Iris happily joined her mother in the kitchen, determined to make good on her claim that twenty years of extra life experience had at least made her useful around food.
That confidence lasted less than a minute.
While cutting vegetables, the knife slipped across her index finger, and Iris froze as a thin line of blood began running down her hand.
‘Okay, so when I said I had twenty years of cooking experience, what I really meant was nearly twenty years of almost poisoning everyone whenever I tried.’ Iris sighed as she stared at the cut.
‘I miss Charles.
He was the best cook, I wanted to marry him for his steak dinner alone.’
“Iris, honey, are you okay?” Sarah asked, immediately setting down what she was doing and reaching for the first-aid kit.
She glanced toward the dining room.
“Wallace, dear, please help her. You’re the doctor here.”
“Of course. Just focus on dinner, alright?” Wallace said with a smile as he led Iris out of the kitchen.
Once they were far enough away that Sarah couldn’t easily see them, he lowered his voice.
“Now, Iris, don’t tell your mother about this, okay?”
He pulled back his sleeve.
A golden tattoo rested along his wrist, shaped like a pair of angel wings.
“Curse of the Hateful Saint.”
The Sigil began to glow, and soft golden light poured from Wallace’s hand.
Iris watched as the cut across her finger closed within seconds, leaving no trace of the injury behind.
Even after everything she’d seen in her life, watching Wallace heal someone so effortlessly still felt strange when compared to the man she remembered becoming later.
Nikolai chuckled from the couch.
“Still such a softhearted man, Wallace.” He smiled pleasantly.
“You know, my offer remains open. It’s not too late for you to join me. Your brother as well. I would happily accept both of you.”
Wallace pushed his glasses higher on his face and looked toward him.
“How about you tell me why you’re really here, Nikolai? You didn’t send any of your grunts with you, so whatever you’re doing must be important enough for you to personally handle it. But you came alone, which tells me it’s probably something you know they wouldn’t approve of.”
Nikolai’s smile didn’t change.
“I came to kill the girl.”
Iris went still.
Nikolai spoke with the same calm tone he’d used while complimenting Sarah’s house.
“Once I’m finished working with Michello, I intend to kill him as well, so don’t misunderstand our relationship. There’s no need to cause a scene tonight. Stay out of my way, Wallace, and I’ll simply deal with Iris after her mother goes to sleep.”
His green eye shifted toward Iris.
“And I would recommend staying quiet, young lady. I would prefer not to involve your mother. I owe your father a debt, after all.” His smile widened slightly.
“Unfortunately, not one large enough to spare your life.”
Iris slowly bit down on her nail.
‘So he really is working with Michello to kill me.’
Her mind immediately returned to what Michello had called her earlier.
A Miracle.
‘Could that be connected?
Is that why both of them suddenly care so much about me?’
Her eye twitched as she stared at Nikolai.
‘God, I hate this man.’
“Um… Wallace, what is this man talking about?” Iris asked, immediately slipping back into the role of a frightened girl as she moved behind him.
Wallace shifted slightly in front of her.
“Just so you know, Nikolai, my brother went looking for Michello. He’ll be back before long.” A small smile appeared on his face as he casually gestured toward the X-shaped scar on Nikolai’s forehead.
“And we both know you can’t beat Markus.”
Nikolai’s smile weakened slightly.
“You only survived the last time because we used to be best friends,” Wallace continued.
His voice remained calm, but there was far less warmth behind it now.
“You’re a traitor, Nikolai, but you’re still my friend. Don’t sink any lower than you already have by murdering a child.”
Iris peeked around Wallace’s shoulder, doing her best to look nervous rather than furious.
“Why do you even want to kill me? You said you owed my father a debt, but now you’re threatening to murder his daughter. That doesn’t make much sense.”
For a moment, Nikolai simply looked at her.
Then he shrugged.
“It doesn’t matter.” He leaned back against the couch as though they were discussing something completely ordinary.
“Let’s enjoy dinner and see whether Markus returns on time. If he does, I’ll naturally retreat for tonight. Even I have no desire to fight the famed Valentine brothers together.”
Not long afterward, dinner was ready.
Everyone gathered around the table as Sarah served shrimp Alfredo, filling the room with a pleasant smell that felt completely out of place considering two of the people sitting there were openly considering killing one another.
Iris took one bite and immediately accepted, once again, that whatever talent her mother possessed in the kitchen had completely skipped her.
“Mom,” Iris asked after a few moments, “how exactly do you know all of these people?”
Sarah smiled as she sat down. The source of this chapter is g.com.
“They were old coworkers of your father’s. Well… coworkers isn’t really the right word. They were more like his students.”
Iris stopped eating.
“Students?”
“There were five of them I remember especially well. Good kids, all of them.” Sarah began counting them off casually.
“Markus and Wallace, Scarlett, Nikolai, and Maria.”
Iris’s eye twitched.
‘Are you kidding me?’
She slowly glanced toward Wallace.
‘Why are you childhood friends with two terrorists?’
After another second, she reconsidered.
‘Actually…
that explains a lot.’
Scarlett’s loyalty to Nikolai had always been almost impossible to break.
Iris had learned that firsthand during one particularly miserable battle.
‘She was such a pain to kill.
Nearly burned my eyes out of their sockets before I finally got her.’
Iris quietly took another bite of pasta.
But Maria…
That name was different.
Iris searched through twenty years of memories and found almost nothing.
‘That’s a name I haven’t heard before.’
“How is Scarlett doing?” Wallace asked, glaring across the table as he took a sip of water.
“Haven’t seen her in a while.”
“She’s doing quite well,” Nikolai answered calmly.
“She actually wanted to come with me today, but I told her I preferred to visit this place alone.”
Iris quietly finished the rest of her food before pushing her chair back.
“I’m getting pretty tired. I’ll be in my room, okay, Mom?” she said, putting on a cheerful smile as though there weren’t two powerful Cursebearers sitting at the table waiting to see whether Markus returned before one of them tried to murder her.
“Okay. Good night, honey,” Sarah said with a smile.
Iris headed upstairs while, behind her, Nikolai casually checked his watch and Wallace continued staring daggers at him.
7:30 PM.
Once Iris reached her room, she closed the door behind her and stopped.
Everything was exactly as she remembered it.
Her bed, her desk, the decorations she’d once thought looked cool, even the scratches and marks scattered across furniture she hadn’t seen in decades.
For a moment, Iris simply stood there and smiled.
Twenty years had passed since she’d last been inside this room like this, before Applecrest became a graveyard and every ordinary part of her childhood turned into something she could only remember.
She walked over to her desk and sat down, looking through the window at the moon hanging peacefully above Applecrest.
In three days, that moon would turn red.
Iris rested her chin against her hand.
“Soon enough, I’ll crush the damn moon itself if that’s what it takes to save Mom.”
She sighed and glanced down at an old notebook resting on her desk.
Iris reached for it, only for something tucked between the pages to catch her attention.
A bookmark.
She froze.
Iris slowly pulled it free.
Four words had been written across it.
Read me, Iris.
Her expression immediately darkened.
She flipped open the notebook to the page marked by the bookmark.
A letter had been tucked between the pages.
Iris unfolded it.
“A tiny butterfly flapping its wings today may create a devastating hurricane tomorrow. And you, my dear Iris, have done far more than simply flap your wings.”
Iris’s fingers tightened around the paper.
She already knew who had written it.
“Did you know Michello’s bad luck becomes more potent the closer he gets to death? Currently, someone is only inches away from killing him, so naturally, the world has decided to sink its fangs into him while it still has the chance.”
Her eyes widened.
“A chance it normally wouldn’t have taken for another three days.”
Iris stopped breathing.
For several seconds, she stared at the letter without moving.
Then she slowly looked toward the window. This story is hosted at g.com.
The moon flickered.
For a brief moment, reality itself seemed to distort around it, as though the sky couldn’t decide what it was supposed to look like.
The pale surface darkened.
Then the moon turned crimson.
Blood red.
“No…”
Iris shot to her feet.
“No, no, no!”
The Blood Moon had appeared.
Three days early.
Everything she’d been preparing for—every encounter, every plan, every advantage she thought she still had time to gather—had just disappeared.
Before Iris could even begin to understand how badly she’d screwed up, something far worse happened.
The moon began to cry.
A single black tear formed along its crimson surface.
Then it fell.
Iris stared in horror.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
The tear struck Applecrest.
Black water erupted across the town almost instantly, flooding streets and swallowing buildings as though an ocean had suddenly burst upward from beneath the earth.
Iris rushed toward the window, but she barely managed a single step before a wave of black light consumed the house.
The world disappeared.
When Iris opened her eyes again, she was alone.
She sat in the middle of a massive bridge formed from dark crimson stone, suspended high above streets completely drowned beneath black water.
Iris slowly stood and looked around, struggling to recognize anything.
Applecrest was gone.
In its place stretched an enormous three-dimensional maze of crimson structures.
Bridges twisted over one another, stairways climbed toward nowhere, towers rose at impossible angles, and countless paths stretched through the darkness in every direction.
Above it all hung the Blood Moon.
The entire sky had become a deep, bloody red.
Iris quickly glanced around and realized she’d gotten lucky.
A streetlight stood beside the bridge, casting a small circle of pale light around her.
Beyond that light was nothing but crimson stone and endless darkness.
She remained completely still.
Iris understood exactly what had happened.
The Blood Moon hadn’t merely transformed Applecrest into a T.A.L.E.
The moon had cried.
A Devil’s Footprint had been born.
Three days earlier than it was supposed to.
Iris bit down on her nail as she stared into the darkness surrounding her.
For the first time since returning to the past, she had no idea what happened next.
A.E.G.I.S.
— RESTRICTED FILE
Designation: T.A.L.E.
— [The Black Ocean]
Classification: [Devil’s Footprint]
Location: [Applecrest]
Status: [COLLAPSED]
Originating Belief:
“Humanity’s collective fear that one day, the world will end.”
Confirmed Core Rule:
-Do not be alone in the darkness.
Individuals who enter complete darkness while unobserved are presumed lost.
Known Cursebearers Present During Manifestation:
— The Reaper
— The Saint
— The Executioner
— The Dove
Official Survivor Count: 0
END FILE