[The world shows itself to you in the same image with which you view it.]
Red
Sunny stared at his palm. It was curious—he felt no fear. What cinema dramatized as 'horror' was, in reality, nothing more than a play of Thermodynamics. Warm blood. Cold air. Energy Transfer.
That sticky liquid clung to his fingers as if it refused to let go. Sunny had thought there would be something 'divine' inside a human—something glowing beyond the bones and flesh.
But no.
Once cut, everyone looks the same. Everyone is the same Mechanism.
This place… pipes dripping with stagnant water, walls covered in mold, and the air thick with the stench of decay. It was repulsive. An ordinary person would have vomited, cried, or run away. But it didn't matter to Sunny. He felt a strange silence. All he wanted was Balance.
The pieces lying there were scattered—incomplete. In the wrong ratio. For Sunny, this was the world's biggest problem. Nothing here is complete. Everything is just waiting to break.
If the boy and the girl… If both were
merged into the void… Perhaps something 'correct' could be created.
Interesting.
---
This city does not breathe. It coughs.
I stood by the roadside, watching the crowd. Thousands of people. Or thousands of machines?
It is 9 a.m. Everyone is running.
Some riot in the name of religion. Somewhere, hunger twists intestines into knots. But look at their faces… empty.
"Are you blind! Watch the road!"
A driver shouted at a pedestrian. Noise. Humans think that by shouting, they prove their existence.
...
In front, on the temple steps, people were begging "Give something in the name of God." Their bowls were empty. The donation box inside was not.
People came. Took off their shoes. Marked their foreheads with a sign of faith. And then slipped back into their world of greed.
I sat down there. Opened my wallet. There wasn't much, just a few coins. I took some out and dropped them into his bowl. A thin, metallic clink echoed.
"Why are you sitting here?"I asked the old beggar sitting beside me. My voice was cold, just an observation.
The beggar's faded eyes moved over me, measuring. In a second, he understood—I was no "believer." Nor was I part of this crowd.
His old eyes carried a faint smile. "Where else would we sit? Why do people come here?"
"To see God," I replied.
He let out a hollow laugh. Haha… God is just an excuse. In truth, they come here to lighten their burden. It's a cheap bargain—throw five hundred rupees, and buy a night of peaceful sleep."
He pointed with his dirty, trembling hand toward a fat man who was now getting into his air-conditioned car.
"See him? He just walked out after turning his 'black money' clean. When a man's sins reach his throat… that's when his pocket loosens. Fear… it's all a business of fear."
The logic was the same. Just dressed in street language. This wasn't charity. It was a tax.
-----
Home.
A small cage branded by society as a "middle-class home."
The TV was on. The news anchor's voice sounded like a torn speaker—loud and meaningless. "Today, history has been made! The enemy has been reminded of their place!"
There was so much conviction in the news anchor's voice, as if it were the final truth. Celebratory graphics flashed across the screen, as though blood itself were a trophy. Every word spoke of victory, yet the images showed only corpses.
"Look who's here! Our brave lion!" My father's voice. That typical pride on his face—the kind every middle-class father wants to impose on his son. "He'll join the Army tomorrow! He'll make his parents proud!"
Mother came out of the kitchen. Sweat on her face and a fake smile. "Our reputation in the neighborhood has gone up. Even Mr. Sharma was asking."
I looked at them.
Are they really my parents?
Or are they just NPCs, reading from their script?
They think dying at the border is "heroism." I think it is just another form of entropy. One bullet… and the entire complex biological system shuts down.
"I'm tired," I said. There was no excitement in my voice. Just Nausea.
...
My room isn't just dark. Nothing has a place here. It doesn't matter. Darkness is better. In the light, the masks show.
----
The night was dense. Sleep refused to come. A void kept turning inside my head.
I walked out of the house.
The street was empty. Silence. As though the city had forgotten how to breathe.
The park lights flickered. The air was
unnaturally still — the quiet before impact.
I sat on the park bench. The wood was cold, rough against my palms. The dry scent of leaves drifted through the air. Away from the road, there was only a strange silence—as if the world itself had paused. There was no warmth in my hands, only cold and the feeling of nothingness.
I just kept staring at the light spilling from the streetlamp.
Flicker… Flicker…
Then the street lights began to blink. Once. Twice. The third time, the darkness stretched longer. But… this wasn't normal darkness.
The air grew heavy. As if gravity had increased. A sharp high-pitch frequency began to ring in my ears. The hair on my neck stood up.
Someone was there. Very close.
I turned around. No one.
"Am I imagining this?"
Then a dry leaf floated past my face, suspended in the air… time had stopped.
The colors of the world began to fade. Grey. Black. And… Red.
I was no longer alone on the bench.
Beside me sat a shadow. Tall, with hair the color of blood. He hadn't 'arrived.' He simply existed there. As if he had been seated beside me all along, waiting for my perception to catch up.
"Who... are you?" My throat was parched. Was it fear? No. It was curiosity.
It smiled. Like a scientist observing a lab rat."Who… I am? That doesn't matter, Sunny," its voice bypassed my ears and sank straight into my thoughts. "The question is… what do you want?"
"My desire?" I repeated.
"Come," he said, rising. "I'll show you something."
He snapped his fingers.
The world began to fracture. Thousands of images forced their way into my mind. Death. Decay. Ash. I saw myself touching people—watching them crumble into dust.
Then—
I fell.
I landed on something liquid.
It was red.
And viscous.
The man with the blood-red hair stood before me. His face wore an indecipherable smile
neither entirely merciful nor entirely cruel.
"What do you want from me?" I asked.
He let out a soft, hollow laugh. "Ah… me? I want nothing." He leaned in slightly. "I simply fulfill the suppressed desires of humanity."
"Desires," I scoffed. "What a deceptive thing. Society sets standards, and we mindlessly chase them."
He stared directly into my eyes. "I am not talking about the standards the world has imposed on you," he said. "I am talking about the sentiment that belongs only to you. The one you carved for yourself."
"Are you saying that what lies within me—is my own creation?"
"Precisely." He extended his hand. "I will merely accompany you. I will grant you the power… through which this world will draw its final breath."
"But everything comes with a price," he added. "Are you ready to strike a deal?"
The world before me was already rotting. What did I have to lose? A monotonous life? Counterfeit relationships?
"Yes," I said. My voice was flat. "Take whatever you need. Just extract me from this… Routine."
He smiled.
"As you wish."
His hand moved toward my forehead.
The moment he touched me…
PAIN. It wasn't just physical agony—it was data. Raw data began rewriting my consciousness.
And then, a Neon Blue Screen ignited in the air. In that dark night, it was the only thing that felt Real.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZED]
[WELCOME PLAYER]
[PLEASE ENTER YOUR NAME]
Sunny stared at the phrases glowing in that ethereal blue light. It was that profound moment of disconnection—when someone asks for your name, and you realize you no longer recognize the person that name belongs to.
Sunny typed the only truth that remained:
"A meaningless player"
The text flashed across the screen:
[NAME CONFIRMED]
A new panel materialized. The interface was minimalist, but the data within it carried an unsettling weight...
==============================
STATUS WINDOW
==============================
NAME : A meaningless player
RACE : Human (Awakened)
CLASS : ENTROPY LORD (Level 1)
TITLE : The First Awakened
[STATISTICS]
STRENGTH : 12 (Normal Human Avg: 5)
AGILITY : 15 (Normal Human Avg: 5)
[UNIQUE SKILLS]
SKILL 1: [DECAY TOUCH] (Level 1)
•Effect: Contact causes organic matter to
decompose instantly.
SKILL 2: [TIME BARRIER] (LOCKED 🔒)
• Requirement: Reach Level 10 &
Eliminate 100 Sinners.
==============================
"Entropy Lord..." The words escaped Sunny's lips as a faint whisper. "The Sovereign of Ruin?"
Suddenly, a new notification surged forward. This time, the hue wasn't blue—it was Blood Red.
[MISSION TARGET: 20 METERS NORTH]
"Is this a game?" he wondered. "Or a new manifestation of reality?"
---
Neon blue text drifted in the air, but Sunny's gaze pierced through the digital glow, fixing on the damp, moss-covered wall. The compass needle, seared onto his retina like a burning brand, pointed directly at the source of the disturbance.
He moved in total silence—until a guttural laugh broke the alley's oppressive stillness. From the other side of the wall came a guttural, trembling laughter, intertwined with the muffled, rhythmic gasps of someone struggling for air.
Sunny applied the slightest pressure to the ground. The air seemed to catch his feet, hoisting him upward with unnatural ease. A single meter.
Silently, like a phantom, he perched upon the edge of the wall. The impact of [AGILITY: 15] was undeniable.
The scene below resembled a wretched canvas of blacks and yellows.
A flashlight beam cut through the air, illuminating dust motes dancing in the dark. In the center of that light lay a girl, trembling on the ground. Her clothes were shredded in places, her skin a map of grime and fresh, purple bruises.
One man was tightening his belt, a coarse laugh escaping him as sweat glistened on his forehead. "The Minister really hooked us up tonight. This is top-tier stuff," he grunted, a twisted grin on his face.
A second man stepped forward, his shadow expanding until it swallowed the girl's small frame. "My turn to have some fun."
Sunny simply watched. His breathing remained rhythmic, steady. His heart rate didn't climb by even a single beat. Faced with such a sight, most would tremble or clench their fists in rage. But Sunny's fingers rested loosely, almost peacefully, against the cold stone of the wall.
The stench of garbage, cheap liquor, and stale sweat filled his nostrils. "How hideous they look," he thought. "Just another mechanism, tearing at another."
A low growl cut through the dark. A stray dog stood frozen, its eyes locked onto the shadow above.
"Hey! Who the fuck is up there? Get down!"
The flashlight beam swung upward, hitting Sunny square in the face. The light struck his eyes, but there was no reflection—no flicker of fear. There was only a hollow void that seemed to swallow the light whole.
[DANGER DETECTED]
[ACTIVATE AUTONOMOUS MODE? Y/N]
The noise was escalating. Sunny despised noise. He blinked. "Yes."
The frame dropped. The world blurred into a streak of motion as the air whipped past him, unable to keep up. In the next heartbeat, his boots made contact with the ground. His hand had already buried itself deep into the soft flesh of a throat.
Squelch.
A spray of warm blood splattered across his cheek. The sharp, metallic scent of iron flooded the air. Then came the sound of bones snapping—dry and brittle, like old firewood.
When the world snapped back into focus, the noise was gone. The dog had long since fled. The men… they no longer resembled men. They were merely heaps of flesh and cloth cooling on the pavement.
Something was dripping from Sunny's hand. He looked down. A heart. Still faintly twitching. He dropped it like a piece of refuse.
The system beeped.
[MISSION INCOMPLETE]
[TARGET REMAINS]
"Target?"
The compass needle continued to spin. Its point settled on the trembling figure huddled in the corner.
Her body was a map of scars, but her eyes… there was nothing left in them. Only the external engine was forcing itself to run.
"Ah… I understand. To exist in this world is hell. To stay alive is a sentence.
Death… Death is liberation."
Sunny approached her. The girl sat with her head buried in her knees, shivering uncontrollably.
He picked up a knife lying on the ground. The handle was still warm from someone else's sweat.
He leaned in close to her. "Look," he said—his voice devoid of emotion, offering only a cold sense of comfort. "I am sorry. But this world is no longer fit for you."
With a delicate touch, he used his blood-stained hand to lift her face by the hair, exposing her throat. The girl didn't even blink. She lacked the strength to even flinch; she simply stared at the blade with a vacant gaze.
"I am setting you free."
Slash.
A thin red line. A few more sprays of warm blood. The girl's trembling ceased. Her body slumped against the wall, finally relaxed.
An abrupt silence descended. The scent of blood and a biting chill hung in the air. Sunny exhaled. The strange nausea that had been churning in his mind suddenly subsided. Everything had fallen into place.
Peace.