The Boy with the Yellow Eyes

“……!”

I recoiled in sheer terror, snapping my head up.

Before I knew it, the thing had elongated its neck and breached the circle. Its hair was impossibly long, and its eyes—void of any white, filled only with pitch-black pupils—were the definition of grotesque.

As if mocking my fixed gaze, it tilted its head from side to side, a twisted, sneering expression carving its face.

Naturally, having little immunity to such horrors, I screamed.

“Agh!”

My hands instinctively flew off the floor. If I hadn’t moved, it surely would have bitten my ear off.

Even though its initial strike failed, the creature pursued me with its blackened mouth agape. I scrambled to my feet, stumbling blindly as I ran, my sense of direction utterly shattered.

“Help me! Jeong-won!”

I screamed for him as I ran, but the silence remained unbroken.

Shhhhhk—!

The only sound was the menacing hiss of the unknown entity closing in behind me.

‘What do I do?’

It was getting closer. Though I couldn’t see it, the subtle sound of something dragging across the floor grew louder, fueling a bloated fear that it would seize the back of my neck at any moment.

Worse, the absolute darkness prevented me from running at full speed. If I sprinted and slammed into a wall in this void, I’d be finished.

‘Should I jump to the side? …Damn it! Jeong-won, where are you?!’

But the luxury of thought vanished. A sudden, frigid sensation bloomed around my waist. I reached down frantically to defend myself, but—

“Agh!”

My waist was yanked upward as if bound by a giant cord.

I screamed as I was hoisted into the air. The thing that caught me began to crawl slowly up toward my face.

In a faint, stray glimmer of light from an unknown source, I caught a glimpse of its silhouette: a monster with the face of a woman and an impossibly long neck.

It murmured gloomily in a voice that blurred the line between male and female.

“A Player…. Good. Not perfect… but I’ve been trapped far too long.”

After those cryptic words, the monster pulled its face inches from mine and grinned.

When fear reaches its peak, the vocal cords seem to seize up. I could only tremble violently, unable to offer even a shred of resistance.

In that moment, the monster began attaching strange, tentacle-like appendages to me. I felt a sticky, viscous substance penetrating my skin—a sensation so revolting it made my stomach churn.

“……What?”

Then, something even more horrific occurred. The monster began to morph into me.

By the time it looked almost identical to me—save for the void-black eyes—a sense of terminal crisis hit me, and I thrashed my body.

“Kugh….”

But the moment I resisted, it wrapped a tentacle around my throat and began to throttle me.

I struggled to maintain consciousness, but my vision quickly bled into darkness.

Whish—.

When I opened my eyes again, the biting wind forced my eyelids apart. I found myself staring through what looked like black iron bars. The floor beneath me was unnaturally cold.

“Wh… what is this place?”

I looked around in a daze. The moment I felt the sharp sting in my throat, the memories of what happened before I fainted came rushing back.

“……!”

I scrambled up, clutching my neck. Fortunately, it only hurt; there seemed to be no major damage. I could feel the frantic thumping of my heart against my palm. I was still alive.

“Shit, where the hell am I?”

Cursing, I approached the bars. I looked into the cell across from mine, only to see a skeleton sitting in a room identical to mine.

“Wh-What?!”

I recoiled a few steps, but realizing the skeleton wasn’t moving, I gripped the bars again and scanned my surroundings.

It was then I realized I was in a place that resembled a prison. So far, there was no sign of anyone else. Either the cells were empty, or the occupants were all dead like the skeleton across from me.

Clang, clang.

I shook the bars a few times, but I had to admit that my physical strength wasn’t enough to break them. I began to scour the room.

It looked like an empty space, but a closer search revealed an old rope made of unknown cloth and strange writing etched into the floor.

“What does this say?”

The script was entirely different from any language I knew; naturally, I couldn’t decipher it.

Still, having found a rope, I thought I might be able to use it. As I was debating escape methods—like throwing the cloth through the bars—I heard something rolling outside.

Thump—!

“Hehe….”

Then, a small giggle. I pressed myself against the bars and turned toward the source of the sound.

On a wide path one level below, I saw someone moving, kicking something that looked like a ball.

‘……Who is that?’

They looked small in stature, but since I didn’t know if they were hostile, I couldn’t risk calling out. I waited for them to get closer.

And then….

“……What on earth is that?”

A small boy began to come into view.

But something was deeply wrong with him. He had emaciated, skeletal limbs and was wearing handcuffs connected by a heavy chain, yet he managed to move with eerie agility despite his stumbling gait.

No, he wasn’t just moving; he was playing soccer. The boy was dribbling a grimy, lumpy object, kicking it along with clumsy skill. He even laughed occasionally, as if having the time of his life.

As I watched, I realized the “ball” he was kicking wasn’t round. It had dark, matted bits sticking to it.

“……!”

A moment later, the realization hit me: it was a human head.

“Crazy….”

The horror made me reflexively step back. Terrifyingly, the moment I moved, the boy stopped mid-kick. He snapped his head up toward my cell, his senses seemingly tuned to the slightest noise.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Despite his restraints, the boy leaped toward me with incredible speed. It was a monstrous display of vertical power.

“……!”

With just three leaps, he arrived at the front of my cell. He peered at me with piercing yellow eyes.

“Sniff, sniff.”

He began to scent the air. Specifically, he sniffed the spot where my hands had gripped the bars, drooling as he did so. He stared at me with the predatory gaze of a beast eyeing its prey.

Up close, the boy was so thin his ribs were clearly visible, but his gaze and his movements were… well, he was far from human.

I didn’t even dare to breathe, praying he would lose interest and go elsewhere.

But the boy reached out his hand.

Clank!

If it weren’t for the chains on his wrists, his hand would have reached through the bars.

‘Ah.’

I realized then that the bars weren’t there to keep me in. This room… was a protective cage to keep him out.

“Ssssp, ssssp….”

The boy continued to loiter around the bars, glancing at me. He seemed to have lost interest in the “ball” he left behind; now, he wanted to play with me. It was a sense of pure, innocent malice.

My heart felt like it was going to explode.

‘……Shit, where the hell am I? I was definitely in the training room sealing that damn Demonic Sword….’

Then, it happened.

“Coome here… nice boy?”

“……What?”

The boy outside reached toward me, beckoning with his finger. As if I were some kind of pet.

“What… what are you?”

I muttered in shock that the boy could speak. His ears twitched—his hearing was sharp—and he stared at me.

But the words that came out of his mouth next were not what I expected.

“Wh-at… are y-ou?”

“……”

It was a hollow echo, like someone learning to speak for the first time.

I realized immediately that he didn’t understand me. His speech was mechanical and awkward.

But then, where did “Come here” come from?

“Save… me, pleeease?”

“……What?”

“It hurts! It hurts!”

The boy kept speaking, as if these were the only phrases he knew. As I listened, my face turned pale.

‘Is it possible… were other people captured here besides me? And this brat killed them all?’

The boy called out to me a few more times with his bizarre vocabulary. When I didn’t respond, he eventually grew frustrated and slammed his fists against the bars. Fortunately, the bars didn’t budge, though they released a cloud of stinging dust.

“Cough!”

When I sneezed, the boy stared at me. His expression was unsettling—his eyes were sparkling with a disturbing intensity.

Without taking his eyes off me, he backed away and then plummeted down to the lower level.

A few minutes later, he returned, bringing that “soccer ball” he had been kicking around.

“Aaaaagh!”

I screamed in revulsion, but as expected, the boy didn’t understand. If anything, my scream made him grin even wider.

“Please, help me?”

“……Shit.”

He chirped, spewing out the half-learned words of his victims.