After months of living together with the children and Rika in the church of Gem. Ryu had spent the morning like any other, chopping firewood and gathering berries in the cool solitude of the forest. But as he returned toward the village, his steps slowed. Something felt off. The usual sounds of village life were missing—no children’s laughter, no distant clamour of work. Instead, the faint scent of smoke drifted toward him, growing stronger with each step. Soon, he could make out the sickening undertone of charred flesh and blood. Instinctively, he dropped the firewood and sprinted. The closer he got, the clearer the sounds became—desperate screams, wild laughter, snarling wolves. As he reached the edge of the village, he froze. Bandits ransacked homes, setting fires, toppling walls, and dragging people into the streets to slaughter them like animals. Fires crackled in buildings that had once held warmth and shelter. Amid the chaos, wolves, unleashed by the bandits, tore into anyone who tried to flee. Ryu’s vision narrowed, his heart pounding with fury. He didn’t think—he acted, running headlong into the fray. A bandit lunged at him with a rusted blade, but Ryu twisted, grabbing the man’s wrist and snapping it backward with a sickening crack. He seized the fallen knife, plunging it into the man’s chest without hesitation, then ripped it out, blood splattering onto his face. His rage fuelled him, but no matter how many he cut down, it wasn’t enough. He could barely hear his own screams over the chaos around him or the sound of his fists crunching bone, blade tearing flesh. Cutting down another wolf that lunged at him, he finally reached the church—a place of peace and warmth that now lay bathed in blood and flames. The doors hung off their hinges, the scent of burning wood mingling with the iron stench of blood. He pushed forward, his stomach lurching at the sight inside. The floor was scattered with the bodies of the children he had come to love as family, their small forms torn open, limbs strewn across the floor where wolves had ravaged them. He staggered forward, feeling the ground give under his boots, sticky with fresh blood. A half-devoured doll lay discarded by a child’s limp hand, her eyes staring lifelessly toward the ceiling. Ryu’s mind reeled, but he forced himself to press on, reaching Rika’s room. He clung to a desperate hope that maybe she’d be safe, that she’d have hidden somewhere, somehow escaped. But as he stumbled through the door, his hope shattered. Rika’s lifeless body lay split in two, her peaceful face frozen in a final expression of terror. She was sprawled by the window she’d loved to sit at, her blood pooling around her in a scarlet halo. Ryu fell to his knees, numbness spreading through him as he stared at what was left of her. Tears spilt from his eyes, his fingers clenching until his nails drew blood from his palms. His vision blurred with grief, then sharpened with rage. He let out a guttural scream, the sound raw, jagged—a plea, a curse, an accusation. “Why…why is it always me? Why did this happen?” He choked on the words, his voice shaking with fury. "Who did this?! If God is responsible, I’ll bring them down myself—I’ll tear them apart with my own hands if I have to!" As he spat out those words, his vision darkened, the world around him receding into silence. The warmth of the blood beneath him faded to cold as his mind slipped into an empty abyss. He collapsed beside Rika, his last thoughts a vow of vengeance echoing through the void of his consciousness. Only silence greeted him, an endless nothingness that matched the hollow, broken remains of his soul.

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