They say having emotions is what makes us human. Imagine, we never had them to begin with. 

What are we then? Demons?

Demons who live in the disguise of humans?

What do you call those demons that attack stealthily from the shadows...

Silent Demons?

●

●

●

●

Author's POV

In this universe, there are three worlds: heaven, hell, and the human realm. Heaven is obviously the light side, and hell is the dark one. The human realm is what's in between the two other paranormal worlds. That is also why the human world is called the Neutral Land, this is because it's influenced by both the dark and light sides.

Both paranormal worlds have jobs and an invisible association with human reality. The dark side wants to completely take over the minds of humans and every being by turning them to the dark and making them one of their dark angels so that darkness can become more powerful. And for the light side, they want to destroy all the darkness that is spreading in the universe like a pandemic. They also want to protect the fragile minds of humans that will easily be destroyed by their enemies.

But since there were many spells set on the human realm by the light side, the dark angels couldn't always easily attack earth and summon their greatest demons. The same demons that were trapped thousands of years ago in a bind by the light side due to the demons being extremely dangerous and hazardous. And well, the villains of the dark therefore couldn't directly sabotage the humans either.

So that's how the dark angels decided to create something so attractive and effective that it would easily trap the measly mortals into their spells. They decided to create dolls. And they also had to find the one and only being that has something called "cursed blood."

As for the Cursed Blood, it's essentially paranormal black-coloured blood that runs in the veins of a living human. It is said that once in a thousand years, a being in the human realm will be born and have that blood. That blood is something that can easily make any dark angel beyond powerful. But to do that, you have to lay the living being down on a specific sacrificial mountain in hell, and you have to touch the spewing blood that comes out of the human in the gaze of the blood-red moon.

The dolls were made to look as if they were innocent and beautiful, but on the inside, they were the most sinister and ugly of beings. They were made in a way that will affect anyone on earth.

The more time someone spends with dolls, the more they get paranoid and easy to be controlled by the creatures of the dark. Though it takes time for these things to finally happen, But even if you spend very little time with dolls, as you grow older, you will start to gradually get venomously paranoid and have that innocent soul of yours turned into a pure charcoal black sinister.

And if this is given to children at a young age, then again, as they grow older, they will have more intense results. They will be more evil, paranoid, delusional, and more.

Dolls are actually made to look extremely attractive, alluring, and perfect. This is why they grab the attention of all mere humans.

These magnificent yet terrific things are actually way more powerful and evil than anyone can imagine. They are all devilish, really. Though the dolls have a certain amount of power depending on which category they are in,

Category X dolls are the everyday simplistic dolls that are usually not too powerful because their effects will only begin to appear in people when they start to grow older.

Category Y dolls are the ones that are bigger in size. About the length from your fingertips to the end of your forearm. They are more engaging and beautiful. They have the same amount of effectiveness as category X, but they just attract more people.

Category Z dolls look nearly identical to category Y, but they are way more powerful. They are more efficient and can easily radiate slight paranormal energies to humans. They can effortlessly start inflicting sudden paranoia or deadly thoughts in people if someone tries to do dark magic with them or trigger them.

And now, at the top of the whole pyramid, comes the most powerful and dark doll in existence. We call that doll 'Levinor'. Due to his being so powerful, He radiates 20x more darkness than other dolls, meaning that if a human being even spent one minute with him over their lifetime, they could still be very paranoid and dark. And being paranoid in this sense means to have completely lost your sanity to the point where you start killing yourself slowly yet painfully.

If you spend a long time with the doll, then afterwards you might start eating your own self to death or purposely start burning some of your body parts and over time burning your whole self. Though the paranoia that other dolls spread is basically going crazy and being easier to manipulate, But Levinor surely comes on top because the doll can easily control your mind as well, to kill you, of course.

However, when he wasn't in his doll form, the being was a royal blood demon. He was the 8th devil in the universe, or you can say soon to be the 8th devil of the universe, but he considers himself a doll at times due to having that form and because it's fun to be referred to as one of them. He is known for having and spreading the powers of manipulation, sadism, masochism, narcissism, and much, much more.

He is the one who owns all the sadistic sins. Levinor is actually the creator of dolls, really. Due to his dangerously risk-taking self, he decided to completely turn into the ruler of dolls and one of them himself.

Of course, Levinor is a name that he is known by only in the paranormal world. It's not his real name, but he still loves the way it sounds. Though the name is obviously extremely well known in the human realm, along with the light side, just like the other devils' names. He has the power to summon demons and many more ancient evil creatures. He has the ability to create dark magic that will destroy the innocent minds of all humans in a snap. But the spell of light is a slight bummer, though; we don't talk about that.

Levinor can also easily come to earth in his human or doll form and attack a few humans, though only for his selfish needs. And yes, most of the dolls have a human form, but it's the same as their dark angel form, so they can only show hell except for Levinor. And just for some more information, Levinor is the youngest devil in the universe. He is the son of Lucifer and Mammon. His personality is basically like his father's and that of five other uncles. He is a sinful bastard filled with unimaginable darkness and filthy lust.

Now I think you have learned enough of the theory about the world of fantasy and the paranormal. So why don't we head back to the human realm?

⋅ ⋅ ── ⋅ ⋅ ── °∘❉∘° ── ⋅ ⋅ ── ⋅ ⋅

The Grotesque Past

Our story begins in the darkest corners of the city of Seoul, specifically the slums. It was a dark night that covered the city with its slight, frightening influence. Rain was pouring down with rage, and bright lightning roared through the pitch-black sky that had a blanket of dark grey clouds.

Most of the people at this time were inside their houses sleeping or just enjoying the midnight thunderstorm. Barely any soul decided to roam around on the streets due to how strongly the rain was hitting the ground.

But that doesn't mean that the fear of getting wet can kill one's starvation. No matter what happens, you need food to survive. Yes, it sounds filthy, but when you are starving to death, getting swept away by a thunderstorm isn't that scary.

And just like that, a young boy weakly roamed around in the dim alleyways of the biggest slum in the city. He was shaking tremendously due to his body being drenched in cold rainwater and heavy fatigue covering him.

He was just an 11-year-old with barely any food in his stomach. A good amount of extremely dark blood that was covering him was being washed away in the heavy rain. But even with that, his deep wounds just hurt even more with the water hitting them directly.

He just got his usual beating from one of the older gangsters that were a few blocks away from his alley. They always beat him whenever they see him. Most of the people that see him would always either beat him to near-death or just call him a monster and give him their disgusting looks. He was used to it at this point because, ever since he could remember, he was always treated like this.

The young boy was left in this filthy slum at the age of 6 by his so-called parents. Yes, his own parents brought him into this misery. From the beginning, his parents were pretty rich, but regardless of having such an innocent child, they abandoned him.

The boy never truly understood why, but as he grew older, he obviously loathed his parents to death and wanted to know the exact reason why they made his life worse than hell.

The being that we are talking about now is named Seokjin, Kim Seokjin. Ever since the day he was thrown here, all the misery in the world has stuck him around like a magnet. He would spend so many days without a single grain of food. His slight oddity, which built up as he grew older, and the abnormally dark colour of his blood just made people hate him more. Jin went through things that nobody could ever imagine happening to a young kid like him.

Jin was tortured to unconsciousness by a group of sadistic mobs when he was around 9. He became a victim of human trafficking for a while as well. He experienced loads of physical and mental damage that was inflicted on him at such a young age. And this is not where his bad luck ends. When fate decided to be unrealistically ruthless, Jin was forcefully dragged and violently raped when he was only around 8 or 9.

That is why the world is darker than we think it is. And regardless of so much trauma and pain on his back, the young lad always carries a cold poker expression on his bruised yet pretty face. Perhaps because the bare-minimum emotions that he never had to begin with were slowly drained away by the cruelty inflicted upon him by the so-called pretty world.

So maybe that's why this young boy became a demon in the eyes of other filthy humans. But at the end of the day, he's just a person, a weak child, who's broken beyond repair.

Now, he was dragging his body to the nearest dumbest to grab even a slight chunk of food. He had no hopes, but trying was the only thing he could do. So, as usual, he looked deep inside the smelly dumpster. The smell wasn't too bad for him since he had already gotten used to it years ago. He pulled out of the dumbest and just gave out a shaky sigh of disappointment. Again, he didn't find any food.

He backed a little away from the dumpster and looked down at himself. He hugged his shivering body to give him even the slightest warmth possible through the cold water covering his body. His body was trembling even more violently, and he was feeling as if he would faint any second from starvation. But again, his permanent, cold poker expression was still plastered on his face.

He was about to turn his back and walk out of the alleyway to continue his search when something caught his eye. He saw a slightly bright and small figure lying in one of the dirty, dark corners of the same alley he was in currently.

Curiosity and confusion filled both Jin's face and mind. He couldn't quite see what it was, but he guessed that it was a doll due to it looking like a silhouette.

The reason that it also grabbed his attention was that it looked beautiful. Ever since the day he got left in the slums, he has not seen a single pretty thing. Sometimes he doesn't even understand what the word 'pretty' truly means. And so far, even from a distance, this unusually good-looking thing really grabbed his attention, as if he were hearing the Pied Piper's melodies. But instead, it was the visuals of the doll that were luring him towards it.

He walked towards the end of the alley and looked down at the doll that was drenched in the pouring water of the rain. It also had a bit of dark, damp mud on its cotton peach hair and all over its body, really. But regardless of that, the doll looked elegantly gorgeous and magnificent. Jin was stunned by the doll's beauty. Never in his life had he seen something so beautiful as this doll.

The doll was the size of an infant. He was a male doll with sharp and perfect facial features. He had hazel brown eyes along with luscious, dark blood-red lips. His sharp jawline complimented his dented cheeks, which had prominent dimples. He was dressed in a fancy black suit that had velvety red and golden buttons. Underneath the cropped coat, he was wearing a white vintage Victorian shirt that had ruffled collars and puffy cuffs. The collars and cuffs were visible due to them being outside the suit. It was all topped off with a black choker that was wrapped around his neck, making him look more desirable. Though that was all soaked, obviously.

Jin gently picked up the doll with his ice-cold, shaky hands, still stunned by how the doll looked. He admired the doll more closely and analysed its every single feature. Throughout all of this process, he didn't show a single expression on his face, remaining like his plain, cold self.

Jin, like most people, liked beautiful things, but he never got a chance to have them. So now that he was holding such a marvellous thing, he wanted to keep it. For some unknown reason, he had the strong urge to own this doll-to have it for himself and cherish it forever. And due to that strong passion running through his head, he bored his eyes into the dolls and whispered, without realising it, his words against the rain with a slightly shaky voice.

"This is mine now."

Jin's voice was laced with seriousness and sincerity. To others, it might seem like a taintlessly chilidish scene, of a child picking up a doll for himself. Yet something inside Jin, had been snapped open, something not so innocent. 

He was just a lonely boy, with no access to feeling comfort and warmth. Jin continued looking at the doll for a few more seconds before he slowly hugged the doll, trying to feel a bit of warmth. The sense of innocence in the scene was beyond visible. A weak child is hugging a doll to find true comfort.

For the first time in years, he felt warmth. He felt the comfort that he longed for. The doll made him feel as if he were hugging a very close friend of his, which he never had. It was a feeling that he only fantasised about until this very moment.

Regardless of having questions about how the doll ended up here, he just ignored his curiosity and hugged the doll tighter while closing his eyes. He didn't want to let go of this feeling, ever.

But, oh, did the poor boy know that he unlocked something inside the doll, which perhaps will lead to destruction? He unleashed something that might have caused chaos and bloodshed. Sinister may perhaps make its way here just because of this one innocent act. But well, no one is going to notice that until it actually starts happening in action.

Right when Jin was about to pull away from the doll, a violently loud explosion was heard. Jin's head snapped in the direction the sound came from. And just at that moment, he saw the extremely huge explosion of gas that was filled with the bright orange light of fire and smoke in the very far distance. It was raining, but the smoke of the explosion was still visible high up in the sky.

It obviously was a bomb explosion, and it seemed like it happened in the other parts of the slums because, from where Jin was, he could easily see how big it looked, and the sound just added to it. In fright, Jin dropped the poor doll due to the extreme shock of the bombing. He was still not used to these kinds of huge explosions.

Horror filled Jin's body and mind; he didn't show many expressions on his face, but his eyes did widen slightly in shock, and his jaw clenched tightly together. That was his way of showing the bare minimum reactions to extreme situations; it might not seem like a lot, but for him, it was more than a lot.

He looked out of the alley from the same position and saw some people running. He heard many gunshots and ear-tearing screams from people in the distance.

It seemed like there was a terrorist attack or something similar, due to the bombing and gunshot sounds. Jin was about to run out of the alley, but he finally noticed that the doll wasn't in his hand. So regardless of being in such a frantic situation, he decided to look back at the ground and pick up his doll.

But to his dismay, the doll wasn't there. Jin frowned slightly because he was sure that he just dropped the doll down in the same place he was standing before. And the rain wasn't so hard that it would carry away the doll in a flash of light.

Jin knew something was wrong and was suspicious about the doll's disappearance, but he ignored that due to the rush and started looking everywhere desperately. He was in a rush, but something in him told him to find the doll. He couldn't afford to lose the thing that he just claimed and the thing that gave him peace for the first time in life.

Panic started slowly filling him with its dark venom, along with frustration. He gritted his teeth, and his eyes were wide with anger as he looked in every single corner. His brain was slowly going insane without a true and logical reason.

"Where is it?! Where did it disappear?! It was not supposed to go away." Jin said it with anger filling him. He didn't know why he was getting so upset over a doll disappearing, but he just was.

At this point, Jin really had to start rushing out because the shooting was becoming louder, meaning they were coming closer. Jin had to quickly escape. But the young boy was still deeply confused because there was no way that someone could have just taken the doll away. He dropped it down in front of him, for God's sake! If someone did try taking it, he would have definitely noticed; he's always alert to everything and every presence around him. So the only thing that he could think was that the doll might have gone by himself.

But obviously, he just scoffed at the mere thought. Because of him, it was not possible! How can a doll disappear on its own? It's just not possible! Jin just sighed and started sprinting out of the alley after giving it a last glance.

"I promise, I will find you."

And just like that, he ran out of the alley with weak speed and a light head.

But right after he took a turn, he stumbled back and gasped in horror. His eyes were wider than usual due to the terror that occurred in him from the image in front of him. His body froze, and his heartbeat nearly stopped. Chills from both the rain and what was in front of him ran through his spine.

He saw a literal mountain that was bigger than him, full of bloody, mutilated dead bodies.

And in front of the mountain, there were 10 heads that were neatly aligned, as if someone kept them purposely there for display. In the mountain of mutilated bodies, there were all sorts of body parts. Hands, legs, fingers, and internal organs such as lungs, livers, and intestines were visible as well.

Jin knew that the owners of these organs were just killed a few moments ago due to how freshly the blood was spewing out and mixing with rainwater, making a dark red puddle on the ground. The wounds and extremely deep cut marks on their bodies didn't seem to have started to coagulate or at least dry a little bit, a clear sign that the bodies had just been killed a few moments ago. But that could also be because of the constant shower of water.

Jin looked at the mountain and paid attention to every single detail that was visible to him. The water from the rain poured down on the body parts, giving them a glassy red look. The dragged wounds and deep cuts on the huge body parts had veiny skin, which seemed nearly translucent as the many veins were visible through them. Paleness filled every single mutilated part that was stacked up.

The thin and thick muscles of the body just pathetically hung open and dripped with the solution of water and blood. The huge holes that were made into what looked like someone's chest felt as if something was just about to crawl out any second and pull you into its abyss.

Jin saw the bones that were covered in tissues and bare-minimum muscles. The skin of many dead bodies was bloody, spotted, and filled with scars. It was slightly blueish and brown. Many tiny purple veins were visible even from quite that distance.

The boy also noticed that one of the hands that were on top of the mountain was wrapped in the veins of many eyeballs. Yes, eyeballs. It was a stringy and gooey bloody mess that was still hanging onto the hand, regardless of the rain hitting the fragile skin. The eyeballs were soft and so squishable, like delicious rice cakes.

There were things like brains that were also stacked up. Though all of the human parts started slowly getting covered with the insects that usually appear after rainfall,.

Just as Jin was staring at the whole view, the rain suddenly stopped, and in those split seconds, long worms, fire ants, and tiny bugs started crawling into all the crooks and crannies of dead bodies. A line of ants crawled around the wet blood, and some crawled into the veiny eye holes and ear holes.

The whole sight was disgusting, but to Jin, it was all so beautiful.

He loved everything that the killer did. He loved the way he cut these humans into pieces as if they were just mere vegetables. He loved the colour of the dark blood that flowed out of their bodies like a river. He absolutely enjoyed the smell of the metallic red liquid that overfilled the air, mixing with the scent of wet, muddy nature.

He felt excited and actually delighted looking at all of this. It was all so ecstatic for him that he fell into a slight daze. And that same daze made a small, Satanic smile appear on his face. For the first time in his life after being left here, Jin had smiled genuinely. Maybe he truly did love the chaos in front of him. But making him smile is basically impossible, so does it mean that seeing dead people makes him more than happy?

Though he quickly got out of that daze when he realised that the people whose heads and bodies are mutilated are the same people who beat Jin with cruelty nearly every day.

Questions filled Jin's mind again: why were only these people killed like this? Was it a coincidence? But then why were they displayed like this, as if to show it to the person who suffered because of them? And even if all of this was a coincidence, then why were they placed in the place that was right next to Jin's?

As Sherlock Holmes says, 'The universe is rarely so lazy.' Then perhaps none of this was a coincidence. Perhaps someone purposely did it-did it for Jin. But who, how, when, and why? Jin didn't know, and his brain capacity didn't allow him to be able to answer these questions. But one thing that Jin did know was that all of this happened after he met that doll. Or was it just his brain making things up? No one knows.

And just like that, Jin ran far away from those alleys and the whole slum overall. It was a miracle that the young boy didn't get attacked. But on his way, he felt as if he was purposely not getting attacked and that he was the only one that the terrorists were sparing, or that fate was only being nice to him. But why? Why?

This was one of the questions that he always had in his head over the years that passed. From the day he escaped and found the doll, fortune filled his life. First, he was found on the streets by one of the nuns of an orphanage. And things just went on and on.

But here was the thing: as he grew, before any huge moment or leap in his life, Jin was always...greeted by the doll. The same doll that he saw in the alley. The first time he got to see the doll after the incident was the night before he got a scholarship to the most elite schools in the city. Jin saw it again, in the corner of his orphanage dorm room. As soon as he saw it, he ran towards it. Just like last time, he picked it up, but in a blink of an eye, it disappeared. Disappointment and frustration filled him again, but this time he knew that this was no ordinary doll; it was a paranormal one.

But he didn't care; he wasn't scared either. He just wanted the doll for himself. And the same thing happened many times. But regardless of how many times the doll played the game of hide and seek with Jin, the human was not giving up; he really wanted the doll, and he was desperate to feel that feeling again. People might say that he was hallucinating about the doll, but Jin was against that. He knew what he saw was real. He felt it, and he was more than sure that he wasn't hallucinating.

Every single time the doll appeared, there was a complete disaster that followed. For example, after the doll disappeared from the orphanage, just a few hours later, the whole place was destroyed due to a fire that occurred. But Jin was always the only one who survived the disasters and instead got more fortune added to his life, and the man knew that.

Though he didn't care about any of the chaos that happened, he only cared about himself and getting that doll. Yup, he was a selfish person. But to think of it, aren't we all selfish?

And if you are thinking that Jin likes dolls overall, then you are wrong. All the other dolls that Jin's eyes landed on were ignored with a mocking scoff. To him, they looked childish; they looked boring. But the doll that Jin saw in the alley-his doll-was just so extraordinary and uniquely alluring.

Though, as he continued in his growth, he started to become...darker and slightly paranoid. Maybe it was just his personality that followed behind and grew more with him. But he was sure-very sure-that he felt more than just his presence in the darkness that surrounded him. He felt as if shadows were stalking him, walls were listening to every single one of his murmurs, and silence was emptying his soul more than before. And all of these feelings grew stronger after every encounter with the doll.

Oh, I wonder what the future holds for him as time passes by in a flash.

Happiness? Or perhaps more pleasurable chaos? Who knows?