chapter 01
“It’s okay, Lottie. Look at me.”
I slowly stroked the small head of black hair. Her tearful face clearly showed that she didn’t understand what was happening. The earplugs probably helped, but this little child seemed to grasp only one thing—that both of us were in danger.
“That’s right.”
I removed the tiny plugs I had carefully placed in Lottie’s ears. Even amid the deafening explosions shaking the world around us, she didn’t cry.
She really was extraordinary.
Such a brave little thing.
Suppressing the pain as best I could, I held my breath and met Lottie’s eyes.
“This is just a game of hide-and-seek. You know the rules of hide-and-seek, right?”
I hugged her tiny body tightly against mine and gasped for breath. I wanted to sound as gentle and calm as possible—
but I didn’t have much time left.
Blood from the back of my fractured skull had long since soaked the nape of my neck, and the shard of metal lodged in my abdomen was slowly eating away at what remained of my life.
I was going to die soon.
The words I could grasp in my mind were becoming fewer and fewer.
No—
they were all jumbled together.
My lungs were running out of oxygen, and my blood-starved brain could no longer issue proper commands.
No.
Not yet.
Not yet.
I shook my head to force myself awake. Wiping a few drops of blood from Lottie’s forehead, I barely managed to lift the corners of my lips into a smile.
“Lottie, you need to sing a song. Keep calling for the Tiger Prince in your heart. When I sing along with you, that’s when you come out. Until then, you must never come out. Okay? Do you understand, Lottie?”
No matter how well she usually understood me, I had no idea how much of this she could truly comprehend.
But I forced the words out anyway.
The blood I had been desperately trying to suppress was already rising up my throat, threatening to spill out at any moment.
I can’t let Lottie see that.
I couldn’t let such a small child be drenched in bright red blood.
She had already endured far too much.
“Hide!”
I practically threw her down onto the ground and covered her with the apron I was wearing.
“Cough—! Ugh…!”
With a single cough, blood surged up my throat.
I roughly wiped away the blood dripping down my chin.
I needed a weapon.
Even a broken branch would do.
I had to find something—anything—to hold out until someone arrived.
I desperately groped across the ground.
I need to get my hands on something.
It happened the moment I turned around in the choking cloud of dust where I could barely see an inch ahead.
“Ghk—!”
In that split second, a blade fell from above and pierced straight through my back without a moment’s hesitation.
You bastards…!
The blood I had barely managed to swallow sprayed everywhere.
Even then, I turned to look at Lottie.
I could see drops of blood splattering onto the apron covering her.
“Ghh… kgh…”
Raw, unfiltered agony tore through my entire body.
It felt as if my insides had been ripped apart, and blood poured from my mouth like water from a broken dam.
The horrifying sensation of my body being split in two shot through me to the tips of my hair.
Lottie… don’t come out…
I reached out toward the apron wriggling in front of me.
But that was all I could do.
My body, with a gaping hole through its chest, staggered for a few steps before finally collapsing.
I didn’t know whether the tears streaming down my cheeks—mixing with blood—were a reflex caused by pain,
or because I was worried about the little girl who would be left behind all alone.
Please… come back to life soon…
Praying desperately to a god I didn’t even believe in,
I finally closed my eyes.
