WORLD PARADISE

The first morning of Hina's punishment arrived with the heat of the sun beating down on her motionless body. She sat, bound to the wooden post in the center of the village square, her wrists and ankles lashed with thick ropes. A heavy silence surrounded her, broken only by the murmurs of villagers who gathered to witness her suffering.

Yami stood at the edge of the crowd, his heart hammering against his ribs. His mother's fate had been sealed by the laws of the village—the "wages of sin is death, and the wages of death is death". 

There was nothing he could do, yet he couldn't shake the suffocating dread curling in his gut.

"She deserves this," someone muttered nearby.

"She sacrificed a boy to save her own son. Unforgivable."

Aika stood among them, her face a mask of cold resolve. The pain of losing Oda was still fresh, but she had found solace in knowing that justice would be served. The night crawlers would do what the village could not which is to deliver the punishment that could not be undone.

Jigoro, Yami's father, did not stand beside his son. He had not spoken to him since the day of the trial. In his eyes, Yami was the cause of this tragedy. If he had only listened, if he had only obeyed, none of this would have happened. He had lost his wife, and in a way, he had lost his son too.

As the sun began to lower, the villagers dispersed, retreating to the safety of their homes. Only Hina remained, her fate resting in the hands of the creatures that ruled the night.

Yami didn't sleep. He sat curled by the window of his small home, watching the square with wide, unblinking eyes. The night crawlers would come "they always did". He waited for the moment his mother's screams would pierce the night, for the sounds of flesh being torn apart.

But dawn arrived, and the screams never came.

The second morning brought gasps of disbelief.

Hina was still there. Still tied to the post. ALIVE.

The villagers stared in stunned silence. This was impossible. No one had ever survived a single night with the night crawlers, let alone an entire one tied up in the open.

"She's a witch," someone whispered.

"She used sorcery to ward them off," another spat.

Aika's face twisted in horror. "No," she murmured, clenching her fists. "This isn't how it's supposed to be."

Jigoro stood frozen. His wife whom he had already grieved in his heart was alive before him. A miracle? A curse? He didn't know.

Yami, however, did not hesitate. He rushed to her, carrying a small plate of food, his hands shaking. "Mom… you're alive." His voice cracked as he knelt beside her, lifting a piece of rice to her lips.

Hina, weak and dazed, took a slow bite, her mind struggling to make sense of her own survival. She had prepared herself for death. But the night had come and gone, and the beasts had left her untouched.

Why?

By the third morning, whispers had turned into hysteria.

The villagers no longer saw Hina as a woman facing judgment. They saw her as something unnatural, an anomaly in a world where night meant certain death.

Aika was livid. "Why is she still alive?" she demanded, her voice breaking with frustration. "Where is the justice for my son?"

But the fear of the unknown silenced even her rage. This was unnatural. This was wrong.

Far away, on an island across the waters, deep in the dark, twisted forest, the creatures of the night stirred.

Their grotesque bodies, long and sinewy, crawled among the roots and vines, their limbs bending at unnatural angles. Their skin, pale and stretched thin over their bones, pulsed with a sickly, translucent glow. Their mouths were jagged maws lined with rows of needle-like teeth, their lack eyes and uses what looked like sensors on their forehead with veins and nothing more than black voids dripping with a viscous, tar-like substance.

They chattered among themselves, their guttural noises sounding like the gnashing of bones, the wheezing of the wind through hollow corpses.

But then, a sound broke through them all.

a voice, deep and guttural, yet unmistakably human.

"You are sure she is of the blood?"

The creatures paused, their heads snapping toward the source. Before them stood something far more monstrous than themselves, a towering figure, twice the size of any of them, its body covered in thick, matted fur. Its limbs were unnaturally long, ending in clawed hands that twitched with anticipation.

Its face was something out of nightmares, a stretched, elongated skull with sharp fangs protruding from its maw, its sensors sunken and gleaming like dying embers. It breathed heavily, its nostrils flaring as it listened to the chittering responses of the lesser creatures.

It nodded once.

"I see."

Then, it turned its head towards the distant village, its eyes narrowing.

The blood must be claimed.

Six nights passed, and Hina remained alive.

The villagers had stopped speaking to Yami entirely. Even Jigoro, despite his inner conflict, visited his wife but refused to acknowledge his son.

Yami did not care. He continued to bring his mother food each morning, clinging to the fragile hope that whatever protected her would continue to do so for just one more night.

Aika, however, was drowning in her own frustration. This was not justice. Oda's death was supposed to be avenged, yet his murderer still sat there, breathing, eating, living.

It was wrong.

So very wrong.

The seventh night arrived.

Yami sat by his window, as he had for the past six nights, watching his mother from the safety of his home.

But tonight was different.

The air was heavier. Thicker.

Then, he saw it.

A figure taller than any human, broader than any beast. It stepped into the square, its movements slow, deliberate.

And in its clawed hand was Hina.

Blood dripped from her limp body, her eyes wide and lifeless, her mouth frozen in a final, silent scream.

Yami's breath caught in his throat as the creature lifted her effortlessly, tilting its monstrous head back.

Then, with a grotesque crunch, it ripped her head from her body.

Yami could hear the bones shatter, the sinew snap, the wet, sickening sound of flesh being torn apart. Blood sprayed in a gruesome arc as the beast stuffed her severed head into its maw, chewing slowly, savoring the moment.

A choked sob escaped Yami's lips, his entire body trembling.

The nightmare had ended.

But a far greater one had just begun.