The school day had been, like most days for young Riko, a study in muted sensations. The teacher, Ms. Noami, was a drone of monotonous lectures, a sound she had learned to tune out. The other children were a collection of distant, muffled voices and the occasional, sharp scrape of a chair from someone whoâd forgotten she was there and almost tripped over her. It was a lonely existence, but a predictable one. The best part of any day was the walk home.
In a quiet residential street on the forgotten side of Valoria, the little girl made her way. She didn't need to see the path; she knew it by heart, by the very feel of the world beneath her feet and at her fingertips. She followed a familiar, rough stone wall that lined the street, its texture a comforting, unchanging guide. Her careful skip was a small rebellion, a rhythm of private joy in her silent, dark world. She could tell where she was by the changing sounds and smellsâthe distant, rhythmic clang-clang-clang from the blacksmith's forge, the smell of fresh bread from the bakery on the corner, and finally, the faint, familiar scent of the climbing roses her mother tended to by their front door.
As her fingers brushed against the deep, familiar grain of their heavy oak door, worn smooth in one spot where her own small hand had pushed it open a thousand times, she smiled. Home. A complicated word, a place of fear and comfort in equal measure, but it was the only one she had.
She pushed the door open. "I'm home!" she called out, her voice bright with the simple, hopeful joy of a child at the end of a long school day.
Nothing.
Usually, her mother was there with a warm greeting, a hug that smelled of soap and soil, the gentle sound of a pot bubbling on the stove already filling the small house. The silence that answered her was immediate, profound, and heavy. It wasn't an empty silence; it was a listening, waiting silence that made the fine hairs on her arms stand on end. She stepped inside, pulling the door shut behind her. The air was cold, stagnant, and carried a strange, new scent beneath the familiar ones of woodsmoke and her mother's herbs. It was a sharp, coppery smell, like a dropped coin.
Something felt⦠wrong. Terribly out of place. A floorboard creaked under her foot, the sound unnaturally loud in the oppressive quiet.
She took a few tentative steps into the main room, her arms slightly outstretched, feeling for the familiar shapes of the furniture. "Mother?" she called again, her voice smaller this time, a tremor of a child's unease creeping into it. "I'm home... did you hear me?"
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Her foot caught on something large and soft on the floor, and she pitched forward with a small cry of surprise. Her hands shot out to break her fall, landing with a sickening splash in a wide pool of slick, warm liquid.
Not water. The thought was immediate. It was thicker, stickier, and the coppery smell exploded in her nostrils, metallic and cloying, making her stomach churn and bile rise in her throat. Her heart began to hammer against her ribs, a frantic drum against the terrifying silence of the house.
She felt around, her small, trembling hands mapping out the horror. The pool of liquid was large, flowing from the object she'd tripped over. A spilled jug of wine? her mind offered, a desperate, childish explanation. She crawled closer to the source, her fingers tracing a soft, cloth-like texture she recognized as her mother's favorite dress. The relief was so sharp it almost made her laugh. She just spilled something. She fell. She's okay.
And then⦠she felt the flesh beneath it.
Her face went pale. Her breath hitched in her throat. A shape. The feeling of flesh, but it was wrong. Unresponsive. Cold. A deep, chilling cold that had nothing to do with the air in the room. Her searching fingers found something else. The cloth was wet and matted, and beneath it, the skin was not smooth. It was laced with small, open ravines where the flesh had been split open, the edges of the wounds wet and jagged.
Tears began to well in her eyes as her hands moved with a frantic, desperate desperation, feeling a familiar chin, a nose, a forehead. This thing she was feeling... it was her mother. Beaten. Bruised. Broken.
She scrambled to her mother's chest, pressing her ear against the still, cold fabric, praying, bargaining with gods she didn't know the names of for a sound, for the gentle rhythm she had fallen asleep to so many times. Nothing. She searched for a pulse at her neck, her fingers fumbling against the cold, unresponsive, waxy skin. Nothing. The coldness was absolute. She had been left like this for hours.
No... no, it's not possible, her mind reeled, a final, desperate plea against the encroaching reality. My brothers would have noticed. They would have said something. Father would have checked on her. Someone would have done something! Someone would have helped!
As she sobbed over the body, a raw, heartbroken wail, a hard, explosive "SLAP!" erupted against the side of her face, strong enough to send her tumbling against the smooth, unyielding back of the couch. The stinging, fiery sensation was instantly, horribly recognizable. It was a hand that had done far more damage than just that one slap. It was her father's hand. The reek of stale ale washed over her, thick and suffocating.
Then, from her left, she heard it. A low, cruel snickering. The tone, the pitchâit was her brothers.
They knew. They had been here. They had noticed. And they were laughing.
Her father's heavy, drunken footsteps grew closer, each one a hammer blow against her shattering world. The truth crashed down upon her, cold and absolute, erasing every happy memory, every shred of hope, every last remnant of her childhood. The feeling of her sobs died, replaced by a cold, hollowing numbness. They weren't her family. They weren't people. They were just⦠a bunch of heartlessâ¦
Sinful monsters.