[ENG] Prologue

The city was vast. Too vast to ever be held entirely in a single mind. It breathed in its own rhythm, whispered through narrow shadows, and withheld its voice where it should have spoken. It grew in layers, like an organism that had long forgotten its own beginning.

That night, something within it fractured.

There was no bang, no flash. Just a quiet shift. As if someone had gently drawn back a curtain no one had noticed before. In the seams between walls, in the reflections of glass, Whiteness began to seep through. Unnatural. Pure.

From it, a creature emerged.

It moved as if untouched by weight. It had two pairs of ears - one alert and taut, the other long, soft, and trailing down its back with every step. Its tail stretched too far, bending and curling like a shadow that had lost its origin. It made no sound and left no trace.

Its black eyes shimmered in the dark, ears tuned to the footsteps of passersby. It was searching for the very specific ones.

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The Girl Like the Sun was the first one. After all, it was her pink light that had summoned the Whiteness into this world.

Her face reflected in the window of the top floor. In her hand, she held a phone with a pink clover charm. She was texting a friend about how unusually vivid stars were that night.

Something shifted behind her. 

Before she could turn, the creature slipped past her. The phone vanished from her hands.

“What the… Give it back!”, she shouted, unconcerned if her parents might hear.

She rushed after it through the door, but instead of a hallway, she found only an all-consuming white.

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The Girl Like the Moon was the second one.

The deep blue of her coat dissolved into the night as she walked along an empty platform. There were earphones in her ears.

In her hand was a phone with a blue flower charm.

A train car stopped beside her, though at that hour, none should have come. In front of it sat the long-tailed creature. She looked at it.

Her phone rested between its teeth. The doors slid open, revealing an interior filled with the same unnatural white. The creature darted inside and the Girl Like the Moon followed.

The music in her earphones fell silent.

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The Tall Girl and The Short Girl with the bunny hood were together, even though neither could remember when they had started being so close.

A small lamp scattered the darkness, casting light blue and teal across the tent’s shimmering fabric. The Short Girl hummed something she had heard earlier at the edge of the city from a passing monster on wheels.

For some, the dark forest caused fear. To them, the hush of trees and the rustle of unseen creatures was soothing, almost lulling.

The bushes rustled. The long-tailed creature slipped between them and stole their source of light.

They ran after it, together as always. They needed the lamp, it was the only one with working batteries.

At the end of the path, a door appeared. Old, wooden and completely out of place.

It creaked open slowly. The creature vanished into the white beyond it.

The girls looked at one another. In each other’s eyes they found fear. But loneliness would be much worse.

Their hands found each other without thought and they stepped inside.

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The boy sat in his studio, surrounded by the scent of paint and silence.

A small desk lamp was the only point of light in the dark room. One of his eyes was covered with an eyepatch. The other one stared at the canvas, as if trying to see something that wasn’t there yet. The last element was missing.

A brush rested in his hand, ready for that final stroke.

“Almost…”, he murmured.

The creature appeared on the windowsill. The boy didn’t notice.

Or maybe he did, but he had grown too used to seeing and hearing things that weren’t truly there.

It was only after the brush disappeared from his grasp that his body stiffened.

He checked beneath the desk. Then, he looked around. The animal still sat on the windowsill, the boy’s brush between its teeth. Its pale fur was stained with purple paint. 

It leapt down and trotted toward the opposite wall where a pair of white doors had been painted.

The boy pinched himself and the painted doors opened. He stood slowly, steadying himself against a cold, yellow crutch and approached them.

He didn’t look back and stepped inside.

Behind him, the real doors to the studio creaked open. In the doorway stood a Purple-Haired Doll, staring intently at the white door until they closed and vanished. They remained alone.

Watching. Not stepping forward. Waiting with the patience of someone who knows what lies on the other side.

They knew it wasn’t her moment. Not yet.

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The White Stillness was… too white.

It had no beginning, no end. The ground felt soft like dust and the air smelled of nothing. Every sound echoed strangely as if it refused to belong there. 

There were no edges, everyone felt they could walk forever. Distances shifted with every step.

The Girl Like the Sun was the first to arrive. She spilled out from a fracture and stopped abruptly, squinting.

“Where am I…?”, she whispered. Her voice sounded detached, like it didn’t belong to her but to some unreachable outside.

Moments later, the Girl Like the Moon appeared out of nowhere as if the space itself had expectorate her. Their eyes met.

“Did it take something from you too?”, the Girl Like the Sun asked.

For a moment, relief softened the other girl’s gaze.

“Yes”

The other two girls arrived in the same way. Still holding hands, as if that was the only certainty left. They said nothing but the taller one gave a small nod toward the others.

The boy arrived last.

He stopped a few steps away. His single visible eye moved across their faces as if trying to memorize them.

“My brush”, he said quietly, “It took my brush”.

Silence fell.

Where the crutch he had leaned on once was, a scythe now stood planted in the ground, serving the same purpose. A dark hooded cloak draped over him, wrapping him like a blanket.

They all were no longer quite themselves. Their clothing had changed. Adapted. Strangely, they were clearly meant for fighting now.

Something in the space shifted.

At the edge of their vision was a shadow.

Small. Still. The four-eared creature observed them, quiet and intent, as though waiting for something to begin. 

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Several months had passed.

The White Stillness, which was something close to a void, had stopped feeling foreign. And yet, it never became familiar. Its shape shifted. Its walls relocated without any warnings, but they learned to enter it and leave it at any given moment.

They started understanding its language: the faint tremor in the air, the subtle drift of walls and the quiet appearance of openings where there had been none. They learned about each other as well. That unmistakable difference between someone who is still holding on and someone who has already begun to pretend.

The White Stillness was not empty at all.

It was a battleground.

The red creatures came more often.

Small, trembling forms. They looked as if shaped from thick, red paint and dusted in flour. Their bodies pulsed like something inside them had refused to settle. They had no eyes, yet they never failed to face the right direction.

At first they were rare. 

“They’re gathering again”, the Girl Like the Moon said softly, her fingers grazing the pages of her book. The letters shifted beneath her touch as if they were listening. A deep blue glow spread outward, wrapping them all in a thin, breathing layer.

“How many?”, asked the Girl Like the Sun, without turning.

She stood at the front, knees slightly bent. The pink wand in her hands trembled. Perhaps from her grip, perhaps not.

A pause stretched between them, filled only with breaths.

“Too many”

From the white, shapes began to pour out. Uneven. Torn, as though something living had been broken apart and forced to continue. At first they crawled, spilling like liquid across the surface. Only when they drew close did they decide to let their limbs emerge, sharp as fractured glass.

The wand lengthened, unfolding into a massive hammer. The first strike landed without hesitation. The front line collapsed, scattering foes just enough to create a brief opening. 

It was their signal.

The Teal Girl drew her bow. She was half a step behind the Girl Like the Sun, exactly where she needed to be. Her breath remained steady, though her arms had already begun to tremble. The arrow cut cleanly through the air, striking the center of a red shape before it could form completely.

She nodded toward the Light Blue Girl.

She vanished almost instantly, dissolving into a shadow that should not have existed in a place like this.

Two ribbons sliced through the brightness. Blades followed. The Short Girl appeared only in fragments, striking and disappearing before anything could reach her. Her movements were measured, impossibly fast. Too fast to follow by human eyes. 

Even so, she was still slowing down.

Twice, she struck the ground with an oversized carrot. The taller girl with the bow acknowledged it without looking.

“The left side is crumbling”, the boy at the rear said quietly.

He leaned against a scythe. His face was pale against the yellow colour of his clothing. His breath was uneven. The boy didn’t move much but his eye missed nothing. He caught the moments where something slipped through. He couldn’t last long in direct combat but he made himself useful wherever he could.

The Pink Girl shifted immediately, raising the hammer. Energy spilled outward, forming a translucent barrier before her.

The impact came a second later.

Red bodies collided against it with a force that, not so long ago, would have erased the warriors completely. Most were stopped but one forced its limb through. A tendril lashed out, driving straight into the arm of the Archer.

Red spread but it was not blood.

It moved differently. Like something searching for a place to belong.

“Don’t move”, the Girl Like the Moon was beside her instantly.

She pressed her hand to the wound.

The red receded from the Teal Girl’s arm only to reappear along her own.

It left them too vulnerable from behind.

“Watch out!”, she called. Too late.

One of the red creatures slipped through the gap, moving way too fast. It struck the boy, coiling around his leg. He fell hard. The scythe left his grasp.

The Girl Like the Sun moved toward him but the next wave severed her path.

Then, a sharp cut through the air. The red form split cleanly in two.

The chakram returned to a hand that had not been there just a moment before.

The Purple-Haired Doll stepped between them.

She moved fluidly, almost like a dance. Every motion was precise. Every throw deliberate. The space around the boy cleared, piece by piece, buying him time.

She bent slightly, helping him up. He leaned into the scythe again, catching his breath.

She tilted her head at him, as if studying something they could not name. He tried to speak but couldn’t get a word in.

“Formation!”, the Girl Like the Sun called.

The barrier flared. 

The deep blue magic reinforced it.

Arrows found their rhythm again.

Strikes shortened and sharpened.

The Doll took her place as though it had always been meant for her.

From that moment on, what had been chaos became a six-person structure.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙