The city was silent — too silent.
Only the wind dared to speak, carrying the smell of burnt iron and old blood through the empty streets.
The moon hung low behind a curtain of smoke, its pale light trembling like a dying candle.
Somewhere within the ruins, a faint sound broke the stillness — a child's sob.
"Mama… please, don't go…"
A little girl stood alone in a narrow alley, her small hands clutching a broken lantern.
Its weak flame flickered, painting her tears in gold and shadow.
One of the shadows moved.
Slowly. Wrongly.
It stretched across the wall — too long, too alive.
Then came the whisper.
Wet. Low. Inhuman.
"Hu…man…"
Her heart froze.
She turned.
A creature emerged from the dark — skin grey as ash, body thin and twisted, eyes cracked like shattered glass.
Its mouth split open in a crooked grin, revealing rows of teeth that didn't belong to anything human.
"Found… brain…"
The girl screamed. The lantern fell.
Light shattered — and the alley drowned in black.
By morning, all that remained were red stains, glistening like roses in the dawn.
The infection spread faster than fear.
No one knew where it began.
Some said it came from the air.
Others whispered it fell from the stars.
But one truth remained — when night came, they came.
They hid in human shadows during the day, quiet and unseen.
And when darkness returned, they crawled free — hungry, trembling, whispering for life.
They devoured the brains of the living, evolving with every kill.
Strangely, they never touched women — as if some buried instinct forbade it.
Soon, the world divided.
Half hunted. Half hiding.
And the rest… forgotten.
Far from the fallen city, in the ruins of an old laboratory, a boy worked alone.
His name was Ren Kaido — the last scientist of the old world.
His hands bore burn scars; his eyes carried the weight of sleepless years.
Machines hummed softly around him, their lights flickering like dying stars.
He stared at a test tube filled with blue luminescence, whispering to himself:
"If the virus can rewrite the body… then maybe I can rewrite the virus."
On the desk before him lay ten lockets — each one pulsing faintly in a different hue: crimson, azure, emerald, gold…
Inside each was a fragment of something new — a power born from both science and sorrow.
It wasn't a cure.
It couldn't erase the infection.
But it could transform it.
Turn it into strength.
"These… will be their light."
Ren's trembling hand reached for an old photograph pinned to the wall — a family smiling under a bright blue sky.
The smile on his lips was fragile, but it held both pain and resolve.
"I couldn't save you then… but I'll save them now."
The lockets pulsed once, as if answering him.
Outside, thunder rumbled across the black horizon.
Night was coming again.
But this time… humanity wouldn't run.
That night, ten lights flared across the darkness —
each carrying a fragment of his hope, his guilt, his final wish.
And with their awakening…
the war between light and shadow truly began.