UnHonor

“Make a wish! Make a wish for wealth! For happiness! Make a wish for power! For immortality! For a unique hope! Make a wish for yourself! Making a wish is our only salvation!”

Amid the cool breezes sweeping toward it from far and near, a spotless screen displayed a beautiful girl with yellow eyes, green hair, and impossibly white teeth. With smiling lips and not a trace of sadness, she conveyed beautiful words to the world around her, making it seem far more beautiful with every string of her lovely voice.

The large screen was the only beautiful thing in the entire environment.

At the bottom of the screen lay a dirty old man, immersed in trash beneath a black plastic blanket. He stared upward with weak eyes, coughing miserably.

A few meters away from the homeless old man stood two hills of stones and hollowed wood, blackened with dried blood. Like two shapeless statues, they protected the beautiful, shining screen, guarding its purity with their ugliness.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

The sound of light footsteps against the uneven ground, littered with glass and small stones, broke the quiet misery.

Their owner, leaving a trail of blood drops behind her, soon reached the two hills of the Dark Paradise—the name the spectators of the pure screen had given the place—and the old man’s weak eyes turned toward her.

The owner of those thin, bloody legs had long red hair that danced in the air, bringing an almost unnatural beauty to the dark environment around her.

Behind her dancing red hair, two burly men in shining silver armor ran toward her. One hand rested on the enormous swords at their belts, while the other glowed with a dreadful light as mysterious whispers flowed from their lips.

The old man’s lifeless gaze focused on the body of the red-haired girl.

A girl. Fifteen or sixteen years old.

She wore a shiny white dress that looked expensive. Her white robe was bloody around her thighs and waist, and her thin hands clutched a golden cup adorned with several emeralds.

She ran with all her strength, but her bloody legs were slowly draining the life from her body, making every step more difficult.

Her rapidly weakening breaths came in desperate gasps as her frantic gaze wandered across her surroundings.

After several heaving breaths, the girl’s purple gaze fell upon the holy screen. For a moment, her eyes met those of the girl on the screen, and its light illuminated her face.

She had purple eyes, a sharp nose, and plump lips that adorned an otherwise flawless white face.

The lifeless gaze of the homeless old man lost all interest in the scene and returned to what he always did—simply existing.

The purple-eyed girl, mesmerized by the clean and holy screen for a moment, suddenly felt a deep sense of fear fill her entire being.

The whispers behind her grew louder, breaking her contact with the screen and filling her rapidly dying breaths with urgency.

The red-haired girl felt a strange sensation in her heart and suddenly stopped in her tracks.

Two silver chains flew above her head. They would have struck her if she had continued running.

The growling sound of two lovers who had always rubbed against each other echoed into the sky.

Two swords slid from their sheaths and, while sharpening the world a thousandfold, flew forward to destroy their target before returning to the embrace of their love once again.

Unconcerned with death, which was only a heartbeat away from her beautiful, long neck adorned with a shiny silver necklace, the white-clad girl raised the cup toward the sky.

Tears of joy filled her eyes.

She smiled, her lips filled with the strange feeling she had finally discovered, and gifted her words to the world.

Words she had repeated a million times in her mind.

Words she repeated every time it happened.

The words she repeated every time she became covered in blood.

The words she repeated every time she saw their perfect yet hellish laughter.

The words she had screamed in her mind a thousand times.

The words that kept that strange feeling alive deep inside her.

And as soon as her lips moved, she realized what that strange feeling was.

“I wish no girl could understand me.”

Her beautiful voice, devoid of any malice, gave true beauty to the sky, the earth, and the world.

The red-haired girl noticed it.

The strange feeling that had finally escaped her lips was something she had thought she had lost long ago.

The cup in her hands began to tremble as it drew in an invisible and terrifying force. At the same time, it filled the girl with an overwhelming emptiness.

The girl, feeling an unparalleled power within her, allowed that unfamiliar feeling to leak from her lips and spread across the rest of her face, causing her smile to reach her eyes.

The infinite, invisible power surged from her hands and quickly engulfed her entire being.

Its mere presence within her body was enough to repel the two silver-clad knights and send them flying!

That strange feeling, traveling so quickly from her face through her entire body, was something that could live forever—as long as there was something to feed it.

That feeling was brilliant.

That strange feeling was hope!

“Hope,” she murmured, a happy tear falling from her lovely eyes.

“I…”

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Her chest burst open.

Right in the middle of the chest of the only smiling person there.

The two knights created an invisible shield over their bodies with a simple movement of their hands, but the sick old man beneath the pure screen merely closed his mouth and eyes and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long.

A wave of bone and flesh, reduced to pieces so small they were indistinguishable from blood, covered his entire body and everything around him.

Everywhere except one place.

The clean and pure screen.

It still displayed the image of a beautiful, smiling girl repeating her sentence again.

But this time, she was at the end of her words.

“But remember! Be careful what you wish for.”

The girl’s smile, revealing teeth a thousand times whiter than anything around them, lasted for a few moments before she repeated her sentence again.

But those few moments were enough to illuminate the environment before her.

The two knights indifferently cleaned the golden cup, upon which a new emerald now shone, with a simple movement of their hands accompanied by smiling whispers.

Then they walked back to where they had come from.

This time, however, even their simple steps were a thousand times faster than their running a few minutes earlier.

And they had an audience.

The only spectator was the old man, who cleaned his face with his wrinkled hands—something he had done a thousand times before.

The smiling girl on the screen once again began to speak her beautiful words.

But this time, they were no longer pure.

“Wish! Wish for wealth! Wish for happiness! Wish for power! Wish for immortality! Wish for a unique hope! Wish for yourself! Wishing is our only salvation!”