Kiel stood at the edge of the path, staring up the towering Victorian mansion before him. The moonlight bathed its weathered façade in an eerie glow, casting long, distorted shadows across the cracked stone steps. The air seemed to hum with a stillness too thick, too deliberate, as if the house itself was holding its breath. The mansion felt strangely familiar, but Kiel couldn't place where he had seen it before. A chill rolled down his spine, but this time it wasn't from the cold—it was from something deeper, something that gnawed at his core, something he had buried.
What was he doing here?
His fingers twitched, rising instinctively to sign, but he stopped himself. No one was there to see. No one was there to answer. The silence wrapped around him, clinging like the heavy fog at his feet. He swallowed the unease building in his chest, his pulse quickening as his instincts screamed at him to turn back. Yet, despite the weight pressing on him, he took a step forward.
The door groaned like a dying beast as he pushed it open. Inside, the mansion was even more foreboding. The air was thick, musty, and cloying. Dust clung to every surface, coating the room in a fine layer that seemed to weigh down time itself. The faint scent of decay lingered, not just in the air, but in the very walls. Yet there was something about the place—something that tugged at the edges of his memory, teasing him with fragments of a forgotten past.
The hallway stretched before him, lined with portraits in gilded frames. His footsteps echoed softly on the old wooden floor, the sound swallowed by the vastness of the house. Each painting caught his eye, drawing him closer.
He paused before the first one—a man with dark, sharp features. His eyes were cold, distant, yet there was a flicker in them that Kiel recognized, though the connection danced just out of reach. The face tugged at something deep within him, but when he tried to grasp the memory, it slipped away, like water through his fingers.
He moved on.
The next portrait was of a woman. Her expression was softer, but no less haunting. Her green eyes—piercing, vivid—felt like a mirror, reflecting something back at him. His heart pounded in his chest, a sense of déjà vu tightening its grip around him.
Then he saw the child. The boy couldn't have been more than eight, his mischievous grin paired with chocolate-brown eyes gleaming with a spark of life. Kiel froze, his breath catching in his throat. That face—it was Kiki. Younger. Much younger.
Kiel shook his head, confusion swirling in his mind like a thick fog. What was Kiki's image doing here? How could this house be connected to him in any way?
His pace quickened, his hands brushing against the walls as he hurried past the portraits, each one more familiar than the last. Faces from his memories—Kaname, Orenji, even Yukira—stared back at him, their eyes full of secrets, accusations, and questions he could not answer. His heart raced, an insidious panic curling in his chest, but there was no escaping the sense that he had walked into a place he had forgotten long ago.
He came to the final portrait, larger and more ornate than the others. It showed a boy standing before the very mansion he was now in. His posture was tense, his fists clenched by his sides. And when Kiel looked into the boy's eyes, a shock of recognition hit him so hard it left him breathless.
It was him.
The cold sank deeper into his bones as the memory flooded back—a memory buried so far down it had nearly been erased. He had been here before. He had stood in front of this house, much younger, full of questions and fear. But why? What had happened here?
Kiel staggered back, his gaze locked on the portrait. The boy's eyes seemed to follow him, watching, judging, as the mansion creaked and groaned around him, its very foundation shifting under the weight of what it held. His pulse hammered in his ears, his hands trembling as he stumbled further down the dim hallway, disoriented, his head spinning.
"What am I doing here?" The question echoed in his mind as he found himself facing a series of doors. Each loomed heavy and foreboding, but the first door called to him, drawing him in like a magnet. His hand trembled as he reached for the cool brass knob, the contact sending a shiver up his spine.
The door creaked open, revealing a scene that unfolded as though it were happening in real time—vivid, unmistakably familiar. He was transported back, back to a memory he had buried so deep, it felt a lifetime ago.
He was seven years old again.
The room was dark and cold, the smell of damp wood and unwashed bodies thick in the air. He stood among a group of ragged children, orphans like himself, shivering in the shadows of a slave merchant's decrepit house. They weren't given much—just enough to survive, if they were lucky. The merchant loomed over them like a cruel giant, his face twisted with greed, his voice sharp as a blade as he scolded them for bringing back too little money from their begging rounds.
Kiel's chest tightened as he watched his younger self. He could feel the hunger, the desperation, the fear that had been his constant companion. The children had little food, barely enough to live. Some had already withered away, victims of the merchant's neglect and abuse.
But not Kiel.
He had survived, barely. One day, he and two other boys had dared to ask for more. "We're hungry," they had said, voices trembling with fear.
The merchant's response was swift and brutal.
Kiel winced as he watched the memory unfold. The merchant's hand shot out, his foot delivering a vicious kick that sent the boy sprawling. Kiel saw his younger self scream, struggling to get back up, but the merchant's boot pinned him down. The strokes of the whip followed, each one lashing across the boy's back like fire. The air was thick with screams, but the merchant didn't stop.
Twenty-six strokes.
By the end, the boy was a crumpled heap, drenched in sweat and tears. The merchant's booming voice filled the room as he demanded to know if the Kaiju had stolen any of the money. The boy's nod was faint, but it was enough to ignite another round of fury.
Kiel's heart raced as he relived the moment, the searing pain, the suffocating fear. He remembered the reason—he had stolen to feed the other children. It hadn't been enough.
The memory shifted.
Now, Kiel found himself watching a different scene. Tarou, his best friend, had stolen from an old man in a desperate bid to survive. Kiel's heart pounded as he watched Tarou slip the wallet into his pocket. They had fled, fear and exhilaration flickering in their eyes. But Kiel had known it was wrong. His mind had screamed for him to run, but his feet felt like lead.
The old man had noticed. "Stop! Thief!" The crowd had joined in, their voices rising in outrage. Kiel's panic surged, but he hadn't been fast enough. A blow to the head had brought him down, and he had collapsed, blood pouring down his face.
The memory froze—Kiel on the ground, surrounded by accusing faces.
Kiel blinked, his breath ragged as the memory faded. He was once again in the hallway, his hands shaking, his chest tight with the remnants of the pain. He stumbled back, clutching his head, the weight of it all too much to bear.
"What is this place?" Kiel's voice cracked, barely a whisper.
A figure stood beside him, blue-eyed and solemn, a presence both familiar and foreign. It was his other self. His gaze was heavy, filled with an ancient sadness that churned in Kiel's gut.
"A struggling mind often creates places," the figure explained softly, his voice thick with meaning. "A way to cope, to organize the chaos. We build places to protect the fragments of ourselves, to shield them from the memories we can't bear to face."
Kiel swallowed hard, the weight of his emotions pressing down like an iron chain.
"This place… it isn't just random." The figure's voice was steady, unyielding. "It's a reflection of your mind, a maze built from pain and fear."
Kiel's breath hitched. "Or a mansion," he whispered, his voice barely audible.
The blue-eyed figure nodded. "Or that."
Kiel's heart thudded as the truth settled over him, heavy and cold. This place—the mansion—was a graveyard of his memories, each room holding the ghosts of his past. He realized now.
The mansion was old, worn down by time, but unmistakable.
It was the merchant's house.
Kiel stood frozen as the truth crashed over him, relentless as a tidal wave. How had he forgotten this place? How had he pushed it so far back into the recesses of his mind?
He had come full circle.
And now, he stood where it had all begun.