Under the shadow of a large tree, Lackey stood silently, his eyes fixed on the distant village below. A few steps behind him stood the maid—nervous, uncertain—the one who had been ordered to guide him around the village.
She shifted hesitantly before speaking. “I can tell you the details of that house… mostly about the girl who lived there. I assume… you came for her, didn’t you?”
Her tone wasn’t confident, but the glimmer in her eyes hinted that she’d already guessed his purpose. She wasn’t a fool.
Lackey turned his head slightly, not looking at her directly. “Name your price,” he said flatly, his voice sharp with impatience. Then, with an effortless motion, he lowered Snowflake to the ground.
The snake slithered away swiftly, its white body cutting through the grass like a knife. It vanished into the trees, no doubt going to hunt the local wildlife for a little feast.
The maid jerked back when she saw how fast the serpent moved. But she quickly regained her composure, offering a faint smile. “I-I’m not greedy… just a small house in the city. A new job. That’s all I want.”
Lackey smirked. “Not greedy, huh? Haha… fine. Deal. Speak.”
The maid’s smile deepened slightly. “Contract?”
Lackey chuckled. She was clever… she wanted a signed document of what he said. Just a resurrance!
Without complaint, he pulled out a blank parchment, wrote up a basic contract, and signed it on the spot. The maid took it carefully, her fingers trembling slightly with excitement. Then, after a brief pause, she began to speak.
And what she told him was… disturbing.
It was about the girl named Xara.
Xara… she had never been a normal child.
From the very beginning, something about her unsettled people.
She wasn’t like the others in the village.
It wasn’t trauma.
It wasn’t abuse.
It wasn’t even tragedy.
She simply… was different.
Deeply, disturbingly different!!
“She wasn’t like other children,” the maid said, her voice lowering. “She wasn’t shy or broken. She just… didn’t care about things like other people do.”
When Xara was a toddler, she used to eat insects. At first, her parents dismissed it as childish curiosity though they scold her for that.
But as she grew older, her habits became more alarming. She began to eat live creatures—small ones at first—without flinching, without hesitation. Worms. Frogs. Baby birds. Even things that would make most grown men sick. She consumed them without shame, without remorse… sometimes with a smile.
And the worst part?
She tried to share.
“She offered them to people… like it was candy,” the maid whispered, rubbing her arms. “To her friends, her parents… once even the village priest. Everyone was horrified.”
Her parents were desperate. They tried to discipline her, to correct her, to teach her how to be “normal.” But nothing worked. Every effort only made her more twisted… more detached.
At first, it was just unsettling.
Until one day…
One evening, a beloved family cow died unexpectedly. The mother—kind, gentle—knelt beside it and wept, mourning the loss like it were kin. But little Xara didn’t understand the grief.
She didn’t understand why her mother cried.
“Why are you crying, Mom?”
A young black-haired girl tilted her head in innocent curiosity, watching her mother sobbing beside the corpse of a cattle that had just died.
The mother didn’t answer. She couldn’t.
But Xara understood one thing: her mother loved the cow. And in her strange little mind, she wanted to make her mother happy again.
That night, while everyone slept, Xara snuck out of the house with a small lantern. She crept to the burial site, dug up the decomposing cow, and dragged the heavy carcass out of the dirt.
And then she began her work.
Chucckkk!
She carved into its skin. Peeled back the muscle. Played with its organs like a child fiddling with toys. She wrapped its veins around her hands, giggling to herself in the moonless light.
By dawn—
“KYAAAAAA!!!”A blood-curdling scream shattered the morning silence.
Her husband jolted awake and ran toward the sound, heart pounding in his chest. At the doorway, His wife had fainted on the spot, crumpled on the floor.
Her husband ran to her side, confused, half-awake. “Dear? What happened? What’s wr—”
“Mooommmrrrrmmmm!”
A grotesque, wet cattle sound echoed in the air.
It was a distorted, haunting moan—a sound like a dying animal imitating a human. And then he saw it.
There it stood. A cattle, but completely skinned—its veins bulged and muscles twitched, its organs dangled like twisted ropes. The thing moved with jerky, unnatural steps, like a puppet from a nightmare.
And behind it…
“Dad, look! I brought it back~”A black-haired child—Xara—stood soaked in blood, smiling brightly as she held handfuls of pulsing veins like strings. She looked like she was controlling it.
Her eyes sparkled with pride, not malice.
His heart nearly stopped right there.
After that day, her parents locked her inside the house, terrified of what she might do next. The village was in an uproar. People avoided their family. Even the elders began to suggest exile.
Her parents believed grounding her might help—that maybe, just maybe, she’d reflect on what she did and learn from it.
But that night… she vanished.
No one saw her again.
No footprints. No trail. No blood. No signs of escape.
And she never came back.
The maid finished speaking, her voice trailing off like a dying whisper. Everything had been said.
Lackey stared at her in silence for a long moment before finally asking, “How did you know all of this?”
The maid gave him a soft, almost nostalgic smile. “I once worked in that house. I saw it all. If there’s nothing else… I’ll be going now.”… what she didn’t add was… she was once Xara’s best friend too.
Lackey nodded slightly. “Hmm… here.”
He handed her a paper—detailed ownership of a house under her name, along with a job placement. It had all been prepared in advance by his puppets the moment he agreed to her conditions.
The maid’s eyes widened slightly. “How… did you do all this so fast?”
Lackey merely smirked and gave a dismissive wave of his hand.
The maid shrugged. She didn’t want to know. Whatever magic or machinery he used, it wasn’t her concern. What mattered now was that she could finally leave this cursed village and begin a new life far away from the rot it buried in silence.
With a lightness in her step, the maid turned and walked away, her silhouette fading into the trees.
Left alone, Lackey stared out toward the village again—but his eyes weren’t fixed on its crumbling houses or empty roads.
They were locked on one place.
Xara’s house.
His expression darkened.
“….”
[How long are you going to keep searching for answers… when you already know what they are?]
His log spoke from behind, voice almost tired, unable to keep the comment in any longer.
“What do you mean?” Lackey’s brows furrowed.
[Come on… it’s obvious. You’re just trying to justify her madness. You don’t want to accept the truth about her.]
Lackey blinked, falling silent. Slowly, he reached up and removed his rabbit mask with gentle hands… as he put them into storage.
He looked up at the sky, silent.
Aether stared at the sky, “…”
[Aether… you have to understand. Not everyone is meant to be normal. Some are made that way… Others are born like that. It’s nature. And no one—not even you—can change that.]
Aether bit his lip, his teeth digging in with frustration.
Was he really here just to understand her?
..Or was he searching for something to excuse her?
Something to help him deny what she had become?
Like Sandra?
[The Truth is simple: She is not normal! Accept it!]
“It’s not that I didn’t accept her,” he whispered. “I just… I worry. I worry about what it would mean for others. Accepting her for what she is… would also mean accepting the danger she brings. And that…” He hesitated, voice trembling, “That’s not something I can explain. I don’t get it. I don’t know what’s right anymore.”
He trailed off, eyes distant.
Aether was drowning in a dilemma.
He had come here hoping to find something—anything—that could make sense of Xara. To tell himself she could still be saved.
That maybe she was misunderstood.
That her madness had a cause, a cure?
But everything he’d learned only made one thing clearer:
Xara wasn’t lost.
Xara wasn’t cursed.
Xara was just… insane.
And then—
“What are you doing here?”
His heart stopped.
Aether’s eyes widened in pure horror as a cold voice reached his ears. Slowly, almost unwillingly, he turned around—
There she stood.
Xara.
Arms folded. Body still. Her black hair danced lightly in the wind, and her eyes—those strange, bottomless eyes—pierced right through him.
Her expression was calm.
But her gaze…
Was deadly.