code one.......

---

I was eight when they took me. The night was quiet, too quiet, like something in the dark was waiting. I remember waking up to the sound of heavy footsteps, the creak of a door, then hands—strong, cold hands—grabbing me from my bed. I screamed for my parents, but the voices outside were muffled, distant, like a bad dream I couldn’t wake up from. The last thing I saw before they forced me into the van was the shadow of my house fading into the distance.

Inside the van, there were five others, kids like me—scared, confused, too young to understand what was happening. For a moment, seeing them made me feel less alone, but that feeling quickly disappeared. The smell of fear was thick in the air. None of us spoke.

We were taken to a place I had never seen before—a massive facility, cold and unwelcoming. Everything about it felt wrong. The walls were too white, the lights too harsh. We were ushered into a room where a man was waiting. He wore a black suit, his face hidden behind a featureless mask that made my skin crawl.

"You have all been selected," the masked man said, his voice deep, hollow. "From now on, forget your families. Forget your homes. Forget everything. You belong to us now."

I couldn’t breathe. The walls felt like they were closing in. Without thinking, I ran. I ran past the other kids, screaming for my parents, for anyone, for help. But it didn’t matter. They caught me. A guard grabbed me, his grip tight, unyielding.

“I’m sorry,” the guard whispered, his eyes full of something I couldn’t understand. “We’re not the bad guys. We need your help.”

The masked man approached me, moving silently, like a shadow. He knelt down beside me and rubbed my head as if I were some stray animal.

"This is how it has to be," he said, his voice soft, but the words felt like ice. I sobbed, tears blurring my vision, the only thing I could think of was how much I wanted to go home.

“I want my parents back!” I cried.

The masked man leaned closer, his hand lingering on my shoulder, a cold, lifeless touch. "Let me guide you," he whispered, reaching out his hand. "Japan needs you. The world needs you."

His words didn’t make sense at first, but something in his tone—something dark and certain—made me stop struggling. He told us of a war brewing, a war that would one day consume the world. A war that no one knew about yet, but one that we were being prepared for.

China. They were planning something, something huge. He told us we were to become soldiers, assassins for a war that hadn’t even begun yet. But it would come. We were to be raised in this facility, trained in secret to kill, to protect our country.

I was eight, and they told me my childhood was over. I didn’t understand, not fully, but I knew one thing—I was never going home.

Years passed in that facility. Days blurred into nights, and the horrors we witnessed became our new reality. The year was now 2027. The world outside was on the edge, and inside these walls, we were being turned into something… something not quite human anymore.

Ichika, one of the only friends I’d made, was talking to me when the bell rang, echoing through the hallways like a death knell. We knew what it meant. We always knew. The masked man was calling us again.

As I stood up, a chill ran down my spine. It was happening. The war, the one we had been preparing for. It was almost here, and I was no longer sure who the real enemy was—China, or the people who turned us into this.

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***