u/DeadUrPenis

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S93SOMGDgGNqyzoM6wtrReriaMW6GoC0ehM\_UxPvAxo/edit?usp=drivesdk

A white building with many windows and rooms inside it and a grand board with lights in the background highlighting the text on it.

Avlon Mental Asylum.

With a slight reflection of red on it, the Red Moon shone brighter than ever.

The gates opened once.

A man wearing a blue formal dress looked at the sky, his eyebrows lifting up a little.

"What an ominous moon it is. Looks like something bad is about to happen."

Inside one of the rooms, covered in complete darkness, curtains moved with the slight flow of air.

Inside, only a tiny lamp was lit and a boy with a calm smile was playing with his pet rat on the table.

A small piece of bread was kept on the table while the rat had clearly gotten old. His fur was shedding a lot more, and even his eating speed was slow.

The boy was tickling the rat as he ate the piece of bread.

"Oh Ratty, how are you so cute."

A strong gust of wind blew, removing the curtains at once. The boy looked outside for a moment and his eyes fixated on the moon drenched in red.

He got up and walked towards the window while sliding the curtains to the side.

"Well, isn't the moon beautiful today."

He turned around and looked at the table.

His whole body froze at that point as he looked at the moon once again while water droplets started to fall from the sky.

There was another Red Moon, in a vastly different place covered with mountains and greenery all around.

There stood a large palace, a place with many buildings with Chinese architecture, completely made of wood.

A well-built man wearing a golden and black robe stared at the rain under the Red Moon, while the whole palace was in chaos with many different people in white robes running around and a woman screaming from behind the door.

"What an ominous night."

"I just hope nothing bad happens to my wife and kid."

He stepped out into the rain while looking up at the sky as the rain kept falling on his face. The robe started to stick to his body as his wet hair swept back from the rain.

The door slid open when a man wearing glasses with some splashes of blood on his white robe came out, with heavy eyes.

No woman's screams were audible anymore.

The man standing in the rain looked at the physician and started to walk towards him.

"So doctor, is it a boy or a girl?"

His face was full of excitement with eyes glowing brighter than ever.

The doctor looked down at the floor.

"It was a boy, Family Head Zu Jiang."

Zu Jiang looked him in the eyes with a confused look on his face.

"What do you mean by, was?"

The doctor had quite an unusual and uncomfortable expression.

"Well, how can I say this... but did your wife ever feel the child move?"

Zu Jiang grew even more worried.

"Well, now that you say it, she never felt it."

The doctor stood there in silence for a while and took a deep sigh before answering.

"The kid was never alive to begin with. It's like it never had a soul, just a body that kept on maturing."

Zu Jiang heard such words for the first time in his life and grabbed the doctor by his shoulders.

"What are you even saying? How is that possible?"

The doctor himself had no answer to the question but looked Zu Jiang in the eyes.

"I think it's a curse. Something powerful stopped it from being born, Mr. Zu."

"I can only tell you to ask God for forgiveness and return the child's soul."

Zu Jiang stood there silently and looked up once again at the ominous Red Moon as the calm rain started to turn into a storm.

Zu Jiang stood there looking at the moon.

The red light of the moon fell inside another room and reflected inside the mental asylum, with the boy standing at the same place by the window looking at the rat on his table, which had stopped moving.

The calm rain here was turning into a storm too as the raindrops started to enter the room, but the boy quietly sat down on the chair by the table and stared at the rat.

"Hey Ratty, why did you not finish your bread?"

"It's not good manners to leave food unfinished."

His voice was getting anxious with each passing second.

"Ratty, finish your food please."

"Please Ratty, move. What will I do without you?"

Some drops even fell on the table, but they were not raindrops, they were the boy's tears.

"Ratty, you were the last of my family."

"Please move Ratty."

"Please."

The boy broke down on the table as the strong rumble of thunder shook the windows of the room, and the boy looked towards the Red Moon once again.

Under the Red Moon, a small shed stood inside the palace as Zu Jiang opened the door.

He started to walk inside the room as each lamp started to light itself up with each step Zu Jiang took.

Until the last lamp revealed two figures inside the shed.

One was a calm and cold golden statue of Buddha, and the other was a demon with large teeth in his mouth screaming as Buddha sat upon him.

Zu Jiang sat in front of them while folding his legs and bowing down to the statue.

"God, this is the first time I am here to ask for something."

"I don't want to see my wife crying while holding my dead child."

"A child without a soul."

While bowing down, his voice started to crack as his emotions rose.

"Please God, please show that soul the right path and guide him back."

Zu Jiang looked back up at the statue and saw nothing had changed in Buddha's expression or the statue itself, but a woman's shout echoed around the palace.

"No, this can't happen. How can my child be dead?"

"He didn't even take his first breath."

Zu Jiang, who heard it all, bowed down once again.

"Please God, help me. Please help me."

While the smiling and calm Buddha had no change, the monster under him changed a bit.

His eyes had a subtle red glow and a loud thunder roared around the area, rumbling the whole palace itself.

Just as Zu Jiang looked up at the statue, a lightning strike hit it for less than a moment. Buddha himself was broken by the lightning that struck him, but the monster was unscathed.

Zu Jiang's breathing grew heavier with the lightning strike that hit right in front of him, and without a second thought he got up and started to run.

The doors closed, but the demon statue's eyes started to glow more and more until they matched the same color as the Red Moon.

Rain turned into a storm inside the city as a news reporter stood outside on the road.

"It is advised that people do not get out of their homes. Today is not a safe day."

"I repeat, today is not a safe day."

The boy's hand clicked the radio off as he took the rat in his own hand and went near the window, where a large clay pot filled with dirt and sand was placed.

He started to dig it slowly with a calm expression on his face.

Many rat skeletons were present inside the sand, and as he kept on digging further he even talked to dead Ratty.

"Do you see it, Ratty? That was your mom. That was your sister."

"That was your father."

As he dug even deeper, his face grew calmer and calmer, but the weather outside grew worse and worse.

"This is your grandfather and grandmother, Ratty. They were my first friends in this place."

But the boy didn't stop there. He dug even further and something much worse revealed itself.

A broken human skeleton.

"Ratty, this is my mother, and you, being my last family member, need to rest by her side."

He put the rat near the buried skeleton.

"Goodbye, Ratty, as I will see you again."

The boy started to walk towards the table once again and opened the drawer.

It was completely empty with just a knife inside it.

The boy clenched the knife hard and brought it near his neck.

His eyes were wide open while staring at the large clay pot filled with sand.

"Let's meet again, you all."

The knife pressed against his neck, and before the first drop of blood came out, a massive and bright lightning strike hit right in front of the clay pot and destroyed it completely.

Even the knife flew away by itself as the boy sat there on his knees while looking at the destroyed clay pot.

"What... what is this."

"Is my whole life made for suffering?"

A soft whisper entered his ears.

"Remember, Ryan, God is always with us. Whenever it's too hard, just call out for Him."

Ryan looked at the destroyed ceiling as the rain poured onto the floor and washed away the sand and the remains of his family, and Ryan could only watch it all.

"God..."

"What a joke, Mom. God was never with me to begin with."

"It's more like He was against my whole existence itself."

"I was cursed from the beginning. I remember when Dad left us, calling me a monster when the whole society was against me."

"I remember you, Mom."

"I remember you."

Ryan closed his eyes once again and looked up.

"If someone out there is seeing or hearing me, please help me."

"Let me know why I was born this way."

"Why does the world not accept me?"

"Please help me."

Ryan opened his eyes once again, but this time the whole room was colored in red as a translucent screen appeared in front of him.

[ Do you really want to ]

[ Will you be able to face it ]

Ryan clenched his jaw while shouting,

"Yes, I want to know why it all happened like this. Why am I so different from others? Why does no one accept me?"

[ It will be a long journey, Ryan ]

"It doesn't matter. I will face it all."

"Just give me one chance."

[ Good luck, Ryan ]

[ Let's start our long journey ]

Ryan's eyes glimmered as the Red Moon reflected in them and the translucent red window disappeared in front of him.

Ryan closed his eyes with a large smile on his face as the red clouds merged together and roared loudly.

The biggest lightning strike yet hit the asylum, but shockingly nothing happened to the building or the surroundings themselves.

Just Ryan lying on the floor without any movement, without any heartbeat.

Even the Red Moon started to fade back to white.

While Zu Jiang ran through the corridor and opened the gate, the rain was still going strong with the Red Moon still shining brightly.

Zu Jiang opened the door to see a sight no one could explain.

The child without a soul floating in the air while emitting a red glow just like the moon above him as the thunder roared loudly.

His wife's eyes were wide open with dark circles around them and black marks on her cheeks from crying constantly.

Zu Jiang could not explain what he was seeing right now.

The clouds rumbled and shook the whole area.

Just at that moment, a lightning strike hit inside the room.

The whole top of the room collapsed. The large lightning remained focused only on the child floating in the air as the red glow grew stronger and stronger.

The whole palace felt the red light coming from the doctor's area and started to run there.

The child absorbed all the lightning into himself and returned back to the bed beside his mother.

The doctor came running back, trying to catch his breath.

A voice broke the entire tension in the area.

A small and barely audible cry.

Coming from the baby.

The same baby the doctor had declared without a soul.

The entire palace ran towards the room while shouting,

"Family Head, is everything alright?"

Zu Jiang fell to his knees while his wife grabbed the crying baby in her arms, trying to calm him down.

The child opened his little eyes while crying and stared at the Red Moon with the same translucent window in front of him.

[ Let's start our journey, Ryan ]

[ Journey of the Devil ]

Ch-01

The End