In a world where wars were not events but habits, meaning did not die suddenly.
It eroded.
Cities fell, nations collapsed, and the word after lost its purpose. There was no after the war—only continuation. Genocide did not shock anymore; it informed statistics. Mass destruction was no longer tragedy, but architecture rewritten in ash.
Millions lost the will to fight.
Millions lost the will to stand.
But a smaller number—far more dangerous—lost the will to live.
And some lost everything.
They lost pain.
They lost fear.
They lost the need to care.
They became Pikas.
A Pika was not a race, not a nation, not an ideology. A Pika was a dot—something that existed without meaning. They were not many. Not millions. Not even thousands. Fewer than a thousand walked the world, marked not by flags or names, but by silence.
They lived by one sentence, spoken without faith or pride:
"Those who live the sword way, die the sword way."
After the War of the Living—the last war the world claimed it could endure—the new world order hunted them. Pikas were declared the evil left from all wars. Convenient monsters. Scapegoats that allowed the survivors to call themselves peaceful while still holding guns.
You could recognize a Pika by the dots.
Each dot appeared when a Pika killed another Pika.
A quiet scar.
A tally without celebration.
Draka
Draka was not a city. It was a grave.
More than 101 million people died there during the War of the Living. Even after that number, three million soldiers survived—soldiers of Pragna, the last nation standing with an army large enough to call itself order.
Pragna built the new world on discipline, surveillance, and the promise of peace enforced by force. Everyone obeyed.
Everyone except the Pikas.
That was why Draka still existed: to remind the world what defiance looked like.
Voi Dione stood inside a half-destroyed building, sharpening his sword.
The structure leaned like an old man refusing to fall. Cracks ran through the walls like veins. At any moment, gravity could decide.
Voi liked places like this.
He wore white clothes stained by time, not blood—blood washed away easily. His hair was white, not from age but from forgetting it. He did not know how old he was. He did not care.
His sword was red.
Not painted.
Not rusted.
Red.
His eyes were dark blue. Not the iris—the entire eye. People said it looked like he was staring through them rather than at them.
He pressed the blade against the stone and spoke to the building.
"Isn't it fascinating," he said calmly, "that you and I are dying at the same time?"
The wind answered.
"I've fought in more than seven wars," Voi continued. "What about you?"
Silence.
"I see," he said. "You can't match me."
He raised the sword.
"It was an honor."
One strike.
The building split in half. Stone screamed, metal bent, and the structure collapsed into the ground as if relieved. Dust filled the air. When it settled, Voi stood alone, looking around to see if anything remained.
Nothing did.
"Again," he said softly, "I am empty."
He noticed the girls fifty meters away.
Two children. Sisters. Standing in a battlefield, playing with a red ball as if the ground beneath them had never tasted blood.
Voi stopped and watched.
They laughed.
That disturbed him.
"Why are you smiling?" he asked the air. "What is the meaning?"
They did not hear him.
"Is life so good," he continued, "that you can play here? Or am I blind because of these eyes?"
He moved without sound. One moment he was far, the next he was close. With a single cut, he sliced the ball in half.
One girl ran.
The other froze.
"Sister, run!" the first screamed—then stopped. She saw his eyes.
"We can't outrun him," she said quietly. "Sister."
Voi nodded.
"That's honest."
The frozen girl struggled to breathe. Her chest moved violently, her lips trembling.
"My name is Julia," she whispered.
"It was an honor, Julia," Voi replied. "Should I end your pain now?"
"No!" the other girl cried, running back. "She isn't in pain—she just has lung problems!"
Julia smiled weakly.
"I won't live long anyway," she said. "It's okay, Jeila. I'm in pain... but I'd be relieved if she lives longer than me."
Voi considered this.
"Those who claim to know the future," he said, "have already become the past."
His sword pierced Julia's heart.
She fell, repeating one name until breath abandoned her.
"Jeila... Jeila... Jeila..."
Another dot appeared on Voi's body.
Jeila collapsed beside her sister, screaming.
"You killed my only family!" she cried. "Why?!"
"Perspective," Voi answered. "I ended her pain."
"Why are you Pikas so evil?" she sobbed.
Voi turned away.
"Life is simple," he said. "Not understandable—simple. We live to die. I live to not be empty."
He left.
Behind him, Jeila whispered through tears:
"One day... I'll end his pain."
Outside Draka, the world remained grey.
Skies without color. Roads without direction. Bodies without names.
"Empty again," Voi said.
An armored vehicle from Pragna stopped in front of him. No one stepped out.
"You're the order people," Voi said. "The shepherds of a frightened world."
No response.
The vehicle reversed.
"You can't outrun me," Voi said calmly.
They fled.
Inside the vehicle, hands shook. Sweat poured. One soldier prayed.
"God won't help," said the driver. "That's blue-eyed Voi."
"Call backup," another whispered. "We can't outrun a Pika."
"Call everyone," the driver ordered. "Even an airstrike."
Far behind them, Voi walked forward—slowly.
The world had decided to remember him again.
And somewhere, deep beneath the new order, something ancient listened.