"Grandpa?" A child's voice trembled.
A fresh night cloaked the ruins, yet the air was thick, choking with malevolence. The taste of something bitter, something wrong, seeped into the silence.
Oenhi clung to the back of her grandfather's tattered shirt, small fingers grasping the fabric as though it could anchor her to safety. But there was no safety here. Only the remains of a broken house, red mist curling from its shattered bones. And within that mist, four silhouettes stood, watching. Waiting.
Solomon, old, tired, but unwilling to kneel stood between them and his granddaughter, his orange eyes locked onto the figures hidden in the crimson fog. He recognized them. The realization made his fists tighten.
"Oooooowe! A body at last! A body at last!" A voice, high-pitched and infantile in its excitement came from the mist. One of the figures bounced up and down like a child receiving a long-awaited gift.
Solomon's jaw clenched. He knew that voice.
"What took yah so long, Mazay? I been waitin' forever!" The voice giggled.
"Maybe if everything went according to plan, you would've been here sooner," another voice responded coolly.
The bouncing figure only laughed. "Guess yah right about that. This body's real flexible, though! Just kinda short."
Solomon had heard enough. With a sharp movement, he thrust his arm forward, and roots surged from the earth, racing toward the mist, seeking to crush whatever lurked inside.
The attack never landed.
A sudden force, sharp, invisible, sliced through the roots like they were nothing. Wind.
Solomon's eyes flickered with recognition. "The hell...?"
"So you were hiding out here? You never learn, Solomon." A third voice, deep and measured, called his name.
"You're persistent in your resistance," another voice added, male, but different from the last.
The mist began to clear. And there they stood.
Four figures. Masks molded to their faces, sinking into their skin like liquid merging with flesh.
The first had wild red hair and jagged crimson teeth peeking from his mask. A cloak of deep scarlet wrapped around him like living fabric.
The second wore a jester's guise, its design twisted, adorned with curling blush-colored tendrils.
The third was draped in yellow tainted giant hands folded around his dark-skinned frame. A broken yellowish mask covered his jaw, shifting unnervingly when he spoke.
And the fourth, dressed like a wandering swordsman, held a blade at his side, his presence eerily still.
Solomon inhaled. "How did he find me? "
"These are bad guys?" Oenhi asked hesitantly, peeking from behind her grandfather. "They look like the guys on the ground-"
She never finished.
The swordsman lunged.
Before Solomon could react, a knee struck his chin with brutal precision. He crashed to the ground, his body heavy and slow, pain splintering through his old bones.
"Grandpa!" Oenhi screamed, fear boiling into something else, something reckless.
She responded toward the attacker, fist quenched, her voice trembling with defiance. "Leave him alone!"
The swordsman landed gracefully beside the other masked figures, unfazed. His mask, now fractured from the impact, barely concealed his expression.
"Wowie, she's feisty," the jester chuckled.
"Feisty," the red-haired man murmured, amusement creeping into his voice. "I suppose so."
The handed man, his tone calm, deliberate, finally spoke. "Solomon's granddaughter. Oenhi Yagda."
A sickening certainty settled over Solomon.
They knew her name.
"Ravanti! You were part of Mazay's plan too?" The jester's voice rang out again, confirming the handed man's name.
Ravanti didn't look at her. "For my own reasons."
"Who cares?" The red-haired figure Mazaeta cuts in, exasperated. "Y'all got what you wanted. Now help me take the kid."
Solomon's heart pounded.
No.
No, he couldn't let this happen.
Gritting his teeth, he forced himself upright. His body screamed in protest, but he ignored it. Oenhi, trembling beside him, tried to help him stand.
"Why aren't you running?" Solomon rasped. "They'll take you away from me, Oenny."
Tears welled in her wide eyes. "I'm not leaving you!"
The swordsman shifted. Then, in a blur, he moved again, circling around them, his blade poised.
Solomon reacted in time. He caught the sheathed weapon with his bare hands, then drove his fist into the masked man's face.
A solid hit.
And then-
A second impact.
Small but fierce, Oenhi kicked the swordsman with everything she had, sending him stumbling back.
The jester cackled. "She fights?"
"Eh, I wouldn't say that," Ravanti corrected, "she just kicked him."
But Mazaeta was smiling now. "Regardless... she's perfect."
Something twisted inside Solomon's chest.
He couldn't win this. Not against all four of them. He isn't as strong as he used to be.
But there was still something he could do.
"Oenhi," Solomon called, his voice thick with something heavy. "Do you remember our promises?"
Oenhi's brows knit in confusion. A promise? What did that have to do with-
"To always smile," she said hesitantly, "no matter what? And that family matters the most?"
Solomon exhaled through his nose. He patted her head one last time. "And keep smiling. No matter what."
Then he turned back to Mazaeta.
"You're not taking my granddaughter," he declared. "I have a solution to her safety."
Mazaeta tilted his head, intrigued. "Oh? And what would that be?"
Solomon didn't answer.
He moved.
Like a hawk in its final flight, he lunged his body ignoring every ache, every failing muscle. The swordsman intercepted, but Solomon anticipated it.
Roots exploded from the earth, spearing toward the masked figures. The jester was caught off guard and slammed into the ground.
The giant hands around Ravanti revealed skin in between the fingers and he flapped them. Soaring into the air. Dodging the attack entirely.
Mazaeta barely had time to react before Solomon's hand closed around his mask.
He pulled.
The mask resisted, as if fused to his flesh, but Solomon gritted his teeth and yanked harder. Mazaeta snarled in frustration. Crimson tendrils lashed out from his cloak, but.
A glowing brown circle bloomed beneath them.
Mazaeta froze. "What the hell are you doing?"
Roots erupted, latching onto Mazaeta, glowing with an eerie mint-green light.
"My essence-?" Mazaeta's voice wavered. "I can't move?!"
It was working.
Solomon allowed himself a small, broken smile. But then,
He turned.
And his heart shattered.
Oenhi stood there, eyes wide, innocent, confused.
She didn't understand.
She couldn't.
But she would.
A final act of love, painful, irreversible sealed his fate.
Roots coiled around Oenhi. Lifted her and pulled her away.
She screamed. "Grandpa-?! What is this?! No! No, no, I don't want to-!"
Solomon swallowed against the lump in his throat. As the roots grew so large into branches that would turn into branches, forcing Oenhi into the woods.
Mazaeta laughed. "Sure this was the only thing you could've done?"
Solomon's fingers trembled. But his smile remained.
"I'm sure of it."
The magic circle ignited.
Oenhi flung far from him, crashed against a tree, the impact dragging her into darkness.
The last thing she saw before sleep took her was a bright glow, swallowing her grandfather and Mazaeta whole.
"...Grandpa?"
And then
Nothing.