Another day in this world of madness.
I feel more tired than usual.
I don't want to go to school…
but I have to.
I need answers.
I got out of bed, ate something without really tasting it, and walked to school.
When I arrived, I went straight to the garden.
I lay down on the grass and stared at the flowers.
— The roses look beautiful today… but something feels wrong.
I leaned closer.
From their petals… a thick black liquid was dripping.
Like the "ink" from the notes.
Slowly, the roses began to darken, their petals turning completely black.
Violet runes emerged across them—written in that same unknown language.
And yet…
I couldn't look away.
After everything that had happened, I should have felt fear.
But instead…
they were beautiful.
I took a picture.
Then I stood up and headed to class.
It seemed the first class was with Natasha.
I sighed and walked in.
— "Hey, Dark."
I glanced at Xia and greeted her with a small wave before sitting down.
I kept thinking about the roses.
Five minutes later, Natasha entered.
— "Good morning, students. I know many of you are unsettled after what happened yesterday… I am as well. I considered not coming today… but classes must continue."
Her gaze drifted toward me.
— "The garden looks beautiful today, doesn't it, Dark?"
I looked at her sideways.
— "Yes… especially the roses."
She frowned slightly, looking confused.
— "Hmm… I wonder who painted them black."
I sighed.
Those roses… they pulled at me.
This is her doing.
That woman.
Will I ever meet her?
See her face?
Know her name?
Why am I even thinking this…?
It's like those runes… those black roses…
are putting me into some kind of trance.
I lightly hit my head.
— "Alright. Today, you'll write an essay on beauty in decay. It's simple."
Xia raised her hand.
— "Professor, what do you mean by those terms? And how can we relate two opposing ideas like that?"
Natasha let out a long sigh and began walking between the desks, brushing her fingers across the books.
— "Beauty… I'm not talking about sunsets or roses."
Her voice softened.
— "I'm talking about the final spark of a mind realizing its own madness. The elegance of a soul tearing itself apart when it accepts cosmic truths."
She looked at me.
Then at the cloudy sky.
— "Like a glacier breaking… its fall is poetry."
She paused.
— "Decay is not rot… it is transformation."
Her tone deepened.
— "Human morality sheds like a snake's skin… revealing the monstrous thing that was always beneath."
A faint smile.
— "Isn't it beautiful when a ship sinks slowly… giving its rats time to compose songs?"
She took out a notebook.
— "Here. An example."
She lit a cigarette.
Her voice became something between a whisper… and thunder.
— "THE BEAUTY IN DECAY: WHEN CORRUPTION BLOOMS IN THE ABYSS"
She sat on her desk.
— "The Cathedral of Aetheris burned a year ago. Humans mourned fallen stones… but I saw beauty in the melting gargoyles. Proof that even the sacred decays when greater gods grow bored."
My grip tightened on the desk.
Something was wrong.
— "Idrisdath was not swallowed by lava… it was kissed by a god. Its citizens, frozen in ash, do not scream—they sing the symphony of insignificance."
My hands trembled.
— "True decay is denial. Like a child closing their eyes to abuse, believing darkness will save them."
Her smile widened.
— "The purest example… is the angel who chose to fall."
My heart stopped.
— "His broken wings were not failure… but sculptures of the moment he understood that loving a witch was worth more than heaven."
Her eyes locked onto mine.
— "Like the black roses growing in Dark Nighthos' heart. Ask him… if it isn't beautiful to feel his sanity cracking… while I watch."
Something snapped inside me.
And then—
A voice.
Not hers.
Soft.
Familiar.
Right behind my thoughts.
— "She understood… when I tore her throat open."
Kimberly's pencil snapped.
— "She is… poetry made evil."
Won-ho smiled faintly, his eyes empty.
— "Matusalem would approve."
My palms began to bleed.
Xia grabbed a bag and vomited.
— "Begin your essays," Natasha said calmly.
My hand trembled.
Blood dripped onto the page.
And somehow…
I began to write.
Not with ink.
With blood.
I didn't know what I was writing.
The words burned the paper, carving runic scars into it.
Whispers guided me.
And I obeyed.
Minutes later…
I handed it to her.
She read.
Slowly.
"ELEGY TO THE GODDESS WHO BLED FOR ME"
"My mother was the Moon… when she chose to become human.
Not the one poets sing of…
but the one that claws the sky with meteor nails…
drinking darkness from her craters."
"They say goddesses don't cry…
but I know she bled silver the night the void birthed her."
"Her first decay… was choosing a heart that could break."
"Her second… wings of crows woven from forgotten prayers…"
"Her third… was me."
"Born not of flesh… but from the collision of dimensions."
"Beauty: to be a falling star shaped by gods.
Decay: to be proof that even eternity cracks."
"If decay is transformation…
then let my sanity rot…
so I may bloom like her—
in the wild beauty of those who choose the abyss."
A black tear fell from her eye.
— "Professor… are you okay?"
She tore the essay.
— "True decay… is lying to yourself."
Then she read it aloud to the class.
Silence followed.
Heavy.
Endless.
— "You see? Dark understood."
A pause.
— "He… is the flower that grew from her grave."
She handed it back.
— "Find your abyss."
A drag of her cigarette.
— "And jump."
After class, I went back to the garden.
I lay down again.
Watching the black roses shed petals.
Each falling petal…
brought fragments.
A cabin.
Blood.
A swing.
Screams.
Death.
It should have terrified me.
But it didn't.
I fell asleep.
When I woke up—
— "What… time is it?"
5 PM.
— "Damn it…"
I stood up.
— "I need the bathroom."
Inside—
I washed my hands.
Then I saw it.
My reflection.
Black wings.
Bleeding.
Black tears.
A crown.
I blinked.
Gone.
…or not.
On my neck—
a bite mark.
Runes carved into flesh.
I splashed water on my face and rushed out.
Kim was waiting.
— "Dark, I went back to the lab… I found this."
A sunflower.
Wilted.
— "It grew where Jason died."
I stared at it.
A flower…
born from death.
…
There are things in this world…
that I don't want to understand.