The house was still asleep when San opened her eyes for the first time. Not fully—more like the clumsy awakening that comes when you drift between two dreams.
A breath.
A rustle.
A vague sound dissolving into the darkness.
At first, she thought it might be the wind. Winter nights often made the shutters creak, and despite all her mother's efforts, the old house was filled with corners that whispered and sighed at the slightest draft.
But that noise… the one that had pulled her from sleep… It wasn't the creak of wood. It was too sharp. Too heavy. As if something massive had dropped onto the floor.
San lifted her head from the pillow, her black hair sticking to her warm cheek. The bedroom was wrapped in soft darkness, broken only by the orange glow from the hallway—a trembling light, flickering as if a shadow passed in front of it at uneven intervals.
She sat up, her small heart beating faster than it should. At six years old, she didn't yet understand danger, but she could already feel that primitive tightening in her stomach—that instinct that pushes children to seek their parents.
"Mom…?" she whispered, her voice so faint it dissolved in the air.
No answer. Even the silence was different. It no longer held the gentle calm of nighttime. It felt suspended. As if the house itself were holding its breath.
San set her bare feet on the cold wooden floor. The boards creaked softly beneath her weight, and she flinched, as though she had done something wrong.
She walked toward the door, hesitated, then pushed it open with her fingertips.
The hallway awaited her. The artificial light from the trembling bulb bathed the walls in a sickly yellow glow. The wallpaper looked darker than usual—almost dirty. And above all… there was a smell. A smell she didn't recognize.
Not her mother's cooking.
Not clean laundry.
Not her father's soap.
Something warm.
Metallic.
Thick.
She wrinkled her nose.
It reminded her of the smell of her own knee when she fell on the gravel last summer… only multiplied. Amplified.
As if the entire house were bleeding.
A new sound rose from downstairs. Sharper. More violent. Something crashing into furniture.
San's fingers tightened around the stair railing. She stepped down one stair. Then another. Slowly, carefully, so the wood wouldn't groan. She had barely reached the third step when a terrifying voice echoed from the living room:
"Hurry up. Boss wants it clean. No witnesses."
She didn't understand the words. But she understood the voice. A voice that didn't belong in her home.
Her stomach clenched. She stumbled back, her small fingers slipping along the railing. She almost fell.
To keep her balance, she grabbed the wall and knocked over a picture frame. The glass hit the floor and shattered. A tiny cling, delicate, fragile. But in the sickened silence of the house, it sounded like thunder.
"Over there!"
A shadow stretched across the wall. Heavy footsteps climbed the stairs.
Panic struck her so violently she couldn't breathe. She ran— or something close to running— and slipped behind the tall hallway cabinet. A familiar hiding spot. A child's refuge. Far too small to protect her from men who weren't looking to play.
She curled into herself, knees to her chest, fingers pressed against her mouth. Silent tears streamed down her cheeks.
The floorboards groaned. Boots stopped right in front of the cabinet. A hand gripped the edge and yanked it open.
San didn't move. Couldn't move. A tiny silhouette curled up on the floor. Two large, tear-filled black eyes. Her pink pajamas, wrinkled from sleep, now stained with dust.
The man looked at her with a neutral expression.
No surprise.
No pity.
Nothing.
"It's just a kid," he said.
"The boss doesn't care. No witnesses," the other repeated.
The man pulled out a knife. The metal caught the hallway's distorted light.
San wanted to speak, to run, to cry but her throat produced nothing.
He crouched. His enormous hand closed around her fragile arm. Escape became impossible.
"It'll be quick," he murmured, almost gentle.
Then the blade sliced through the air like a cold flash.
San saw it like in a nightmare: slow and too fast at once.
She tried to lift her hand to protect herself but her body, frozen in terror, refused to obey. Her fingers curled against the floor, a useless attempt to anchor herself to the world.
The blade touched her skin. A sharp, instantaneous burn as if fire itself had forced its way into her throat. Her breath vanished. Her mouth opened wide—but no scream came out.
Nothing.
A strangled silence more monstrous than any cry.
Blood surged— first a thin line, hot against her cold skin, then an irregular flow dripping down her neck and soaking into her pink pajamas. She pressed her tiny hand to the wound— her fingers slipped.
They came away red. A strange red. A red she had only seen in cartoons. But this red had a smell. Metal. Warmth. Something alive.
"It's done," the man said flatly. "She won't last long."
San blinked.
The room blurred.
Shapes dissolved, as if the house were filling with water.
She tried to crawl backward, but her knees trembled. She slid, her head hitting the floor. She barely felt it. A piercing ring filled her ears— long, rising, crushing everything else.
The second man tipped over a container.
Liquid spread across the floor in winding trails, mixing with the blood. A toxic, burning scent stung San's eyes.
Gasoline. Even a child recognized it.
"The boss wants to see the flames from the road."
She heard the words without understanding them. But something deep inside her knew— something ancient, animal— that this was bad. Very bad.
The man lit a match.
A tiny flame. Small. Almost pretty.
San felt the heat before the fire reached the curtains. The fabric ignited instantly, as if the house had been waiting to burn. Flames roared upward. A wave of heat hit her face.
San tried to crawl— her small hand sliding through blood. The floor became a red mirror.
Her arms gave out.
She fell flat, watching the reflection of flames tremble in the puddle around her. The heat grew. Her lungs tightened. The roar of fire mixed with the buzzing in her head. She thought of her mother— her soft voice, her warm arms, the story she read to her before kissing her goodnight.
San reached toward the blurry shape of the living room. Toward the last place her parents were.
Her eyes rolled. Air grew scarce. Cold crept in—from inside. Deep. Slow. As if even her bones were freezing.
I'm going to sleep, she thought. A gentle thought. Almost comforting. To lie down. To close her eyes. To stop hurting.
Her eyelids fell.
Once.
Twice.
And the world disappeared.
At the hospital, they spoke of her as a case.
"Girl, approximately six years old. Deep laceration to the neck, massive blood loss, minor burns, smoke inhalation."
They stripped her of her name for a few hours, until the machines could take over.
She became a file, an emergency entry, a fragile priority. They pushed her down bright hallways. Ceilings slid above her—white, impersonal. Neon lights formed halos her eyelids were too weak to block.
They cut away what remained of her pajamas. They cleaned her skin, irrigated the wound, stitched it shut. They wrapped her neck in thick dressings that covered almost the entire right side, a brutal collar placed there by cruel hands. She felt nothing. Her mind had drifted far behind her closed eyes.
They left her in a room, a white cube smelling of disinfectant and new plastic. Wires everywhere. A steady beep punctuating the silence. Droplets falling through a tube, like an inverted hourglass trying to push time backward.
San floated somewhere between that beep and that drip. In her mind, the fire still burned. The silhouettes of her parents still flickered on the carpet, appearing and vanishing like an image she couldn't hold. Sometimes, a sliver of consciousness pierced the fog, the scratch of blankets, the scent of unfamiliar soap, a draft brushing her hand.
She tried to open her eyes. Sometimes a lid trembled. But the light was too harsh. So she stayed there, a forgotten body on a too-large bed, a heart that hadn't yet learned that it could have stopped.
Nurses came and went, checking vitals, adjusting blankets, whispering.
"Does she have any family?"
"They mentioned a half brother."
"You think he'll come?"
"He'll have to, if someone needs to sign."
"Half brother."
The word hovered, then fell back into the quiet. San didn't open her eyes, but something deep—very deep—shifted when that name was spoken.
Akio.
It took him more than a week to arrive.
San hadn't moved since admission, her tiny neck wrapped in thick bandages. She didn't smile when he stepped toward the bed; she didn't know how to, anymore. She had seen him only rarely ; not quite a brother, not quite a stranger.
Akio stood still for a moment. He listened:
one sound.
A heart. Her heart. A heart that had refused to stop. Then he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped loosely.
"San," he murmured.
No reaction.
She simply watched him. His features carried their father's echo, the same slender nose, the same dark eyes behind thin frames.
"They really tried to finish you," he breathed. "They slit your throat. They set the house on fire. And even after all that… you're still holding on."
He raised a hand. His long fingers hovered over her bandages then lowered, touching the only patch of untouched skin.
The little girl would have recoiled if her body obeyed. But she was trapped inside herself, unable to move or speak. Her heart thudded painfully, shaken by a feeling she didn't understand, a feeling that had gnawed at her since she woke.
"You're going to live, San," Akio said with a faint smile. "From now on, I'll take care of you. You'll see—I'll teach you not to be afraid of the dark. Not to be afraid of anything."
His voice softened, calm, assured.
"And if you're strong enough…"
He brushed her hair back, almost tenderly.
San felt her eyes sting.
"If you trust me… you'll be able to do great things."
She stared at him, uncomprehending, unable to read whatever emotion lingered behind his eyes.
A single tear—just one—slipped down her cheek.