The young girl, still sitting where she had fell, on the floor, quickly scramble to her feet and ran to the bed, obviously wanting to help the small baby that had finally stopped crying, his reddened face slowly turning purple. But the older woman grabbed her before she could reach him, pulling her back and holding her in place. The girl trashed and tried to get free from her grasp, but the older woman dug her fingers into her skinny arms and didn’t let go.

ZaiWin¹Literally zai (blade) + win (chaos). had never felt such anguish before. Such feeling of impotence and helplessness. Anger and urgency flooding his brain, even though he knew there was nothing he could do. The world around him darkened again, and he knew that, in Snow’s memories, the baby he had been was slowly choking to death, his newborn vision failing as the airflow to his lungs was forcibly stopped by the same hands that should have held him and cuddled him.

Surrounded by darkness again and in pain, the little one instinctively searched for the only source comfort he had ever known. The child that had filled the darkness with laugher and songs. But what came from the other side of that bridge was even worse.

The other child had overcome the sadness and desperation, but this time he hadn’t replaced it with forgiveness and love like he used to do. Instead, he had become an empty shell, only inhabited by a deep, deafening, endless suffering. He had lost everything. His heart was dead. His mind was broken. And now even his body was slowly dying as well, a deep, corrupting darkness mixing with his blood, flooding his every cell.

“I pray they will all die …” ZaiWin closed his eyes at the sound of those bitter, hopeless words. “Let them all die … Let the entire world die … I wish I could kill them all.”

ZaiWin’s back was burning, the same way they had burned all those years ago. Or maybe it wasn’t his back that was burning, but the little one’s, he considered, opening his eyes again.

Horrifying screams filled his ears, and suddenly he could see again. But what he saw left a bitter sorrow in his chest.

A red array had formed inside the room, the glowing markings forming the circle of the same color of recently spilled blood. And the women were screaming, holding their heads between their hands, falling on the floor and dying one after the other. But it didn’t stop there. Like before, the array spread across the floor, and soon more screams could be heard from the other side of the door, from inside the entire Household. A skin-crawling chorus of death that seemed to last forever. Until finally, there was silence again.

ZaiWin looked around, at the women lying on the floor. Just like what he’d seen before. They were all bleeding from their noses, ears, and mouths, the veins in their widened, glassy, dead eyes popped until they cried blood. They all looked like they’d died in excruciating pain.

Looking at the bed, ZaiWin saw that the baby was still moving, still alive. He’d stopped crying and was now staring at the ceiling with wide, deep-black eyes.

The sound of something moving captured ZaiWin’s attention and, to his surprise, he saw the young girl crawl from beneath the dead body of the older woman. She had probably been dragged down, when the older woman had fallen.

For a moment she just looked around at the dead women covering the floor, wide-eyed. Then her gaze immediately turned to the bed. The baby’s mother was obviously as dead as the rest of the women. But the small child was still alive.

Unexpectedly, instead of fearing the little one, she actually rushed to him, a huge smile stretching her lips when she realized that he was still alive and well.

Holding him carefully, she finally lifted him up and held him close to her chest. The dark eyes of the baby stared up at her, looking so serious that they were almost scary. But, apparently, nothing could erase the young girl’s smile. Carefully holding the baby’s tiny hands, she breathed on them, trying to warm him. And only then ZaiWin noticed that the small inner-garden outside was covered with a thick layer of pure, white snow.

He sighed in relief. So this young girl must be Snow’s Sand, he guessed.

Something warm slid down his nose, and he wiped it without a second thought. And so he was a bit surprised when he noticed that his hand had come out bloody.

Wiping his nose again, ZaiWin confirmed with a frown that he was indeed bleeding.

What the …

His thoughts were interrupted when suddenly his entire body was taken over by a sharp pain, making him fall hard on his knees.

That’s right. He’d been successfully ignoring it, but he’d been feeling feverish and in pain for a while now, since he’d found himself in that dark world. Because he’d ignored it, things had only gotten worse.

Break free! He had to break free from those memories! Something was definitely wrong with his real body, so much so that he was slowly dying inside that strange world as well.

Closing his eyes, ZaiWin forced himself to erase that room, and those dead women. Above all he forced himself to erase that small baby from his mind. His Snow was not a newborn child. His Snow was a grown-up, strong, courageous young man. And he had to go back to him!

Silvareiel

I guess Snow instinctively spared Sand because she was the only innocent inside that house. Or maybe because she was the only one to touch him with a caring hand. ?