"The sun looks as lively as always," said an old man who was busying himself chopping wood for the village.
A young man beside him tsked and replied, "What does that have to do with us? The baron isn't even giving us basic necessities like food. I think in a few days, we won't even have the sun unless we pay the so-called 'money for running the state.' What a bunch of bull—"
As soon as the young man saw a girl approaching, he stopped himself from finishing the slur. He didn't want the girl to learn such words from him.
"Father, why are you always screaming about such things? Aren't you afraid some officer might hear you?" said the young girl, explicitly hinting at the not-so-slick attempt to hide the slur.
The girl had a rather unique look—beautiful silver hair paired with ocean-blue eyes.
At first, the married couple had a disagreement. How could such a child be born when neither of them had such features? Not even a bit. But then, a priest from a nearby church came and declared her birth to be a reward from the gods.
Although none of them understood what it really meant, they went along with it and showered their only daughter with love, completely forgetting what the priest had actually said.
"Me, afraid? Haha! My daughter, you've got it entirely wrong. You're far too young to understand," said the father.
"Okay, then teach me," said the daughter with a smirk.
"It's not as easy as it sounds," the father tsked again and continued chopping logs.
"Haa... then I guess I should go tell what my father was talking about and how he was sw—" the girl teased, showing no remorse for her father.
"Waiiit!" the father called out to his daughter, who was walking away, almost condemning him to a night on the couch.
"My beautiful and smart daughter, what are you talking about? Let me teach you something about politics. If someone were to sneak around and talk badly about the leadership, they'd be treated like a prisoner. But if they're explicit and speak out publicly, then if the leadership tries to arrest or execute them, there's a high chance of protests—or worse, a revolution. So it's better to let the person keep talking. One voice alone won't do much."
Although the father talked so much that he started to space out, the daughter didn't blink—jotting everything down in her mind.
"Haha, don't overthink it, Elizabeth. It'll hurt your feeble brain," the father continued, snapping his fingers in front of her face.
After watching the hilarious yet strange conversation between the father and daughter, the old man chuckled.
"Haha, you're really scared of your wife, huh?"
"It isn't a secret, old man," sneered the young man.
"I'm tired and I've done twice the work today. I'm going home," the man continued.
"Wait, who's going to finish the rest of this?" the old man asked in shock.
"Who else? You," said the man, without a trace of sympathy.
"Nooo! My old, senile fingers... all this work? Really?" cried the old man.
Ignoring his complaints, the father and daughter headed toward their home.
"Father, you didn't have to be so mean to him," said Elizabeth.
"I was mean? These old men fake weakness to leverage others' strength. I believe some truly are weak—but him? No, he's not weak," the father replied, eyes fixed ahead.
After hearing the reason, the daughter stayed quiet and continued moving forward.
When they finally reached the town center and were about to reach home, a random man bumped into the father.
"Hey! Look where you're going," said the father in a rather angry voice—but he quickly quieted down when he realized his wife was just a mere wall away.
"Shh," reminded the daughter.
They opened the door and walked inside.
"Darling, I went outside and was cutting some logs and you wouldn—"
The father stopped mid-sentence.
Almost in a choking way.
What he found in front of him wasn't the lively, rowdy woman he had married with love.
What he witnessed was a murder scene.
It was quick—but painful.
Emotions?
Emotions are the foundation of human fortitude.
If one strays too close, he will be killed.
If he strays too far, he will be inhuman.
Although this man looked dumb and immature, he was still the father of the daughter. If the genetics weren't passed down perfectly, the characteristics were.
The father looked around and saw the back window open.
This sparked a sense of intellect within him.
"Get your mother to the hospital, and I'LL FUCKING FIND THAT ASSHOLE!" screamed the father.
He immediately ran outside, looking everywhere.
Everything was blurry.
Everything was sunny.
And then he saw someone.
The same person who had just bumped into him earlier.
Could he have come through the back window? thought the father.
But he didn't really need to think too hard.
The moment he saw the man—
The man had a wicked smile.
Like someone who had just committed an evil act but believed it was for a good cause.
Then the man ran toward the father, knife in hand.
The knife was stained red.
Had it killed someone?
Or... was it just used to cut tomatoes?
HaHA, SUCH THINGS ARE NOT NECESSARY, thought the father, ready to kill the person in front of him.
It didn't matter.
A life for a life.
A vessel to unleash his inner demons.
As the man approached, the father charged forward.
Can you blame him? He was disadvantaged. But the only thing he could see was red—like a bull in a circus.
But unlike what he expected, the "killer," once close enough, took the knife...
...and stabbed himself in the abdomen.
He forced the father to hold the knife.
Then he screamed—loudly—enough to stop all nearby chatter and motion.
"AHHHHHH, I'M DYING! I JU— cough —JUST WANTED TO REPORT THE MURDER, WHY, WHYYYYY!"
screamed the "killer," blood spraying as he coughed.
"YOU COULD HAVE JUST TOLD ME NOT TO SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THE M— cough —MURDER! Y-YOU KILLED YOUR WIFE! YOUUU ARE A KILLER!"
He kept screaming it. Over and over again:
"You are a killer!"
The father stood frozen—shocked. Unable to process what was happening.
I'm a killer? he thought, looking down at the warm, bright-red blood oozing onto his hands.
Ha... ha... HAHAHAHAHA! I'm a killer! I killed this guy... he killed my wife... Don't I have the right to revenge??
He had lost it.
The voices faded into silence.
"I killed your wife..."
The man whispered.
"She said to tell you... that she—she—loved you."
He spoke in a terrifyingly calm voice, right into the father's ear.
Holding his stomach like he was afraid to die—but he wasn't.
He was just holding in his laughter.
"Fuck you," the father muttered.
Then he twisted the knife inside the man's abdomen, shredding the tissue.
One.
By.
One.
Then he pulled the knife out—tearing life from the man's body.
As the man fell, the father expected to see fear. Regret.
Anything.
But no—God wouldn't allow him that relief.
The man lay in peace.
Smiling.
As if he had been waiting for death all along.
To the townspeople, this was no different than a confession.
Finally snapping back to reality, the father screamed:
"I didn't do it! He did it himself!
HE KILLED MY WIFE!
It was h-him!
BELIEVE ME!"
He screamed again and again, like a rabid bull gone mad after seeing only red.
Elizabeth, on the other hand, with the help of her neighbors, took her mother to the nearest doctor.
"She is dead."
Such a small sentence should not be able to cause such a significant reaction in the human body. It just doesn't make sense. Emotions are the foundation of human fortitude. They can't be destroyed that quickly.
Wrong. Everything is destroyed if built.
Tears began watering down the young girl's cheeks. She never expected such a strange departure. WHY? That's the only thing a young girl, so full of curiosity about the world, could say.
Due to poverty, the body could only be thrown into a shallow one-foot grave, shared between other corpses.
The procedure was short and simple. The girl wasn't even allowed to see her mother's face, and was led away.
She then ran toward her house, looking for some kind of shelter from the terrifying emotions erupting inside her.
"HOW DARE YOU KILL YOUR OWN WIFE!" yelled a random person on the road outside the house.
Many villagers had grouped together to form a circle around someone—or something.
After squeezing her way inside the circle, she finally found her father.
He stood there, petrified, trying to speak, but his voice wouldn't come out—as if he'd screamed himself mute.
"Pathetic.""Disgusting.""Go to hell.""You should've at least thought about your daughter."
Such accusations flew from every direction.
"W-What happened, Dad?" said the girl, already heavy with sorrow for her mother, now confused by the cacophony.
'I didn't do it,' the dad tried to say, but nothing escaped his lips.
A man in a white robe, wearing a cross around his neck, sat down beside the dead body and began praying over it.
The father's eyes lit up with hope. The priest—he would defend him. He knew the truth. He had to.
In a sorrowful voice, the priest began, "He was a dear brother of mine. And now he's dead for the Lord. I believe he has gone to a better place."
The father's face fell.
He couldn't believe it. Not a single person understood him. No one believed him. These weren't neighbors. These weren't childhood friends. They were strangers.
He grabbed the priest's shoulders, shaking him, trying to speak in the only way he could.
'I didn't do it. LISTEN TO ME. PLEASE.'
This went on for a minute. Total silence around them.
The priest finally spoke. "Are you trying to say… that if this had happened anywhere else but here, I'd be the one lying dead?" He sighed. "May the Lord help both of us, my dear brother."
Everyone knew that wasn't what the father was trying to say. But who would you rather gamble with—a priest… or a killer?
"I am taking custody of the daughter. I cannot allow her to remain with such a maniac," continued the priest.
"N-NO…" The words tore their way out of the father's throat. He pulled his daughter close, guarding her with what little strength he had.
Elizabeth was confused. So confused that tears welled up in her eyes, unstoppable.
"Father… did you kill Mom?" she asked, her voice barely audible.
'NO!' he tried to say.
"Yes," the priest interrupted smoothly, placing a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Yes, he did, my dear daughter of the Lord. He killed your mother, my brother in faith. And he will do so again. I cannot let you be tainted any longer. All I can do is pray for him now."
The girl, naive at just nine years old, turned away from her father and into the priest's arms, sobbing.
Soon, some guards arrived and arrested the devastated man, who barely had the energy to stand.
Two days later, after a hasty trial, the father was declared guilty. Life imprisonment. His new duty: serve the state that had broken him.
The daughter was granted one final moment to see him in private.
"Father… W-WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!" she cried, her emotions finally erupting.
Seeing her like that, the father shuddered. "I-I didn't do it. The killer—he murdered Mom. Then he stabbed himself… gave me the knife. I-I-I DIDN'T DO IT!" His voice cracked, climbing and falling like a bomb desperate to explode.
"You don't have any proof," the daughter replied, coldly.
Five words. But from the right person, they can shatter the soul.
The father slumped to the floor and wept. And seeing that, her own father reduced to such a sight, Elizabeth couldn't bear to stay. She walked away.
The next day, the father was found dead.
He left a note declaring his innocence, but it was destroyed. A new one was forged.
"Aaron, father of Elizabeth, took his own life due to the guilt he felt after killing his wife and a brother of the church. May the Lord punish him for eternity, and forgive the unforgivable."
That was the official statement from the church.
Elizabeth was taken into their custody.
"My Lord's daughter, how are you doing?" asked the same priest, the one who had taken everything from her.
"..." Elizabeth said nothing.
"Haha, it's alright, Eliz. Call me if you need anything. My name is Lucifer," he said with a smile.
'Lucifer? Isn't that the devil's name?' Elizabeth thought—but didn't dare speak.
"My name is Elizabeth," she muttered.
"First of all," the priest replied, "Lucifer was once an angel. And I intend to become that again. Secondly, I know your name is Elizabeth. But it's far too royal for someone like you, my dear Lord's daughter."
'Can he hear my thoughts?' Elizabeth blinked.
"Yes," he replied without hesitation.
A chill ran down her spine. Was he… a demon?
"Eliz, I'm not the spawn of the devil," he said casually, "but sometimes, one must become him. Your father didn't actually do anything wrong. What he told you was the truth. But we had to do what was needed—for the Lord. There's nothing wrong with that. You'll understand one day. You'll come to see the purity of our cause."
He rambled on, but Elizabeth only heard one thing.
"My father didn't do anything wrong?" she asked, nearly fainting.
"Your father didn't," the priest confirmed.
"Then why?" Her voice cracked. "THEN WHY DID YOU DO THAT TO HIM?!"
He remained calm. "Because you are the Lord's daughter."
"What the fuck is a Lord's daughter?" The words fell from her lips, no longer able to contain the whirlwind inside.
"It is the Lord's Daughter," he replied—simple, yet unshakably firm.
The priest turned and left the room.
Elizabeth sat alone. Heartbroken. Crushed. Devastated.
Her mother was killed.
Her father was framed—and pushed to suicide.
Because she was the Lord's daughter?
Because of that?
Because of… her?
All of this happened… because of her.
Emotions swirled inside her like a tsunami.
Power began leaking from her small body.
Silver hair turned black.
Ocean blue eyes turned crimson red.
The only thing she could think about now… was how unfair life was.And how broken she had become.
If she had to become evil to serve justice—so be it. Others would feel what she felt. Others would suffer.
Silver is the best reflector of light—of energy.
Black is the best absorber.
Her black hair began to glow with heat. The water in town stopped flowing.
Where had it gone?
A massive tide rose from one edge of town, towering, monstrous.
It swallowed everything.
The priest entered Elizabeth's room once more, his eyes wide in ecstasy.
"THE LORD—THE LORD IS COMING!" he cried, his face twisted in manic joy.
He dropped to his knees and prayed to the girl like she was a god.
He knew it was his last day.
He died.
As did the 1,234 others in the town of Beckton.
Only one survived: a 9-year-old girl with silver hair and ocean-blue eyes. Elizabeth.
She was found unconscious in her room beside a dead man named Lucifer.
"Huh? Elizabeth? Isn't she the killer's daughter?" one guard asked.
"Yes, she is," another confirmed.
"Why?" a small, frail voice asked.
"Woah, she's awake—quick, heal her!" said the first guard.
"B-But isn't she cursed? Her mom got killed by her dad, who then committed suicide, and now the priest who took her in dies right beside her?" the second guard whispered nervously.
"Shut up. There's no such thing as curses. Use your magic and heal her," the first one snapped.
And then—silence.
Only one thing remained in the young girl's mind.
Why?