CODENAME: EOS
NAME: SATO AI
AGENCY: NJC
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I watched as heavy, blackened liquid slithered down the stone walls, mixing with the flood lying on the filthy floor beneath my feet: blood. Within this gothic chateau – grand in magnificence, under these complex stone arches –erected in brilliance, confined in this room – someone has died. He has mercilessly been slaughtered by a cruel, mad felon; someone who has painted the walls in crimson.

The frenzied painting created by the artist left the once grey walls in a disarray of trickling blood. I touched the dull, metal bars in astonishment of what lay beyond it. What stunned me was whose blood coated the walls, the one who lay slumped against the rock floor – the one who swore his life to the ambitions of the Naikaku Joho Chosasitu.

Xiah, Kim Junsu.

His limbs were deformed into different angles, the femur within his left leg protruded out of the black, putrefying flesh; sharpening the morbid contrast between the snowy bone and the brown skin. Xiah’s eyes were still open – death must have come too soon for him – yet half of his right eye had been carved out, the other half left to spill into the empty cavity. Congealed blood clotted around myriad thin, short wounds – doubtlessly deeper than it appears to be. Blood covered his body, encasing him in a coffin of maroon. I stumbled back, and ripped my eyes away from the decaying body. Whoever killed Xiah, no doubt left a masterpiece in his wake – could the murdered still be here? Who killed Xiah? How long has Xiah been dead? How long has his body been rotting here? My eyes wandered around the underground burrow.

High arches marked the entrance and exits into darker unlit halls, the floors reflected the bright golden blaze from the torches bolted into the wall around a stone set of steps. My body begged me towards it, towards what seemed to be the exit from this lurid scene. I gave my body what it wanted – what sense of freedom from the notion of death – and fled up the narrow, curved staircase. I crashed into the wooden door at the top and struggled to wrench it open. However what I was met with at the when the door opened crushed my hopes for liberation from death.

Lying in mangled heap by the base of the door was Nesoi, Murakami Ritsuka. Deep, long lacerations covered her body; the wounds were festering and flesh was being indulged upon by maggots. A rancid fume emitted from her corpse. I let out a strangled cry, two members of the NJC died within this place, how many more will I find? I stepped over the corpse and examined my surroundings. Brilliant colors shone through the intricate stain glass upon the towering windows, beneath my feet was polished white marble, enveloping the space were soaring, immensely high, limestone arcs. The building seems to radiate peace, tranquility; its hypnotic, mesmerizing, spellbinding, enthralling –

Suddenly a scream slit me from my captivation. Someone else is alive in this merciless slaughter house. I begged it to be someone I knew, yet I begged it not to be: with a scream as that, how long will they endure? I turned and tore up a grand staircase centered in the middle of the room. Strange…I have never noticed this staircase before… Nor have I laid eyes upon this door. Nevertheless I collided with it and barged into the room.

Alas, that cry of torture must have been his last. Resting on a red throne before me, caressing the head of an ill-fated man was Lee Hyosun. The poor man’s throat was nearly slit open, blood still fountained from the tear, his body lay wilted against Hyosun’s legs while his head rested in her lap – like she was caressing a cat. There was red – only red – only crimson, red blood dripped down Hyosun’s satirical white dress, and onto her legs, pooling around her bare feet.

“Red is so your colour.” HyoSun muttered, smearing it onto his face. That face…. Suddenly, recognition plunged a knife between my ribs, puncturing my lungs and rendering me unable to breathe.

There sits the murderer of Mickey, Park Yoochun.

I gasped and backed away only to trip over my own feet and splash into the now forming lake of red. The splatter of crimson marred my hands, my body, my face. I was now adorned in the blood of world around me. HyoSun now turned her head, acknowledging my presence. A brilliant smile unfolded on her features. She tossed aside Mickey’s body. He splashed into the pool of his own blood, then seemed to dissolve within it. Has his blood become acid? I quickly scrambled up and tried to wipe the blood from my body, fearing the same fate for myself; I looked again and realized half of Mickey’s body was gone.

“Hi Sato Ai-san!” Hyosun called, waving her crimson dyed hand, having not noticed my agitation, “Do you want to play together? My last playmate didn’t last for very long.” She glanced down at the melting body, and giggled. Three members of the NJC, and it would seem I was next. However I had no wish to become one of the dead.

Hyosun stood from her regal position, now brandishing a long whip in her right hand. Was it a whip? With its current like movements, like a vicious snake, lethal even to the slightest touch…Suddenly she spun, whipping the red ribbon out like an extension of her own arm. Adrenaline finally decided it was time to save my life, as I rolled away from the whip before it crashed down on the space where I once was.

“Oh come on,” she whined. “You got to do better than that or we won’t get to play for very long.” There goes her patience as she struck out again, I somersaulted out of the way, then turned and bolted from the room.

Out, running, freedom, living. Those were the only thoughts that occupied my mind when I threw the doors open. Abruptly my resolve to live was crumpled; crashing to the floor like breaking glass, shattered and falling through the ice, plummeting to Hell from a tattered thread. The once mesmerizing beauty of the colours of the stained glass was now shattered by the horror of what littered the floor. Corpses, freshly slaughtered corpses were piled on the floor. The impressive staircase was a cascading mountain for the waterfall of blood to rush down. All of these faces, they seemed familiar somehow; Ares, Chronos, Cruis, Selene, Perses…their bodies were it no better condition than that of Xiah and Nesoi.

Suddenly, the sickening sound of a knife cutting through flesh followed the terrifying scream of a familiar voice. I pleaded that it not be who I thought it was. I dashed down the blood-ridden steps and flew down the halls, ignoring the limbs that were scattered around, ignoring the putrid scent of decay, and ignoring the trailing steps gliding after me; screaming for me to stop, for me to play with her.

Then I saw, up ahead, was a suit of medieval armour; and strapped around the waist of the suit, was a long, thin rapier. I flew towards it and drew it with all the noble pride of a fleeing prince, then spun around to face my current enemy.

“Yay!” Hyosun cried, clapping her hands and stopping her advance upon me, “you decided to play with me!” I braced myself as she whipped the ribbon towards me; I reached out and snatched the ribbon out of the air before it sliced through my oesophagus. The whip swathed my arm in all its crimson glory, tearing from my arm blood of the same color. I winced, however held on and yanked the whip out of Hyosun’s hand; the hilt of the whip flew from her fingers and landed by my feet. “Hey!” she screamed, pointing at the whip which now coiled at my feet, “that wasn’t fair, you cheated!” I disregarded her words, dropped the whip, and then lashed out at her with the rapier. She screamed and ducked before the sword hit her.

“Stand still so I can kill you!” I murmured, my patience diminished, she flipped over my head and rushed over to snatch the whip. I growled, having enough and threw the sword at her retreating body. The sword struck true, piercing through her back and into her heart, Hyosun let out a bloodcurdling shriek. I strode up to her and yanked the sword from her chest, tugged at those ‘luscious black locks of hair’ and beheaded her. Hyosun’s body slumped to the floor, tainting the white marble with her blood; I tossed her head aside, disgusted by it.

A life for a life perhaps, however this cannot all be Hyosun’s doing, managing to kill so many of the NJC. She had an accomplice, and now I see him treading down the long hallway, brandishing a carving knife in one hand, and a decapitated head in the other. A cry of terror escaped my ensnarled throat.

He was holding the head of Styx, Kimura Rin.

I tore my eyes away from the leader of the NJC. There is no hope then is there? Everyone has died…What are the chances of my existence continuing?

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” the man said, I finally took the effort to look at him, then wished I didn’t. I knew he wasn’t trust worthy, no man is trust worthy.

“Kim Jaejoong.”

In the moments of a lopsided smile, he shot the knife forward. I too extracted my blade and endeavoured for a stalemate, however my battle for supremacy would only be short lived. Jaejoong, too, knew that my petty rebellion was meaningless; he pushed my sword back and launched a full arc at my head. I ducked in the futile attempt to prologue my life. However, it seemed that Jaejoong had already anticipated this as his arm swung around my neck. I felt him raising up, pinpointing all of his force onto my airway. I was cut off from the very air itself now and no longer had the ability to even grip my blade.

“My, my, Ai.” Jaejoong taunted. “You killed my dear Lee Hyosun haven’t you? Who is the inconsiderate one now?” Then he shoves me away from him, wrenching the knife from my throat. The sound of shattering glass pulled me away from the churning of my eyes, and toward the endless depths beneath me.

Jaejoong had pushed me out the window. I opened my mouth for a breathless cry, as my stomach twisted with the sickening height.

A nightmare is never a good omen.
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| Always Keep the Faith |