretending to study it as cover. Then he glanced back.
The structure behind the rooms wasn't a wall.
It was a mountain.
So enormous its peak vanished into clouds. The mountain wore mist like a crown, and through a break in the white, he saw a zigzag path climbing into the sky.
The words surfaced from Neska's memory like an old bruise: Mist Mountain and the road to Cloud Top Town.
Then he turned the other way—and his breath caught again.
A river.
No—calling it a river felt like lying. It was so wide it looked like an ocean. The other side of the bank was also a tall mountain, covered in abnormal trees, red and black in color. It was under the cover of black mist: The Dark Forest. Is this where my father died?
In the distance, boys worked along the shore, kneeling, scrubbing clothing against stones. Their laughter drifted faintly, like a sound from another life.
I should head back, he thought. Rest. If they see I'm well, they'll put me to work. Or worse...
He pivoted to return—
Suddenly, a voice spoke behind him.
"You are quite tenacious, aren't you?"
Every muscle in his body tightened.
That voice.