The night was still young. How long had he been out? Was it a dream? Why is there such a heavy feeling in his heart? The world around him began to twist and distort, slowly coming into view to paint a vivid image. “I…” Ora’s eyes shot open.

All the memories in his mind rushed back at blazing speeds. His mind struggled to rearrange the scenery before him. The crater on the ground, the blood splatter everywhere, dull pain in his neck.

Ora slowly got up, swaying as he stood. The light of the moon had shined brightly upon him and he could see the glistening of hot crimson. As if he was inhaling malicious fumes, his breath caught in his throat.

On one side, lay Lady Amai’s black dress with her legs still in them. On the other side, rather jarred, and bloody was her upper torso. Her face held a look of surprise. The only relief one could possibly think of was that she died without feeling pain.

He felt his cheek. Blood remained on his face from the abhorrent display before him. From the warmness of it, it had only been a good 5 minutes since his loss of consciousness.

A howl rang out through the night. The blood-curdling scream could only come from the realization that Lady Amai was dead. “Anniki..Anniki, where’s Anniki.” He began to run, in the direction that Lynx had disappeared off to.

In his frantic speed, the floor beneath him slid and sent him tumbling in a hue of red. For just a couple of seconds what had been a cold night, turned slightly warmer. The amount of blood he was covered in was disgusting.

It filled the streets and threatened to trip up anyone nearby as well. He began crawling away from the body, trying to find Lynx. As he got only 10 meters away, he saw it.

A body lay on the ground, eerily motionless. A tingling sensation crawled up and down his spine. “An..ni..” He ran over to him, tripping and crawling from the blood. Regardless, he kept moving forward, refusing to slow down. The feeling that swelled within him was overwhelming.

It felt like he was literally going to rip in two. There was not a thing the world could do to quench that feeling of despair. And with every second he inched closer to Lynx, that feeling threatens to descend lower and lower.

“Please…I can’t lose you too.” The tears stained his strained face. As he got closer, he could see that Lynx was not moving. Regardless of this, his mind held doubt that he was dead. In his own head, he believed his eyes to be deceiving him.

He believed that regardless of what he saw, Lynx was still alive.

When he got to the body, the very image of a future he had built in his head, shattered. Like a mirror that had just fallen.

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He went to check Lynx’s pulse, only to feel the man’s neck crushed. Blood had trailed out of his mouth and down the sides of his face. He had died from suffocating in his own blood and vomit. Ora couldn’t bear the feeling.

His shaking body, his ragged breath, his clenched teeth, they were all signs of a man falling apart. How could such a scene happen? This was a normal night entirely, and within one instant, it disappeared.

Those 3 adventurers…. He burned their faces into his mind, remembering every glimpse of them he had seen. “You all…. I will make all of you understand what you’ve done here.” Empty words. He had no means of getting back at those adventurers, nor any means of fighting them.

He was but a plague child, lost in his own delusions. The best he could do was daydream every day about how he kills them all. The best he could do for the world was daydream about how he would change everything.

He roared loudly upon realizing that the best he could amount to was to only dream of revenge. His fists slammed into the concrete with a loud roar as he shouted through the night

“aaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”

He was fairly certain he had shattered at least a bone or two in his hand. Even then, it only further proved how weak he was, for the concrete hadn’t even a crack in it. How could he stop a girl who had put a crater in the ground with a mere knife?

 “AY! Who goes there!?” 2 guards suddenly emerged from the corner. Their lanterns showed the scenery before them and one of them shrieked like a girl. “What in god’s name…T-this…is too much.”

Ora looked back and immediately fled to the shadows before he could be realized. They would surely blame him regardless of how mangled the scene looks. No one child could cause such a scene. He fled, dismayed that he had to abandon the corpses of his own comrades.

During that night, though only 3 comrades died, 4 things were lost that day.

The guards looked over at the sudden movement within the darkness and yelled at Ora to stop immediately. They immediately gave chase, only to fall victim to the slick blood layering itself around the cobbled stone paths.

He dipped into an alley-way and took various turns until he finally found himself resting in the darkest space he could find. There, Ora curled into a ball and slept, visited by the scenes that had occurred earlier.

The sun beat relentlessly on those below. Graced by her presence, life was bustling and blooming with activity. Children ran through the streets, various adults scurried to and from work. The world seemed almost entirely oblivious to the carnage of last night.

They had blocked off the entire road that held such a gruesome scene. This investigation was purely because the lady that had died, Amai, was not a plague child. Though, everyone in Essen-Seo knew her as the Plague Lady.

She was often warned that hanging out with plague children would cause her demise. They isolated her, left her to her own device. Family members excommunicated her for the kindness she showed to these children.

Eventually, she had no choice but to live just outside the outskirts of the eastern district. All the plague children knew her. All the townspeople knew her. Her public image had decreased critically, yet she was always somehow able to make money.

The sun eventually invaded the alley-way that was Ora’s sanctuary. And he had to awaken from his morbid sleep. Dark bags had formed under his eyes. It appeared as if he hadn’t even slept in years.

“I’m sorry Amai…. I’m sorry Anniki… I couldn’t save you both. I was too late. Too weak…too worthless.” He had spoken those words over and over in and out of his sleep. Hearing it once he was awake had only served the purpose of darkening his world.

That was until… he found himself staring face to face with an odd vagrant. At this time, he couldn’t understand what he was given, but the real story of the legend known as Ora began.