Kraken Kingdom, also referred to as the kingdom closest to water. It was named after a mythical creature believed to have ruled this massive region since the time of the first man. Now, the kingdom consists of a single, dwindling city. Its decline is marked by centuries of defeat and misrule, each setback shrinking its borders and spirit. In its heyday, desperate citizens would fill temples with prayers to their sea god, hoping for rescue from hardship and war. But the god remained silent, and their faith began to wane. Now, the stories of the sea god are nothing but folklore and myths that people couldn’t bother to remember.

No one believed in such tales anymore. The stories that once inspired awe and reverence were now met with skepticism and indifference, dismissed as fanciful legends from a more naïve age.

The gods were dead

That was the prevailing belief among the weary citizens. Their temples lay in ruins, overtaken by tangled vines and the slow creep of decay, silent monuments to a faith that had long since withered.

Why else would they abandon them so suddenly? No one knows when it started or who started it, but that lingering resentment has persisted and shaped their consciousness, manifesting in the way they now act. Now, in this generation, no believer in said god is present in this city. The name was just a reminder of their past failures and their will not to repeat them.

It was nighttime in this once great city. The usually bustling atmosphere present during the day was not met with silence. Only those who have less than savory intentions would roam around the street at this hour. Even the city’s night guards would only patrol every few hours before dawn.

[kraken city-24th, Finn street]

A young girl sat behind a battered wooden desk in a room illuminated only by the warm glow of a single oil lamp. She looked much more mature than her 14 years of age suggested. Her clothing was simple and thick enough to push away the night cold, chosen more for utility than style, yet it traced the lines of her growing frame. Her short, pitch-black hair was messy, her dark eyes droopy, more from her lack of sleep than anything else.

At this time of night, she was usually asleep, dreaming about her Prince Charming and/or saving the world from one disaster or another. But tonight, her dreams weren’t so forgiving. She was startled awake by what she had seen in her dreams and decided to document it.

Seated at the table, she held her quill, and her hands moved fluently on her well-crafted diary. With her experience in writing, she penned down what she saw with concern in every stroke.’Dear diary,

Once again, sleep brought me another dream, a strange, vivid image that has become more frequent with each passing week. It’s as though some invisible hand is pulling me back, night after night, to places and faces I wish I could forget. Each time, the dreams grow more intense, their images sharper and more unsettling. Tonight, I awoke with my heart thrashing wildly in my chest, the memory of what I saw clinging to me like a leech. I worry that one day, these visions will draw me into trouble I cannot escape. There’s a persistent dread that burrows into my thoughts, an unshakable sense that something is waiting for me in the shadows of my sleep. I know the figures in my dreams aren’t ’real’ in a sense, yet their movements are so lifelike, their gazes so piercing, that I can’t help but fear being truly seen by them. Whenever their attention seems to drift toward me, my heart leaps and pounds on my chest like it wants me to run. Why am I so afraid of? I thought, by now, with how many dreams I have had, I would get used to it, but it only seems to get worse.

Anyway, enough of that. My dream tonight made me curious. I’ve always been fascinated by stories of gods and their worshippers, and even now, when the city’s faith has turned bitter, I find myself wondering what truly drove people to seek out the divine. Were they worshipped for their benevolence, or was it because of their overwhelming power? If gods are as mighty as legend claims, why are they so desperate for devotion? What emptiness do they seek to fill with prayers?

Tonight, I got a glimpse of how a god operates, and I dare say, it is not ideal. If these creatures are what we used to serve. Then we ought to be punished, just by association. I pray for the sake of all that this is the last such event to happen in this dying realm. Have the heavens really abandoned us after the culling? Did the great Heavenly Dao watching us feel we are no longer worth its efforts? Why would the heavens truly love us? Why would it allow such calamity to descend?

I dreamt of a pitiful man, one who has lost much...From the outskirts of a village, a man dragged himself toward the village at a slow pace, his feet scrapping the ground without mercy. He wore what might once have been a tunic. Now it was a little more than cloth with no particular design, darkened with old sweat and the kind of stains that did not wash out. His feet were wrapped in strips of fabric that had soaked through. Bruises coloured his arms haphazardly. One ran along his jaw in a shade of green and yellow that meant it was old. Another, high on his cheekbone, was still the deep red-purple of a fresh wound. Some, especially the newer ones, acted as an adhesive, sticking his clothes to his skin. The only thing of value on him was his necklace, carved from rabbit bones. His gift from his late daughter.

He walked without purpose. The walk took longer than it usually did, but if one could hear his inner thoughts, they would understand. He hoped he wouldn’t get to reach the village. His desire was a prayer that would end this suffering he was passing through, but he managed to reach it.

The village road was unpaved, with its wet, muddy floor sticking to the skin of his bare foot. Chickens scattered as his figure came through the gate, moving as the wind carried him. He surrendered to destiny, not that he could resist in any way before now.

His hair fell forward across his face, dark and close-cropped, grown just long enough to curtain his eyes from the world. It swayed as he moved. Most people only ever saw the lower half of his face: the set line of his mouth, the jaw, the dried blood at the corner of his lip. The eyes stayed hidden. Perhaps that was intentional. Perhaps it had simply never occurred to him to push the hair away.

"Look what the tide dragged in."

The voice came from the tanner’s shop. The speaker was a man who had once borrowed grain from the figure’s family during a lean winter, had been grateful, and had since forgotten his gratitude.

A few of the other men sitting outside laughed. A woman crossing with a water jug slowed, looked, and turned her face away in the particular manner of someone who had decided not to see.

"Oi. Beggar. You lost?"

He did not stop walking; he did not increase his pace, not that he had the strength to begin with. The insults moved through him the way wind moves through a hollow block. It held no meaning to him at this stage; he could barely make out what they were saying.

[What do you desire?] A whisper came out of nowhere, barely discernible from all the chaos around, but he heard it nonetheless. It felt so close to him but so distant. The disconnect made him feel dizzy for a moment.

With great effort, he turned towards the direction. Nothing. There was no one there. Not even a chicken, he did see a lizard, but he wasn’t delusional enough to think that it could talk, so he continued walking.

The question itself was redundant, since he had no desire. At this point, he had no will to continue. He just wants to...

He stopped briefly, resting on a wall, and he scanned around, finding himself in a bustling environment. He could hear distant echoes of items being sold.

"Buy chicken here."

"I have a charm that guarantees prosperity for sale, price negotiable..."

He could barely make out some things; others he ignored. They sold mundane items to items that were promised to be of a mythical nature. Of course, most were just scams.

His brief rest was interrupted by a sudden sting on his head, then a clattering on the floor.

"You disgusting beggar, are you going to chase away my customers? Go and die in a ditch somewhere. Tch, those thugs couldn’t even finish you off properly. Get out of my sight."

That is when he realized that he was hanging on the wall of a newly opened canteen, owned by a man he wasn’t all that familiar with. It was this same man who threw a plate at him.

Without replying, he staggered off the wall he had been leaning on, trying to leave, but he heard something that made him pause.

"How disgusting."

"He smells so bad."

[Search deep within your heart, child. What do you long for?]

That voice again.

"Did you hear what happened to him?"

"I did. He used to be the wealthiest man around, and he even owned most shops on this market. I heard he used to trade with other villages too."

"Yes, then everything went downhill a couple of months ago. His family members started dying one after the other."

[These people do not care for you.]

Again.

"What rotten luck he has." 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

"Why is he still alive? I wonder what sins he committed to be punished by the heavens like that."

"Who knows? He might have done a lot of terrible things to earn the kind of money he had."

"Hey guys, he used to be very kind to us, maybe...."

What sounded like a voice of reason was quickly drowned and pushed aside by malice.

"Who wants his bad luck to rub off on them? He should just die."

[see? They want you dead. At this rate, you wouldn’t live till tomorrow.]

He felt something breaking in him.

His listless eyes peered through past his hair and looked towards the crowd, desperately searching for humanity in them, searching for an anchor, for kindness, but all he was greeted with was pure malice, contempt, and indifference.

[WHAT DO YOU DESIRE?] This time, the voice came out louder than before.

[WHAT DO YOU DESIRE?]

[WHAT DO YOU DESIRE?]

[WHAT DO YOU DESIRE?]

Crack

Finally, it broke.

All the voices around him suddenly grew quiet, and the worries he once held close to his heart grew distant. He felt liberated from every burden, every chain holding him back. He entered a profound state of enlightenment.

"You want to know what I want, right?" His hoarse voice came, asking, " Who has that voice.

[Yes] The voice came eager this time.

His listless eyes swirled like an abyss, looking at the crowd before him.

"I want them all dead." His voice came as a soft whisper.

[Your wish, I shall grant. Now say my Name.]

The man paused briefly, a name he hadn’t heard before came to him at that instant, before instinctively mouthing, [*********]