One day, Sansa opened her eyes, having dozed off in her mother's lap ...only to be met with a nightmare.
Four men crouched over the corpse, tearing into it like starving beasts.
Their bloodstained mouths. Their monstrous, twisted expressions.
She saw everything with her own eyes ... eyes that had long grown accustomed to the darkness.
It was grotesque. Incomprehensible. Especially to someone like her, who no longer even felt hunger or thirst.
She buried her face in her mother's arms, unwilling to look any further.
But she was startled when she felt saliva drip onto her from above.
"Mother…?"
She whispered ...only to find her mother staring at the scene with eyes full of longing.
Sansa wasn't the only one whose body had been tampered with.
But she was the only one who survived it intact. The others… were left with nothing but bestial urges, stripped of reason.
And after one more week…
The prison descended into total savagery. Friends turned on friends. Companions tore each other apart.
With frail bodies, broken by starvation, they resorted to cannibalism ..blood spilled, mixing with the filth of the cold dungeon floor.
Even Sansa and her mother weren't spared.
The princess watched her mother turn into a ravenous creature, fighting over scraps of human flesh.
They slaughtered one another before her eyes.
And the worst part…
Was that her mother had joined them.
They devoured each other. They drank human blood without end.
They had numbered over a hundred in the beginning, but now… only a few dozen remained. As corpses piled up, the survivors turned the carnage into a feast .. gnawing on flesh, licking bone clean.
And when the meat was gone… and madness had fully consumed them… they became monsters .. creatures far removed from anything human.
They fought one another like beasts, and some even had sex in front of everyone…They raped one another, as screams echoed and hell consumed the place under the gaze of Sansa, who had long been abandoned by her mother.
With nothing left to hold on to, she found solace only in the darkness that wrapped around her like a shroud.
What her eyes beheld was nothing short of vile.
A sight she could neither accept… nor comprehend.
She rejected it.
Denied its reality.
And in response to her plea… the darkness awakened.
That same darkness they had lived in for so long came to life ..twisting, rising around her.
It had fangs… hands… and eyes that glared at the depraved husks that once called themselves human, before tearing through them one by one.
Blades of pitch-black shadow, swift as death itself, slashed through the mad crowd ...tearing bodies apart and splattering blood in grotesque torrents.
They all died.
All but her mother, who collapsed to the ground, trembling, paralyzed by what she had just witnessed.
"Mother…"
Sansa whispered through tear-filled eyes, reaching out with trembling hands.
She stepped toward her ... only for her mother to crawl back, shaking violently.
"N-No… Stay back!"
"Mother…"
"Don't come any closer!!"
Her mother screamed with a hoarse, broken voice.
Sansa's eyes were fixed on her mother… but her mother saw nothing except the entity looming behind her daughter ... arms outstretched, eyes glowing with crimson light.
Sansa extended her arms to embrace her.
And the black shadow behind her did the same ... its sticky limbs mirroring her movement.
Blinded by that overwhelming power, Sansa's only desire was to hug her mother. The same mother who had stayed by her side all that time…
Step by step, she approached her ..until her mother's back hit the wall, with nowhere left to run.
And then came the scream.
A deafening shriek from the woman who was lifted into the air by invisible force…
Sansa embraced her mother tightly.
Or so she thought.
In truth, it was the shadow that wrapped its crushing limbs around her. It lifted the woman high, her legs dangling in the air…
She died in that grasp .. her bones crushed, her organs pulverized .. until her limp body was dropped at her daughter's feet.
Sansa stared at her mother's corpse with hollow eyes… until tears began to fall… and the voices rose.
'Kill… Blood… Death…'
The nightmare reached its end. And the princess collapsed into the darkness once more.
…
…
…
Back in reality ..
She still lay in her bed… until her eyes suddenly snapped open, glowing with a radiant red light.
From beneath her, a black ooze began to spread .. dark, viscous, and alive.
It swallowed her entire room before flooding through the rest of the palace at terrifying speed .. like a plague devouring everything in its path.
The princess rose, a haunting smile on her face, eyes glowing red as she stepped forward barefoot ..
And vanished.
Like a ghost, she flickered from place to place ...as if searching.
Searching for blood.
The darkness threatened to consume the entire castle.
Then, from the edge of that abyss… a man emerged .. wearing a mask and holding a lantern in his left hand. The blue glow from the flame lit up the blackness around him.
He stood, bathed in the only light that remained.
Oliver Khan set the lantern down and drew his daggers .. blades blazing with aura.
"You again… human."
The voice that echoed was deep and dreadful .. nothing like the gentle one he had once heard from the princess.
Oliver didn't respond.
He charged toward the place where Sansa was hiding.
But his blades struck nothing but empty air.
"How long do you think you can stop me here?"
Without warning ..
The shadows rose, forming hundreds of black blades around Oliver Khan.
Each one pulsed with terrifying power.
"Time is running out for you… human."
The blades shot through the air, ripping the ground apart, tearing the chamber to shreds .. but Oliver vanished, narrowly evading their deadly strikes.
He dashed toward Sansa, only to be blocked by a barrier of shadows, which deflected his flaming daggers.
With a twisted grin, she conjured more tendrils—black, writhing limbs that clawed through the air.
"You cannot kill the one who owns this body."
That thing… it knew too much.
Oliver Khan kept fighting.
And he wondered ...
How many times?
Every day… every night…
Sansa kept losing control like this.
And each time, he was the one to stop her.
But her power was growing ... relentlessly. Stronger with every night.
Meanwhile, the masked guardian had long reached his limit. He hadn't slept. He hadn't rested. He couldn't afford to ..not when she needed constant watching.
His wounds piled up. His strength had long since peaked.
"How many times could I have killed you?"
Hundreds of chances.
If he truly wanted to...
He would've ended it.
But he didn't. He couldn't. Because he didn't want her dead. He wanted to save her. That's why he endured—again and again—meeting her darkness with his blades, hoping she'd come back to herself.
"Please… Sansa…"
He pleaded.
"Fight it…"
Oliver's daggers tore through the shadows faster than sound, each slash laced with desperation.
"I'll stop you every time .. so fight it!!"
With precision and will, he ripped apart the veil of darkness, revealing her smiling form underneath.
"Time is running out, human," the demon hissed. "Soon… you'll die by her hands."
"By the hands of the one you're trying so hard to protect."
Then her body collapsed.
The shadows evaporated, as though they'd never existed.
Exhausted, Oliver Khan dragged himself toward her, finding her asleep once more .. peaceful and unaware.
It was a sight that had become all too familiar.
He caught his breath, then gently lifted her into his arms, holding her close.
"Please… don't make me kill you…"
Don't make me destroy the last person I have left.
The last thread of my family.