CHAPTER 1

1/1/0000

NOTE #1

First, to the Azmerald Family. Second, the Deadly Nightshades.

With all these, I finally found the cure.

Unfortunately, the madness remains.

All hopes are handful, but at least there's one. Who knows? Hope is a fragile thing, but the first to be made by the mind in times of despair.

I can only record this once.

If there is a second entry, then I survived.

If not, then this note will be the last proof, that indeed, there is a way to end all these calamity our world passes through.

At the end, we are but mortals.

CHAPTER 1: PUPPETEER

Maybe it had been the warm trickle of blood, or perhaps the sharp, pain radiating through his chest that had forced him awake.

"W-What? Where am I?"

He asked himself, his voice in a breathless rasp.

He was sitting in muddy water, his back resting against the cold surface of a stone tower.

The moment he decided to stand up, a vicious agony resonated through his entire body—from his chest straight to his shoulders. It was enough to push him right back down into the muck.

"Ouch!"

With dirt-covered hands, he reached for the center of the pain, his fingers brushing against something cold and solid sticking out of his chest.

Using a jagged force, he gripped the handle and pulled out, a slick knife came free, and the sheer shock of it caused the blurriness in his vision to finally snap clear.

"No! No!!" he yelled, scrambling backward through the mud while desperately checking his clothes to inspect the dark bloodstains.

But then, whether it was a trick of his recovering vision or something entirely unnatural, the wound quickly closed up.

It healed right before his eyes, as though invisible needles had sewn the open cut shut.

"What?"

He touched the spot where the blade had been. At first it stung, but when he tapped the skin three times in a row, there wasn't a single hint of pain.

As the agony vanished, his body recovered with an unnatural speed, giving him enough strength to finally get to his feet.

Lost and confused, he looked around, his eyes darting sideways down the dim alley of an unfamiliar place.

"I... I don't understand," he muttered to himself, taking a tentative first step. "The only thing I remember... I..."

His eyes suddenly widened, the moment strange pictures poured into his mind.

The onslaught was quick, but it was enough to leave him in absolute anguish. He grounded his teeth in distress and dug his nails deep into his scalp.

These strange pictures were memories that brought a blinding headache—the type that made one's head feel light, leaving a phantom pain impossible to pinpoint.

He pulled at his hair, hissing until the pressure abruptly subsided, vanishing in the same instant it had arrived.

Slowly, he dropped his hands from his head. "This isn't my memory..."

He was reassured by his own sanity. He knew who he wasn't. "I... I am not Valor Voss. I... I am... What's my name?"

His hands trembled. Not only was he locked out of what had happened before this moment, but his name... His name? That was gone as well.

"Okay... Valor Voss. For now, I'll go with the name this memory holds," he told himself, forcing his breathing to steady. "I can't panic now. I have to first understand what I am... where I am... Then, slowly, I might get the rest of my memories back."

This became his first plan. Taking the name Valor, he decided to check the pockets of the coat he wore.

He patted the unbuttoned coat pockets, then proceeded to tap down the black trousers, before checking the tucked-in white shirt.

Nothing.

"If I needed to keep something from being stolen, where would I hide it?" he questioned.

He tapped his back pockets, then pulled open the heavy coat, discovering a hidden pocket stitched into the interior lining.

"Eureka!"

He frowned, a valid thought crossing his mind. 'I might have been a smart person!'

Inside the pocket, his fingers found a small wallet containing a few strange silver coins, alongside a metallic badge. Engraved in small letters were the words: 'The Bureau of The Watchers'

"The Watchers? Interesting!"

The only other item was a small notebook. He flipped open the yellowish pages and saw no other words, just empty blank spaces—except for the very first sheet, which held a few asterisked names:

* The Azmerald Family

* Lord of the Night

* Ghostbanes

* The Seer

"Okay, seems like those were keywords this body didn't want to forget," Valor said. "But standing here in this alley won't fetch me answers."

He tucked the notebook back where he had found it and took a step forward. "I have to understand everything in this place."

He left the shadows of the alley and stepped into the streets, where the noisy, rumbling sounds of the city instantly magnified.

'A town?' Valor asked himself as a horse-drawn carriage rushed past, spraying dust.

He saw men dressed in heavy canvas overalls and women in subtle, floral gowns. Merchants called out from their stalls, trying to flag down the various passersby; some stopped to listen, while others simply walked past.

Valor kept his head low while figuring out if he was to cross the busy road, until a figure abruptly stepped into his path.

"Does my good Sir hope for a show?"

Valor turned, coming face-to-face with a man dressed in colorful trousers and a tucked-in shirt, both patterned with the shapes of spades and hearts.

Even underneath the man's deeply depressed eyes, those same identical symbols were painted onto his skin.

Valor waved his hand slightly. "No, thank you."

"It's a short show, I promise! It won't take up to a minute of your time, and you would enjoy the story. Perhaps you might even learn a thing or two from it. Won't you like a show?" The puppet master pressed further, a sly smile cutting across his face. "Or are your days just as gloomy as mine, that you can't stay behind for a story? Just for the price of a single coin?"

Valor frowned slightly, his curiosity piqued. "Okay. Just a story. Then after the show, I'll pay."

The puppet master nodded, his smile widening. "You don't strike me as a man who would do some sort of deceit, unlike me."

Those last two words were enough to keep Valor entirely on his toes.

Right at that moment, the puppet master stepped back to his shaggy-looking showcart.

He walked behind the wooden frame and motioned for Valor to stand at the front just as the tiny red curtains raised open.

Inside the box was a painted cardboard cutout of a nighttime sky, then, came in a wooden marionette, suspended by thin strings, danced into the center of the miniature stage.

And so, the puppet master narrated, "Once, there was a great Lord who stayed locked within his castle. He chose solitude to calm his mind, as he wasn't human but lived amongst mortals."

Valor watched the marionette move across the stage, and the puppet master continued, "This Lord is well known for his intense wisdom but none have ever seen his face..."

A few small cardboard houses were pulled up to join the scene.

"It's said if you need the help of the Lord, you must go, during the nighttime, to six locked houses and knock on each of five doors randomly. The sixth one, you shouldn't knock—rather, push it open, and there, you would find him; The Lord Of The Night."

'The Lord Of The Night? That's what was written in the notebook!' Valor's eyes widened as the curtains abruptly closed and the puppet master stepped out from behind the cart.

"I didn't waste your time, did I, good Sir? Went straight to the point—"

"Did you just say The Lord Of The Night?" Valor interrupted.

The puppet master nodded. "Indeed."

"How did you know this—"

"Oh, my good Sir, it's just a story, and what's a story? Well, a story is just a fable unless proven true," the puppet master said, tapping his painted cheek. Up close, Valor could see the man was towering at an unnatural six-foot-one, his frame incredibly frail.

The very first person he had encountered today was this strange puppeteer telling a riddle rather than a story, about a name written inside his hidden notebook.

"Do you have any other stories?" Valor asked quickly, reaching into his coat.

"Oh! No, no, my good Sir. A story, a coin. Just as we promised."

Valor quickly turned to pull out his wallet. "Then I will give you three more coins for three more stories..."

The moment he lowered his eyes to count out the silver coins from his wallet, he picked them out and raised his head.

The puppet master and his shaggy showcart were entirely gone, as though they hadn't been there at all.

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