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STORYLINE: Holo-posters bloomed across the Forbidden Zone like invasive flowers of propaganda:
WELCOME HOME, PRINCE LATHANDRO.
THE BOY WHO BURNED AND LIVED.
Each one showed the same impossible boy — chin lifted, skin radiant, uniform immaculate — a messiah forged from vanity and marketing code. They covered the ruins wall to wall, their light spilling into puddles of rust-red water.
Then the light began to die.
A storm of shadows moved through the alley, swallowing sound as it came. The Ruler of the Night walked at its heart, displeasure made flesh. Every poster he passed convulsed, flickered, and went dark, as if ashamed to exist beneath his gaze.
Lucien’s side project had metastasized into blasphemy.
It was time to end it.He descended the spiral of basalt stairs beneath Club Apophis, each step a deeper fall into Lucien’s obsession. The air grew colder, heavy with incense, static, and something older than both. He found him, of course, in the heart of his latest folly: "The Museum of Catastrophes."
The chamber was circular and immense, built from polished obsidian that drank the light. Power streaked through the seams of the floor, humming with a parasitic energy the Ruler found abhorrent.
At its center, lay the museum’s newest exhibit: Yoon Jihoon.
The comatose student was draped in military green, his body arranged like a saint prepared for resurrection. Silver IV lines pulsed with blood, and great holographic calamities flickered around him in worshipful orbit: the Library of Alexandria on fire, Atlantis drowning below the waves, dinosaurs screaming as the sky split open.
Lucien knelt beside him, cradling Jihoon’s limp body in a grotesque parody of the Pietà : a madonna made of silk and mania. His voice trembled through wet laughter. Mascara bled down his cheeks like spilled ink.
"He's beautiful, isn't he?"
The Ruler regarded him for a long, weighted silence, molten gold eyes steady as judgment.
"I assisted in this body's recovery as a mercy, Lucien, so the child could safely pass with dignity. What happened to free will? He did not choose you. He did not consent to be exhibited like this."
MasterGin suddenly lurched to his feet, screaming, "HE CRIED FOR HIS MOMMY TO SAVE HIM FROM THOSE INCOMPETENT HUMAN BUTCHERS!" His voice cracked. He shook with outrage, tears of genuine grief and fury rolling down his face. "They were going to cut him up… Butcher my darling Lathandro like an animal!"
The Ruler’s expression barely shifted. “Lies,” he said softly. “Your ego could not bear to see your creation in the hands of lesser beings.”
Lucien’s laughter curdled into a sneer. “You know nothing. He’s special. It’s right in front of your nose and you’re too blind—too jealous—to see it!”
He gestured wildly toward the boy. "When was the last time you saw a fledgling burned by the sun and live?"
The Ruler froze. His gaze drifted to the youth on the chaise. The burn scars were gone. A new, chilling thought raced through him.
Was there anyone still left inside?
His golden eyes closed; a deep breath drew in like a storm contained. He reached out with his will, ancient and absolute.
“Show me,” he commanded. The chamber dissolved.
He found himself standing in a ruined stadium, bleachers collapsed in spectral silence, ash drifting like red snow through a dead wind.
On the pitcher’s mound stood Jihoon—rumpled hoodie, scorched sneakers, the human remnant. His voice cracked the silence.
“He thinks I called for him. Did you? Did you deliver us to that MONSTER?!”
Across the field, his reflection stood on home plate: Lathandro, long white bangs falling from under his cap, striking in a crisp red uniform.
“Relax, bookworm,” Lathandro scoffed. “MasterGin would rather cut off his own limbs than hurt us. You’re such a timid wuss. Someone needed to save us, and it wasn’t going to be your inept girlfriend. She only knows how to fix machines.”
“Take that back!” Jihoon’s fists clenched. “Minjo was trying to save me!”
Lathandro laughed, low and cruel. “Her bad choices lit us on fire, idiot.” He tossed a baseball into the air and struck it lazily. It arced upward, burning like a flare as it vanished into the smoky distance. “The monsters are the only ones who can save us. Stop pretending you’re human. We don’t belong with them anymore. That life ended in flames. You died. I’m the one keeping us alive.”
“Bullshit! I’m not the one who got us killed!” Jihoon hurled a chunk of broken cement. “I’m not the one allergic to sunlight!”
Lathandro easily dodged, smacking the rock with his bat, sending it out of the stadium. For an instant, a forked tongue flicked from his mouth.
Jihoon staggered back, horror dawning. His fingers brushed his own lips, as if afraid to find the same split hiding there. No. The thing wearing his face wasn't him.
The Ruler’s mind recoiled, not in fear, but in clarity, and the faint taste of something ancient and terrible. He had seen the tongue. This was no fledgling. It was an infestation.
“You saw him, didn't you?” Lucien’s plea cracked the silence.
The Ruler’s senses snapped back to the chamber. Lucien’s voice was too close, wet, trembling, desperate.
“Please… you have to save him.” His tone wavered between command and prayer. “The old rite... the Opening of the Mouth. Do it for me. For us.”
The Ruler regarded him in silence. Lucien’s perfect white hair was tangled, his gossamer sheath smeared with blood from a cut on his wrist. He looked ancient now, stripped of glamour, a frightened creature clinging to his dying art. The Ruler sighed, and placed a gentle hand on Gin’s quivering shoulder.
“He lives,” he said softly. “But he is not alone.”
As he spoke, the lights dimmed. The floor began to pulse with that dull, parasitic rhythm. The light from the holograms bent toward the chaise, devoured by an unseen gravity. The boy’s body suddenly arched, a silent scream as the dark energy surged.
The Ruler's eyes flared gold. The vessel moved.
“Lucien,” he gasped, “you are meddling with forces you do not understand." He raced to the main outlet and yanked the plug free. The chamber plunged into absolute darkness, the only sound the sudden, choking sobs of MasterGin.
"Stop this foolishness!" the Ruler bellowed. "Stop trying to revive him with this cursed technology." He stepped closer, the air tightening around them. “I will perform the ritual in one week. I will awaken him, -- on one condition.”
“Anything,” Gin whispered in the dark.
“You will uphold your own sacred creed of free will,” the Ruler said. “If he asks to leave… you will let him.”
Lucien laughed lightly, too quickly. “Of course,” he breathed while his head, almost imperceptibly, shook no.
Jihoon’s chest rose once in a shallow breath, his eyelids fluttering open before sinking again into darkness.
Neither of them saw it....
On him, Jihoon:
Head, piercings: LeLUTKA Kane Evolution [mesh](3990L)
Body: TheShops [BODY] Athletic Meshbody (Legacy)(m) (1.7.1) [mesh](5000L)
Pose: Del May Dead to the world (edited)
Setting:
Furniture: Pucca Firecaster Creations PFC~Serpens furniture set [mesh](Engine Room)(600L)
BONUS IMAGES: inworld raw shot, hi-res, midday sky.
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