What I am about to recount is a dream—one I had when I was a child.

Innocent curiosity sparked it. I had recently watched two movies that left an indelible mark on my mind: one about a giant doll brought to life and another about a cruel princess who loved only one man. Together, they infected my imagination like an incurable fever. I became consumed—possessed—by the need to create something that embodied the flame those stories kindled within me.

And so, I did.

I gathered everything I cherished: my most precious trinkets, my fledgling craftsmanship, and my fragile hope. With trembling hands and a child's determination, I shaped them into the image of a princess.

Her skin was porcelain pale, her hair as black as tar. Eyes of molten gold seared into the soul of anyone who dared meet her gaze. Her lips curled into the most hateful expression imaginable—an arrogance so complete it was beautiful.

She was perfect.

And she only grew more perfect with time, in both size and cruelty.

At first, she stood slightly shorter than me. Then, she grew taller than the house my parents had built. By the last time I saw her, she towered like a goddess over mountains, her shadow casting a shroud of dread across the world.

But her malice grew alongside her grandeur. She became an enemy of the world, her tyranny so profound that nations united to oppose her. The last I saw of her, she had been driven into the infinite sea of stars, a realm I could not follow.

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My name is Hyodo Ikki.

I was a boy who dreamed of fantastical things. But now I am seventeen years old, and the cruel passage of time has eroded that boy's dreams into fragments of memory. Reality has settled over me like ash after a fire.

I live alone on my aunt's old Hexamil-brand "Eliezer's Special" houseboat at the western docks of the Binah sector. It's moored to Qipan—an artificial island built over a century ago off the coast of Hokkaido.

My life is perfectly ordinary.

I was raised by my perfectly normal aunts.

I have perfectly normal friends.

I enjoy perfectly normal hobbies like playing table tennis and designing anime-style 3D models on my computer.

I have a perfectly normal dream: to one day make a career out of character design.

I am a perfectly normal student and, more importantly, a perfectly normal human being.

knock knock knock

There's a knock at the door.

A perfectly normal knock.

I open the door to find a boy standing there. Ta.Na.Ka, is what I call him, I found it difficult to pronounce his actual name so I simply took the the first two letters of all his given names and put them together.

Among the second-years at Binah Public High School, he's known by the nickname [BLUE EYES WHITE DRAGON].

Ta.Na.Ka, obviously not his real name, is an American international student with golden blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. Thus the name [BLUE EYES WHITE DRAGON].

He is the third member of the infamous [SIX EYES], a group of peculiar students with peculiar eyes.

The name is a lazy stereotype, born from pointing out surface-level traits but despite that it's very effective.

His title and affiliation with the group lines up with my view of him: an uncontested pervert who's more shameless than any human being has a right to be. He's a vertically challenged pretty boy with a face so feminine that most girls would envy him, adorned with adorable freckles that betray his wild personality.

Yet, this seemingly delicate boy has a startling source of pride. Beneath his effeminate exterior lies a particular anatomical feature that's become infamous among those unfortunate enough to hear his drunken boasts. The less said about it, the better.

It's absurd—all of it. And yet, I look back on those absurdities with fondness. Proof, perhaps, that the same brain worms infecting Ta.Na.Ka have long since burrowed into my own mind.

"You know," Ta.Na.Ka says as he steps into the houseboat, "no matter how much I try to ignore it, this arrangement is pretty gay, don't you think?"

His words pull me from my thoughts.

"How is this any gayer than a bunch of college guys living in a shared house?" I counter.

"The rent," he replies immediately.

"The rent?"

"Yeah. The lack of rent makes it gayer. Like one of those guys who house runaway girls in return for sex."

For once, I'm the one stunned into silence. I open my mouth to retort, then close it again. Damn it. He's right.

Ta.Na.Ka grins. "See? I'm always right."

Nonsensical conversations like these are one of the few pillars anchoring me to normalcy. For now, I'll take what I can get.

After breakfast, we head to school. Ta.Na.Ka sits on the back; I do the actual pedaling. Why do we share a bike? The answer is simple: Ta.Na.Ka's body is too dainty to make the full trip alone, and his finances are too precarious to afford a train pass.

As always, the ride to school is uneventful—at least until the school gate comes into view.

Standing there, emitting a subtle yet palpable killing intent, is a girl towering at 193 centimeters. Her twin peaks strain against the fabric of her oversized shirt, which hangs loosely over a skirt that brushes her ankles. A light tan highlights her stern expression, she sports shaggy twin braids. But it's her thick, round coke-bottle glasses that obscure her eyes completely, rendering her most intimidating feature unknowable.

This is Klono Lindenberg, a stern member of Binah Public High School's disciplinary committee and the second-ranked member of the infamous [SIX EYES].

Code name: [NO EYES].

And she's furious.

Why? Because the two idiots she once admired in middle school—idiots she has warned countless times—are once again riding tandem on a single bicycle. The very same reckless behavior that nearly killed them years ago, an event that caused her immense grief.

How selfish of us.

In her hand swings a heavy black chain with a hammer tied to one end. This weapon, dubbed [JUSTICE FAG], is reserved for punishing her fellow [SIX EYES] members.

It seems she's determined to bring the hammer of justice down on [BLUE EYES WHITE DRAGON] and the one with eyes blacker than a sharks and more unresponsive than a corpse's.

The first member of the [SIX EYES]

The one cursed with the code name—[DEAD EYES].

Hyodo Ikki.

whoosh

The chain flies, moving as if an extension of her will. It coils around Ta.Na.Ka and me, yanking us off the bicycle and into Klono's unyielding grasp.

crash

Moments later, we find ourselves strung up on the large tree across the street from the school gate. Our backpacks dangle comically below us.

"Aii, Ikki! She got us again!"

Ta.Na.Ka complains, his voice dripping with exaggerated sarcasm.

"Yup. Once again, Justice proves we're no match,"

I reply dryly.

Together, we deliver our overly rehearsed apology, melodramatic to the core.

"Oh honorable [Hero of Justice], forgive these wayward fools for their overzealous approach to punctuality."

Klono's expression darkens. She pinches the bridge of her nose before sighing heavily.

"Question: Do either of you bother watching the news? Or checking your school emails?"

Ta.Na.Ka and I exchange confused glances.

Klono groans, long and deep.

"God help me. How did puberty make you two even worse?"

Sensing danger, I concoct a simple lie, signaling to Ta.Na.Ka with a quick glance.

"Oh... I can't believe we forgot there was a public holiday—"

Klono's glare cuts me off.

"There's no holiday," she says sharply. "In fact, it's the opposite. An utter tragedy."

I swallow hard, while Ta.Na.Ka probes.

"A tragedy? What do you mean?"

Klono begins untying us, her voice dropping ominously.

"Seven teachers. Murdered. Brutally. Their bodies displayed on the roof. It's... ritualistic."

My stomach churns, and my vision swims. Anything even remotely supernatural always seems to trigger a visceral, almost primal, disgust in me.

Seeing my reaction, Ta.Na.Ka tries to lighten the mood.

"Ritualistic? Like with pentagrams, skulls and the like?"

Klono shakes her head.

"Worse. There was a doll."

She hesitates, her eyes locking onto mine as if gauging my readiness. I nod weakly, signaling her to continue.

"It had the upper body of a woman's medieval armor, and its lower half was entirely chains, twisted to resemble a serpent's body."

The air thickens.

My chest tightens. My breathing becomes shallow.

Ah.

This is it.

The same doll I had finished modelling yesterday. The one I called [Keðjustelpa].

Reality fragments.

My mind spirals.

Images of the doll, its chains glinting under dim light, flash uncontrollably. Voices—whispers I can't place—crowd my ears.

A grotesque parade of shadows crawls through my thoughts, each step heavier than the last. My stomach turns, bile rising, as if my body itself rejects the revelation.

My vision goes black.

The world ends.

For the first time since the malicious princess, I dream.

No, calling it the first would be a lie. There have been numerous nightmares—endlessly suffocating. Shadows trailing me, whispering atrocities in the voices of my own creations. The dolls, gleaming with inhuman perfection, fresh from their birthing cradles, performing their only instinct: slaughter.

I see them again, in fragments—faces like porcelain masks, hands soaked in the lifeblood of strangers. I always knew. From the first mesh to the final render, I knew exactly what they would become.

Yet my hands, treacherous and trembling, refused to stop.

Creation was compulsion.

Compulsion was destiny.

To survive, I banished the visions. I wove a fragile facade of normalcy, blotting out the world beyond my door. No news, no headlines, no whispers of massacres on my screens. I suffocated my guilt under the veil of ignorance.

Truly I wanted to live up to the nickname of [DEAD EYES].

But now, ignorance is no longer a sanctuary. It has been breached.

The doll I modelled before Ta.Na.Ka's visit—yet another cursed work, the girl with the voracious umbrella—she has risen. Her name echoes in my mind like the tolling of a bell:

[Regnhlífarstelpa].

And she will tear apart the brittle remnants of my ordinary life.

I run.

Through streets shrouded in fog, past the empty eyes of those who do not know. I run after her, after it, this calamity that bears my own handprint upon its soul. But my pursuit takes me somewhere darker, deeper—a chasm beyond what even my nightmares dared to conjure.

I find myself standing before a living horror masquerading in the form of man.

The thing standing before me can't possibly be human.

It's pale skin stretched tight over bones, eyes as crimson as arterial blood, and it's mouth armed with predatory fangs.

A Creature that shrinks from sunlight.

A Creature that feasts on the lifeblood of the living.

The thing standing before me is unmistakably a vampire.

It's words drip with venom, yet there is no hatred in it's voice—only acknowledgment.

A title which it has bestowed upon me, maliciously, irrevocably.

"Well, well well. If it ain't a [WITCH]."