Her eyes gaped at four creatures. She would die. Her newfound savior complex desired to protect others, or those within the cage, at least. She lacked the strength to do so. She knew when to give up. Or so she had thought. Despite knowing she had exhausted her mana, she attempted to draw anyway.

Her heart seared in agony as she willed mana into her limbs. She had to move. Her sister always said that. “We need to keep pushing forward, as long as we do, things will eventually get better. Darkness is a tunnel, and a brilliant world filled with colors awaits at the end, with a warm light that will take away all we must endure now.” Amaryllis had believed her.

But Cynthia had been far too hopeful. How dare she be optimistic in this dark world? The world didn’t like her smile. It pulled her deeper into the tunnel, chained her to it, and forbade her from seeing the color forever.

Those ghouls told me, 'I need to plunge deeper into the tunnel of darkness if I love my sister. Find greater despair to keep my sister chained to the tunnel. If I don’t, they will kill my sister like livestock.'

We had no choice. I had no choice—Keep paying for those chains, leave my academy, sell my house, stop eating three times a day, stop using light, fridge, and electricity, stop buying clothes, and use it all to pay for my sister’s prison.

And yet what did all that amount to? Nothing. What if I hadn’t done any of that? Would I have lived a better life? That question occurred to me a hundred times. Only to be snuffed out by Cyn’s face when she realized she had been afflicted with blackfrost. She didn't smile that day.

It kept me driven that one day, as long as I kept bearing through this miserable life, I would find a way to see her smiling face again.

There will be a cure for her. I will find a way to pay for it no matter the cost. I just needed to keep on moving. Keep moving.

I still need to move. I cannot die here. My sister is still waiting for me. It will pass, right? Surely, it would pass. I cannot die. And there were even winners in this place. Ability handed on a silver platter. How could they all just die? I just need to get behind them. Let them take the fall. They will survive.

Yet her limbs refused her call. Nothing moved. I cannot move any longer. “Ahaha…” Amaryllis laughed hysterically. The hopelessness she had forgotten finally grasped her heart. The darkness became too thick for her to keep thrusting herself deeper.

“Why can I not move?” She asked in a quivering voice. Her nerves were not listening, as if even they had given up on her. What about Cynthia…? That thought rang above all. She couldn’t give up on her sister. She willed mana once more, yet the fact stood unyielding—the mana had abandoned her.

“Amaryllis…” someone whispered in her ear. She couldn’t tell who. She wanted to. But she couldn’t. It was a familiar yet phantom voice. Her thoughts were muddled. She may have exhausted every ounce of mana at once, exhausted her Sinner’s Pulse, and death was all but inevitable if that was the case.

She could hear her heart thumping faintly, trying to keep her alive.

Huan choked down his sob, but it reached her ear. She understood his despair and felt it. She might have been in the same state if this was the first time she had felt something so crushing. Having a glimmer of hope for the better, only for it to be squashed by a murkier darkness.

“What do we do?” Huan looked at her. He didn’t look like himself. The loud-mouthed idiot who wanted nothing more than to be a leader and establish his dominance. Look at him now, all sobby and snowflake.

She felt an urge to smirk and say, “We are fucked. Idiot.” A cruel part that just wanted to draw him so deep into despair that he’d laugh like she was. But that was mute frustration. A thought just to deal with her even gloom situation. She never acted upon them. They were like buzz. The bigger, the real part of her, nurtured by her sister, just wanted to assure him.

“It’ll be fine,” she said instead, in a strained voice that mayhap sucked out any ounce of hope that had left. A human had no power to change this situation. But she wanted him to feel like there was. A miracle would save him. A part of her hoped there was a miracle. She couldn’t die here. She moved her head in the wet grass, searching for Gisella. Gisella was special. Surely, she had a hidden card, especially for this situation. But all she saw was a hollow stare, as if unable to understand what was happening.

“Huan… if I die,” Amaryllis opened her mouth. He would survive. He was the chosen one. One blessed by the lightning. He would awaken something and zip past this place. She needed to make sure she offloaded her burden. She saved his life earlier. Surely, she deserved to make a single request. The Soul Hunters made extravagant money. Huan could pay for Cynthia’s prison.

“Don’t! Stupid. We will survive.” Unlike her, he could move, barely. He rolled over on his stomach and used his hands to push himself up, only to drop on the wet grass.

A loud metallic hiss pulled away her attention from Huan.

Amaryllis looked at the clowns. Her heart seethed with a fever desire to kill. They were doing something to the cage. She wanted to scream. Why the cage of all things? Why couldn’t they just focus on them, their actual target? Her eyes filled as she watched them pick the red carpet on which the puppeteer had walked. They wrapped it around the cage like it was a gift box.

She wanted to scream, to make those creatures focus on the actual prey instead of those children. But, words abandoned her. She wholeheartedly wished to save them. How couldn’t she? They were just innocent children. Yet death stood paramount over all other thoughts. Her powerlessness left no room to protect someone. Hopefully, once her mana recovered, she could use it.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

Not anymore, it's gone. A hushed voice mumbled in her ears. Something murky.

The clown’s attention shifted from the gift and looked at her as if hearing her inner scream. The clown grinned. His fingers were elongated and slim like knives. He poked his middle finger in his lower jaw from beneath, and blood trickled out, covering his hand. The puncturing finger came out from his nose. The sight itself was painful, but he smiled, proudly displaying his lack of humanity.

Walking cartoonishly, he made his way to her.

“Death…” he whispered. His voice was different than Puppeteer. The puppeteer spoke like a human, twisted but human. He, on the other hand, spoke like two rough pages scraping against each other.

Amaryllis’ numb senses felt alive again. Pained. I am going to die. She tried to move, to crawl back. Unwilling to accept death. or abandon her sister in this world. Calm down, she told herself. What will that achieve? came the reply from within.

The clown stood over her. His baggy clothes hung away from his body, giving him volume like that of a sumo wrestler. He showed his disgusting flat teeth. “Death…” it whispered and grabbed her hand, the one with finely shattered bones. Another jolt of pain shot through her. She clenched her jaws.

He grinned. “Pain…”

His grasp tightened as he moved, yanking her limp body along. Her dead nerve finally decided to come back, but to not help her move, but to roar in agony.

“Bastard!” Huan screamed. Amaryllis watched him stand. He stood tall, holding his sword that should have evaporated with the puppeteer. It glimmered, lightning snakes coiling around it.

He hacked his sword. It was a weak strike, a display of his exhaustion instead of his might. The blade reached the hand that held hers. The suit remained perfect under the blade’s exhausted might. You idiot! she wished to scream at him as the clown, grabbed Huan’s sword with his other hand and jerked him toward them. He tumbled forward and landed in front of her. Their faces were barely inches apart.

Amaryllis could only stare at his bloody face. She failed to understand anymore what he was thinking. He didn't appear hopeless anymore. Instead, his eyes were filled with conviction.

She didn’t want him to die, especially not because of her. It didn’t even make sense that he’d do something stupid. She was nobody. Why would someone be so stupid? “Stupid… Why?” she asked. She tried to move as the monster circled her and grabbed Huan by his hair.

“You just said, ‘Everything will be fine.’ Didn’t you?” he gasped for air as the creature rolled him and stomped him. “Amaryllis…” he whispered, wheezing. Something about his voice sent a shiver down her body. It was ghostly, resolute, and one that she didn’t want to hear. The voice that had accepted something she hadn’t. He rose to his feet. “I left a note behind if I die… if you make it out alive… will you read it?”

Amaryllis tried to grab the clown’s leg, but he was farther than she could reach. She tried regardless. If he shifted his attention to Amaryllis, Huan could escape. Her hands refused to move, not stilled by fear, but that didn’t make her situation any better. “Why…?” she weakly muttered in frustration. Why am I so weak?

“You will read the letter. Promise me,” he said. “And you will do something for me if you can, right?”

Her throat tightened. She couldn’t agree to something so stupid. Just a moment before, she had been thinking the same thing. He was more prepared for his death. She couldn’t even lift her own burdens, let alone another person’s. She made a desperate attempt to stop him. It was stupid to die while saving her, a weak, worthless human. But, she knew, if she could move, she would’ve done the same. “I don’t understand anything…” Tears welled up in her eyes. Why was he trying to save?

He grabbed Huan and dragged him across the blood-riddled ground. Huan’s eyes glinted with lightning. Something boiled beneath them. He smirked.

Her eyes didn’t blink. Move! Move! Goddamnit! "Stop!” she screamed. The clown stopped. He dropped Huan and slowly sunk his nail into his chest. Whatever Huan had been trying to do, it vanished. A guttural roar tore through his throat.

Amaryllis closed her eyes, unwilling to watch it. The clown knew she couldn’t, that’s why he did it.

“Amaryllis…” Mire spoke in the same voice as Huan.

Amaryllis looked at Mire, standing right beside her. She didn’t even realize Mire was coming toward them. The clown hadn’t either, or he didn’t care enough. Mire took off her shawl and dropped it on her.

“It’s a farewell. Please… don’t forget me,” Mire smiled. Her red eyes showed resignation, acceptance, and understanding. She looked different. Let’s try not to die, Mire had said. And here they were, dying. All because she was too weak.

“W-what?” Amaryllis mumbled. Why were they stupidly jumping in to die? She tried to move, to tackle her to the ground, to stop her from dying like Huan. Was he dead? He was still twisting in pain. What did the clown do? She didn’t want to look at Mire tortured because of her. “Please… stop,” she begged.

Mire looked at her. Her eyes glowed white, “Sorry, but… I can feel it inside you, this is the only way to save anyone,” she smiled. “Please remember me… I don’t want to be forgotten.” She did something. The world turned white for a moment.

When her vision returned, Mire stood in the air, donning a dazzling white cloak. Her white ball shot rays of laser, which made the creatures jump.

A sense of relief blossomed in her heart. Mire had the strength she had been hiding. This was farewell… Amaryllis shoved those words out of her mind, it was a lie. Just a lie. They were safe. She noticed her phantom form crumbling slowly from the edge.

Amaryllis watched helplessly. The clown shifted his attention to Mire. The white orb in her hand dawned in a dazzling white. Mana burst from it with energy. The clown was fast. He moved faster than Mire could react. His sharp claws dug into her chest. The white circle that had killed the puppeteer formed beneath her feet. Clown tried to free his hand, but the orb shot a laser, cutting off his legs.

Mire looked at her, a tear flowed down her cheeks, and flickered out of existence, turning into sparkles. Mire’s lips parted. She said something that didn’t reach Amaryllis’s ears. But she knew what Mire said. ‘Sorry.’ She didn’t understand why. Mire did nothing wrong. She saved them.

“Why…?” Are you sorry? She tried to ask, but it happened in a blink. A pillar of white mana turned the night into day. Swallowed both Mire and the clown.

“No…” She squeezed her eyes shut.

Then, she felt hot. Something strangled her mind, dug deep into it, housing itself without her permission. “AH!” She writhed in agony.

A chilling coldness blossomed in her heart. Her breath came out as black air as she breathed.

[You’ve been passed the Puppeteer’s soul upon Mire’s death.]