The forest was unnaturally quiet.
Wind stirred through the high branches, but no birds sang. No insects buzzed. Only the crunch of footsteps on the dirt path broke the silence—four pairs of boots pressing forward under a dull, gray sky.
Pluto walked near the front, eyes scanning the trees. Lunet stayed close beside him, her hands resting lightly on her weapons. Senko led them, hood drawn low over his head, while Bruno took the rear, ever silent, ever watchful.
It should've been an ordinary walk to Kinara. But something about the woods felt... wrong.
Then Pluto stopped.
"Did you hear that?" he asked, turning sharply.
The others paused. Bruno frowned. "Hear what?"
Pluto didn't answer at first. He tilted his head slightly, his brows pulling together.
"…Voices," he said at last. "Crying. Begging for help."
Senko stepped closer, tension sharpening his expression. "Where, Pluto?"
Pluto lifted a hand to his temple. "I don't know. It's... everywhere. Like it's echoing inside my head."
Lunet touched his arm gently. "You alright?"
He nodded, but his gaze kept darting to the trees. The air had grown colder. Still. Watching.
A dense mist crept along the forest floor, swallowing trees and path alike in a slow, creeping veil. It pressed close to the skin, heavy with damp and shadow. Even their breaths felt muffled, tasted of iron and moss.
Pluto moved cautiously down a narrowing slope, eyes straining to see more than a few feet ahead. The others were near—Senko's outline barely a phantom, Lunet just beside him, Bruno's boots crunching faintly behind.
Then the ground shifted under his boots.
"Pluto—!" Lunet's voice cut through the fog—too late.
The slope collapsed. Rocks and leaves scattered as Pluto tumbled down the hillside, swallowed by the mist. Branches whipped past, dirt gave way, and the world blurred into motion until—
Thud.
He hit the bottom hard, pain blooming in his back and ribs. Winded, stunned, he groaned and blinked. White fog pressed in from all sides. No voices now. No companions. Just an oppressive, humming silence.
Then he heard it.
"…Help…"
Faint. Fragile. Somewhere just beyond the trees.
"Help… please…"
Pluto sat up, brushing grit from his sleeves. The voice called again—closer. But then, from the opposite side—another.
"Please… save me…"
His heartbeat quickened. He stood, spinning in place. The mist curled around him like fingers. The voices multiplied.
"I'm begging!"
"Help!"
"Please, please!"
"It hurts!"
He clutched his head, pain spiking behind his eyes. It was deafening—inside him and all around.
Then—
A low, guttural growl cut through the air.
He froze.
The fog ahead stirred like a curtain pulled aside. And from it, a hulking form burst forward—limbs twisted, movements jerky, dragging through the underbrush. A hound.
Its eyes burned a sickly orange. Slime oozed from its teeth. Pieces of human flesh clung grotesquely to its patchy skin, like a creature unsure whether it had once been man or beast.
Pluto barely had time to draw his blade.
The hound lunged. He blocked with the flat of his sword, thrown back by its weight. Pain jolted through his shoulder as he hit the ground and rolled, scrambling to his feet. The hound came again—
And then—steel flashed.
A spear punched through the hound's throat mid-air. The beast gave a gurgling shriek and dropped lifeless to the ground.
Footsteps echoed through the mist.
From the pale fog emerged a tall figure. His long black fur coat billowed as he moved, and a massive crimson hat crowned his head—broad-brimmed, flamboyant, but somehow grim. The flickering torchlight from deeper in the woods cast dancing shadows on his face, revealing only glimpses—red hair, sharp cheekbones, and pale eyes that held no warmth.
"You're welcome," he said flatly, wrenching his spear free. The blood that followed hissed as it hit the cold earth.
Pluto, still winded, narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?"
The man paused, surveying him lazily, then tilted his head.
"…Who are you?" he replied instead.
Pluto hesitated, then answered smoothly. "I'm from this village. Came to collect some goods I left behind. Crossed the wall to get here."
The man's mouth curled slightly beneath his hat. "Hmm. Is that so?"
He turned without another word, already walking into the mist. "Try not to get eaten next time."
"Wait," Pluto called. "Why did you help me?"
The man stopped again, half-looking back. His eyes, veiled in the shifting fog, looked disturbingly calm.
"I didn't," he said. "I killed a hound that was in my way."
Then he vanished, swallowed by the gray.
Pluto stood alone, the hound's corpse steaming beside him. But the voices had gone. His head cleared… somewhat.
And then, a dull pain returned—deep and sharp behind his left eye. He blinked—and gasped.
The forest, the trees, even the blood on the ground—all had lost their color. Through his left eye, the world had gone gray. Lifeless. But something shimmered in that bleak sight.
Over the dead hound's body, a faint glow hovered—misty, shifting. A soul. Or what remained.
Pluto reached slowly to touch his face, trembling. Something inside him had changed.
Pluto staggered back a step, eyes wide as the ghostly light flickered before him. It hovered above the carcass like an ember refusing to die—soft, pulsing, and disturbingly human. Through his left eye alone, it shimmered. Through his right, there was nothing. Just blood. Just death.
"What… is this?" he whispered.
The mist shifted, curling around his boots like smoke. A cold sweat trickled down his spine. He tried to reach for the soul—if that's what it was—but his fingers passed through the light as if through fog. It pulsed once, then slowly began to fade, dispersing into strands of silver that vanished into the earth.
Pluto blinked, heart hammering. His eye still ached, but the glow was gone.
Before he could gather his thoughts, the sound of boots in the distance made him tense. He whirled around, blade still drawn.
Senko emerged from the fog first, his cloak billowing, followed by Lunet, her bow half-raised. Bruno came last, moving swiftly, his eyes scanning the area with measured calm.
"There you are," Senko said sharply. "We heard the commotion."
"Pluto!" Lunet rushed to him, eyes flicking over his form. "Are you hurt?"
"Just shaken," Pluto muttered. "I fell. There was a hound—it came from the mist. Someone killed it."
Bruno looked at the corpse and furrowed his brow. "This wasn't your doing?"
"No." He turned his gaze to the trees. "A man in a red hat. Tall. Wielded a spear. He saved me, then disappeared into the fog."
Senko stepped toward the body, crouching low. His fingers brushed the wet earth where the blood had fallen. He took his small sample Jar and collected some of it. "Acidic. Just like the ones near the temple ruins."
Lunet narrowed her eyes. "And the man? What did he say?"
Pluto hesitated. "Not much. He asked who I was. I lied. Said I was from the village, came for goods."
Senko's gaze snapped to him. "Why lie?"
Pluto looked away. "I don't know. Something about him… He didn't feel like someone who needed the truth."
Bruno stood, arms crossed. "He was dressed like someone from beyond the land?"
"not likely" pluto replied
The group fell into a brief silence.
Then, Senko said, "We can't linger. That thing could've drawn others. Let's move. Belltower is not far"
But as they turned to go, Pluto cast one last glance over his shoulder. The place where the soul had faded still shimmered faintly in his memory. That strange gray vision… it hadn't gone away.
He closed his left eye, then opened it again.
The world remained dull. Bleached. As though something inside him now saw the world not as it was—but as it truly had been.
He didn't know what it meant.
The forest broke open into what remained of Kinara—if you could still call it a village. Half-collapsed stone homes and burnt wooden structures lay scattered like corpses. Black scorch marks painted the ground. Something had torn this place apart.
And it wasn't done yet.
Senko stopped, eyes scanning the wreckage. "Stay alert. We're not alone."
Then came the sound.
A wet dragging. Low growls echoing off the stone. A crunch of bone under claws.
From the alleyways, the gutters, the broken church door—they emerged. Hounds.
Not just a few. A dozen at least.
Their skin hung in shredded sheets, limbs half-rotted and twitching unnaturally. One had a human hand fused to its jaw. Another dragged its entrails behind it like a leash. All of them had the same soulless orange glow burning in their eyes.
They weren't hunting.
They were feasting.
"Shit," Pluto hissed, backing toward the others.
"Formation!" Senko barked, already moving.
The hounds didn't wait.
The first one pounced straight at Pluto—he stepped aside, barely, and slashed its leg mid-leap. It crashed beside him, yelping—but only for a moment. It twisted unnaturally and launched again. Pluto grabbed its head and rammed his blade through its eye, pinning it to the ground. The steel grated against bone.
Another came from behind.
Bruno's hammer crushed its spine with a crack loud enough to silence everything for a second. Blood splattered across his face. The hound spasmed, back arched, then collapsed in a twitching heap.
"Don't stop!" Bruno roared.
Lunet fired into the fray—arrow through a throat, another into a crawling beast's eye. One got too close—she drew her dagger and stabbed it under the jaw, twisting until its skull split with a wet pop.
But they just kept coming.
A hound lunged onto Senko's back. It clawed at his neck, fangs snapping at his face. He let it sink its teeth in—just enough—and then drove a dagger up through its jaw and out the top of its skull. The blade came out coated in thick, black rot.
Pluto stumbled back, boots slick with blood. One hound was missing half its lower body but still dragged itself forward on raw muscle. He raised his sword, but his grip slipped—blood on the hilt. The thing jumped.
Too fast.
It tackled him. He hit the dirt hard, back scraping stone. Hot breath in his face—its mouth opened, teeth sinking into his shoulder.
He screamed.
The pain was white-hot. He could feel the flesh tear. He rammed his fist into its ribs over and over. Then—blindly—he grabbed his dagger and shoved it into its neck, sawing with everything he had until the jaw went slack and blood poured like sludge down his chest.
He pushed the corpse off and gasped for air, vision swimming.
That's when he felt it.
The earth shook.
A howl ripped through the village square—low, guttural, unnatural. From the shattered remains of the chapel, something huge emerged.
Something worse.
Its back was hunched, flesh bubbling like it had been boiled alive. Its arms dragged along the ground, ending in long, hooked claws. And its face… was still human. A woman's, mouth sewn open, eyes wide and weeping black tears.
"What in the gods' name…" Lunet whispered.
The thing charged.
"MOVE!"
Bruno met it head-on—his hammer struck its shoulder, shattering bone—but the creature didn't stop. It slammed into him like a battering ram, sending him skidding across the stone, blood pouring from a fresh wound on his head.
It turned to Lunet—too fast.
She rolled, but its claws raked across her thigh, tearing through skin to the bone. She screamed, arrow clattering from her bow as she collapsed.
"Don't let it stop you " bruno shouted
Pluto lunged in, sword raised, blood soaking his arm.
He screamed and slashed—again and again—hacking at the thing's back. Meat tore, bones cracked, black fluid sprayed. The beast shrieked—high, awful, almost childlike.
It spun around and grabbed him.
He felt his ribs bend under its grip. Then—
"PLUTO!"
Senko drove both daggers into its side, twisting deep. The creature bucked. Pluto was thrown through the air, landing in a heap near the broken well.
Vision fading.
Bones possibly cracked.
But still breathing.
He forced himself up, teeth grit against the pain. The stalker turned again, roaring in rage.
Then Bruno stepped forward—bloody, limping—but with his hammer still in hand.
He ran.
And swung.
The hammer smashed into the stalker's head with a deafening crunch. Skull caved in. Teeth shattered. It fell with a gurgling shriek, twitching in a pool of its own rot.
Silence fell.
No more growling. No more claws.
Only the panting of survivors. And the reek of blood and ruin.
The monster's corpse twitched once more… then lay still.
Steam rose from the split skull, thick and foul. Black blood pooled beneath it, soaking the ground where old Kinara's well used to run clean. No one spoke. No one moved. Only the wind howled now—cold and bitter, scraping through the ruined bones of the village like it was mourning the dead.
Pluto wiped the blood from his face, staggered forward—and then stopped.
There, above the beast's shattered body, something shimmered.
A faint glow. Pale and broken, like moonlight caught in water.
Through his left eye, it flickered. Through the right—nothing. Just gore and ruin. But to the left… the soul. Still clinging to something it no longer had.
It rose slowly, weightless, shape barely human. A blurred echo of pain.
Pluto's breath caught in his throat.
He stepped closer, swallowing hard. "You… what were you?"
No answer. The soul just hovered.
"Did you… did you live here?"
Still no response. Only a faint tilt of its head, like it was hearing him from very far away.
"Who did this to you…?" His voice cracked. "Why?"
The soul drifted gently toward him—just a few inches from his face.
Then, in a voice not spoken but felt—like a whisper inside his bones—it said, "Thank you."
Pluto's eyes widened.
Pluto took a step back, his breath catching in his throat. The silver threads of the soul unraveled into the air—soft, delicate, like strands of memory itself being unspooled. It was beautiful. Tragic.
And then—
Something snapped inside him.
At first, it was a sting. A needle behind the left eye. Then another in the right. A pulsing heat.
Then the agony began.
Like a blade had been driven through the back of his skull and twisted.
"NGHH—AHHH!" Pluto screamed, staggering sideways, clutching at his face. His sword clattered to the bloodied ground as he dropped to his knees.
His left eye felt like it was boiling. The right began to throb, as if something were crawling behind the socket. White fire licked through his nerves, blistering every thought from his mind.
He screamed again—louder this time. A sound that didn't sound human. Like an animal being skinned alive.
"PLUTO?!" Lunet's voice pierced the haze, but he couldn't see her. Couldn't see anything.
His vision pulsed violently—light and dark slamming together in his skull. Colors bled away into a haze of gray, white, and black. His hands clawed at his face, nails raking over his cheeks, leaving bloody trails as his eyes burned.
The pupils were gone now—just milk-white orbs bulging from their sockets, veins around them blackening, twitching. Blood spilled down his cheeks in thick, warm streams, painting his neck and collar red.
His body convulsed, spine arching as he writhed in the dirt. The pain wasn't just in his eyes anymore—it was everywhere. His nerves felt like they were on fire. His lungs couldn't catch a full breath, like something massive was pressing on his chest.
Senko reached him, trying to hold him down, but Pluto thrashed, his limbs striking out blindly, his mouth open in a raw, choking scream.
Then came the whisper—not in his ears, but inside his skull." I see you now"
His eyes burned brighter.
He could feel something tearing through his mind like claws scratching inside his skull—memories not his, voices not his, faces not his.
He screamed again—high, shrill, agonizing. Blood frothed at the corner of his mouth.
And then—
Darkness.
The world blurred. His body collapsed fully into the dirt, twitching once, then still.
Senko knelt beside him, gripping his shoulders.
"Pluto!"
His eyes slowly opened again.
No pupils. No irises. Just white—like two blind moons staring into nothing.
He could barely breathe.
In his last flicker of consciousness, Pluto realized he could still see—but not in any way that made sense.
Everything was gray. Bleached. The world was drained of life, but he saw more than before. He saw shadows behind things. Movement in stillness. Ghosts of moments that had already died.
And in the cold gray silence of his mind, just before it all went dark, he thought—
Then the pain faded to black.
And Pluto knew no more.