Welcome to the Pink Space. A sanctuary crafted exclusively for the spoiled.
The familiar voice echoed through the void. A voice warm and viscous, like a suffocating embrace. He had lived here for a long time—longer than his memory could endure.
The wailing of a child pierced his eardrums.
Ignore it.
The wailing grew louder, swallowing the speaker's voice until it was reduced to a barely audible whisper.
Weeping... followed by the echo of faint, stifled laughter.
A mirror framed in pink rose from the nothingness.
The reflection within was not that of a young man. It was a child. A child dressed in pink silk garments, like those worn by the daughters of nobility.
The child stared into the mirror. He stared at himself amidst the swirling vortex of weeping and laughter.
A harsh, ragged gasp.
Air rushed into his lungs like crushed shards of glass.
He blinked his eyes, shattering the thin layer of frost that had frozen the moisture upon his eyelashes.
Cough... cough!
The chattering of his teeth was louder than the howling of the wind.
He struck his chest and thighs mercilessly, attempting to rouse his stiffening limbs. He pressed his rigid hand against his chest—directly over his heart. Was the pain real, or merely an echo? It had stopped beating just a moment ago. He had died from the cold, yet here he was, dragged back by force...
I want to go home.
The thought slipped into his mind like a warm poison. The very same home he had preferred death over staying in was the one he was now begging for to survive.
He rose slowly, his knees sinking into the hardened snow. The ice burned his throat with every breath.
He crawled forward. A step.
His mind gradually regained its characteristic coldness, forcing the primal animal instinct to the back.
The ring pulsed sharply, emitting a striking, radiant crimson glow toward the north.
He turned and ran south.
He brought his hand to his mouth, burying his teeth into the raw flesh at the base of his thumb. The metallic, salty taste of blood filled his mouth, and warm droplets rolled down his trembling skin to serve as the price for the equivalent exchange.
The card [Tulli] slipped between his blood-stained fingers, primed to burn.
The snow hindered his movements. He looked right and left. The white void stretched out boundlessly. Where was he?
The torrent of wind ceased abruptly.
The snowflakes stopped falling, as though a black shadow had swallowed the sky above him.
A stench of rusted copper and suffocating decay overpowered the purity of the frost. The atmospheric pressure plummeted, and a blast of hot air lashed against his back.
The danger had not come from the north. It came from above.
Talons like steel stakes driven simultaneously through the wall of his skull. Crack.
The sound of his neck cartilage rupturing was the last thing he heard.
Sensation in his limbs vanished in a fraction of a second.
The world spun violently. The white sky traded places with the blood-stained earth.
Below, a familiar human torso receded rapidly—kneeling, headless, with blood erupting from the neck onto the snow.
Welcome to the Pink Space. A sanctuary crafted exclusively for the spoiled.
[Excerpt from: A battered scrap, stained with dark ink resembling blood]
Author: Unknown.
"... (Text Fragmented) ... To hell with the Academy's theories and their boring books on ritual circles and sterile conditions! I do not know how they do it, nor do I care for their complex symbols! What I write is what I saw... I saw it with my own panicked eyes, which I wish had been gouged out before that very moment.
I saw one of them—a direct descendant of the Aurum family—fall into the ambush. He was dead. A lifeless corpse. The sword had pierced his neck, and blood blanketed the snow. We fell back to catch our breath, thinking the nightmare was finally over.
We waited. One minute. Sixty agonizing, fatal seconds...
Then, the flesh began to move.
Right there on the spot, without rituals, without chambers, the wound forced itself shut, the body convulsed, and he stood on his feet once more as if awakening from a nap! The look in his eyes was vacant, dead, but his body was alive—ready to kill again.
They are not humans... they are monsters that refuse to perish."