Darkness had consumed the world.

The sun had disappeared in an instant.

Every time the full moon approaches, the villagers become cruel and frenzied.

Werewolves disguised as humans prey on humans every full moon. It was a year ago that this frightening rumor spread.

When the number of villagers that disappeared for no apparent reason rose above twenty, fear overtook the village. Many villagers lacked the funds and the courage to leave the rural village. But when a full moon approached, terror gripped them, and they barely made it through the night, dulling their senses with cheap alcohol and drugs.

It was fear that drove these good, law-abiding citizens to find a scapegoat onto which they could pour out their anger over the endless pain and misery.

Now they had a justifiable reason for their actions.

Driven by trepidation, nobody noticed how cruel or cold-hearted they had become.

"The child frightened me from the beginning. He doesn't even remember who he is. How could somebody like that end up in our village...?! What sins have we committed?!"

"Goodness. Who's turn is it to bring him food today? Just going near that storage shed makes me shudder."

"I'm tired of trying to find somebody to take my turn. How long do we have to keep the child? Thinking about him makes my skin crawl. Those miserable, golden eyes and his expressionless face... We can't keep him trapped like that forever...!"

The boy was found abandoned, unconscious in the village just a year before, the very same night the villagers started disappearing every full moon.

When they first discovered him, he was very small. He couldn't have been more than six or seven years old.

The twin nannies who lived near the village entrance took the boy in that night. But after they disappeared, the villagers took turns taking care of the boy. It wasn't long before they realized that the speed with which the boy grew was abnormal.

In less than a year, the boy grew rapidly to the size of a young teenager, and people kept disappearing.

The boy was soon marked as an ominous being, and was eventually entrusted to the hardware store owner, who lived alone.

But that was just the beginning. After the boy's first night there, the store owner discovered wild animal carcasses in his yard the next morning, their bodies sucked dry of their blood. They had been slaughtered. The store owner locked the boy in the storage shed and fled the village, leaving behind everything he owned.

From then on, all the villagers made a tacit promise to keep the boy locked in the shed.

Something wasn't right about him. He grew at an abnormal pace, had bizarre ash-grey hair and glimmering golden eyes. The odd boy had no memories of his past and had been abandoned without any family, or any other connections. The villagers could not accept him into their homes.

The boy had extremely heightened senses that seemed almost inhuman, and due to his rapidly expanding physique, new clothes had to be fashioned for him every ten days or so. To hide his ash-grey hair, he often kept it tied up.

When the villagers had just about given up on counting the number of people that had disappeared, the men of the village captured the boy and accused him of being a cannibalistic werewolf.

In this small, quaint village, home to just a few families, the boy became the object of their fear, and was blamed for all of the disappearances.

He became their scapegoat, burdened by the weight of all of their tragedies.

Even after the boy was locked away in the shed, people kept disappearing. But by that point, the villagers had already made up their minds. An intoxicated man slammed his fists on the table where they gathered.

"I'm sure he escapes every full-moon night. And then he slips back in and pretends like he's done nothing! That way, he can eat more of us! We must get rid of him now!"

"We can't!" The oldest woman in the village, who was well in her nineties, cried out in protest.

One of her eyes was cloudy white with lesions, but despite her deteriorating sight, she could see things that others didn't see.

"If we kill that child, I'm sure a curse... a curse will be upon us! We will all die!"

All color drained from the old woman's face, and she shuddered. She had been raised by her mother, a spirit medium, and had lived in the village her whole life.

It took more than two hours by car to reach the nearest bus stop, and the village was surrounded by mountains. It was a remote place with little to no contact with the outside world. The villagers still relied on traditional beliefs, and everyone was related to each other in some way within the small village.

Upon hearing the words of the old woman and seeing her fear, everyone's face turned white.

"Wh-what are you talking about...?!"

"She's right! Let's say we do kill him. Who's going to deal with what comes next? What if he comes back to eat us? One wrong move and we'll die first!" exclaimed one of the villagers, agreeing with the old woman.

Though the intoxicated man may have wished otherwise, dealing with the boy would be no small matter.

"What about handing him over to the authorities?"

"Hah! As if that's even possible. We don't have any proof, or witnesses. You think the police believe us? Besides, if they find out what we did to him...!" cried the woman as she nervously bit her fingernails.

They were anxiously waiting for the night to be over, and for the sun to rise.

They had been through so much. They were survivors of a destroyed village. None of them were capable of being ethical or even rational in this moment. They were already broken, and they firmly believed that if there really was a hell, it would look a lot like where they were now.

"Could this really be because of a werewolf...?" muttered a young woman, tightly holding on to her newborn baby. The others looked around at each other anxiously.

The heavily intoxicated man belched, breaking the silence. The faded wooden floor creaked loudly every time the burly man took a step.

"Enough with all this nonsense, just pay up," he said, agreeing that he would be the one to do the deed tonight.

The villagers took turns bringing the boy food.

What they gave him was barely edible, and on the night of a full moon, they sometimes paid someone else so they could avoid having to approach the boy. That's how much they feared that "something" inside the shed.

As the great full moon gradually rose against the dark night sky, the burly man walked across the muddy field, each heavy step leaving a deep footprint in the mud. Rainwater pooled in the hollow footprints he left behind.

Soon, both doors of the abandoned shed at the foot of the mountain road opened with an unsettling noise. The air was damp and cold inside, and the stench of rotting mold and dry animal droppings was strong.

Clink!

Hearing the metallic sound, the man's senses went on high alert.

In a corner of the shed that received no sunlight, he could hear the faint, dangerous breathing. There was a leather collar around the boy's neck, which was red and raw from chaffing. He had rusty chains around both arms. Even with the slightest of movements, the chains made a sharp, distinct sound.

The boy was tied to the wall. He was a bird with two clipped wings, utterly helpless and constrained.

His wrists were raw and had festered, but he did not cry out in pain. There was no way of knowing whether he could even feel pain, or if his nerves had become dull from the constant shock.

The villagers treated him worse than they would a beast. They brought the boy food every three days, but he couldn't remember the last time he'd had a sip of water.

The boy who remembers nothing is named Khan.

His name had been Khan since a time he couldn't remember.

The villagers were certain Khan was a werewolf.

Every full moon, Khan remained in human form, but the villagers were still drowning in fear. Humans were cruel, and fear often desensitized the feeling of guilt.

"Water... water," Khan managed to say, his low and deep voice cracking.

When Khan lifted his weary eyes to find the man before him, he despaired. The burly man who'd taken the other villagers' money in exchange for being on food duty tonight ran a small butcher shop in the village.

The boy would have preferred the fruit seller or the girl from the dishware store. They would have at least placed the water close enough to his lips so he could drink it, even if they spilled most of it as they trembled in fear.

The butcher was already scanning the ground with his callous eyes to choose the weapon he'd use today. Things most people would refuse to do, the butcher didn't mind doing.

Lightning flashed across the night sky outside the broken window. It made no sound. Khan clenched his jaw as hard as he could. He bit down so hard that he could have broken a tooth when the butcher's swing came.

The blow came across his face, and he heard a cracking sound in his mouth. The pain was something Khan could endure. He knew this would make the butcher even more angry, but that's just how his body reacted. When Khan didn't make a peep, the butcher's excitement intensified.

"Wow, look what we have here! This is why you make me sick. If it hurts, you should scream. You should be on your knees begging for your life right now! You arrogant punk! Who do you think you are?! You filthy little... How dare you...!"

Even in the darkness, Khan's ash-grey hair glimmered in the faint moonlight.

Khan had never been treated with respect in his entire life, but even when he was gaunt from severe mistreatment, he was beautiful. It was as if that was the way he was meant to be. And every time the butcher noticed this, it made him even more aggressive.

The beating lasted quite a while. After this bout of pain, Khan could have his meal. He knew the water the butcher brought wouldn't be clean, but even the thought of murky water made his stomach grumble.

Khan longed to be human.

Everyone called him a monster, but he still wanted to be human.

Perhaps this thought made him feel defeated. His body suddenly grew tired. He could've held on longer, but his eyes closed on their own. Maybe if he fell asleep, he'd feel better.

"Oh my goodness. Honey, what should we do?" Johanna's hands were gathered in prayer, and she struggled to suppress her shock.

The scene inside the shed was terrifying. Simon, Johanna's husband, held his wife close. They couldn't believe what they were seeing.

The couple had stayed in the village for a short period during their travels, and were leaving early in the morning. They were good, kind people and had struggled to conceive a child of their own. They could not bear to witness any cruelty toward a child.

Slam! The butcher left the shed, slamming the door behind him. His breathing was heavy and he was sweating. He noticed the couple. He stared at the frozen couple for a moment, then spat out something nasty onto the ground.

"It's best you don't go this way. Something terrible lives here."

The couple stared at him fearfully. To them, Khan just looked like an ordinary boy. They couldn't think of any reason why a boy would be treated this way. They couldn't understand the villagers.

Khan's breathing was shallow and quiet. This life would continue for the boy. The couple believed that if they could stop his suffering, he would recover and become whomever he wanted to be.

Khan was slowly losing consciousness, as if he was sinking deeper and deeper into water.

"Child... child?"

At the faint, prayer-like voice, Khan's bowed neck flinched.

Johanna's eyes welled with tears when she saw the bruises around Khan's ribs. How could anyone treat a fellow human like this? Or was committing such cruelty possible because they were human?

Unable to discern what was going on, she grabbed her husband's hand. It was an attempt to subdue her fear and concern.

"Would you like to come with us...?"

It was the first time anyone had spoken to Khan so gently. Were humans capable of such warmth? He couldn't remember the last time he had felt such kindness. Tears welled in his eyes. Khan held multitudes of sorrow and pain within him.

Damn... He'd told himself that he'd never trust a human again.

Never...

"Yes, I will come..."

Never will I...

"Please take me with you."

...trust a human again...

"All right, child. Come."

Khan collapsed into her arms.

It was the first time he had felt the warmth of another person.

The day he escaped from the shed, Khan saw the bright dawn sun for the first time in a year. He stopped in his steps. He gazed up at the sky. He couldn't believe how beautiful it was, and the realization made him melancholy.

The dreaded night of the full moon was coming to an end.


* *

The Grey Inn was a tiny, shabby, two-story wooden building situated on the cusp of the Lilac Forest.

The inn could only be found by entering a small alley, unconnected to any major road, and walking all the way to the end. It was quite distant from the city center where Greyville's keepers lived, and thus difficult to find unless one was seeking it out.

The city of Greyville was built along the coastline, its economy beginning with transportation businesses and trade. It subsequently prospered through its iron and shipbuilding industries into a prototypical urban sprawl. As a city surrounded by ocean, many citizens were connected with the fishing industry, which produced all kinds of seafood. Its beautiful beaches were packed with tourists on a daily basis.

Greyville's factories ran all year round, and the city lights stayed on day and night. The city was always bustling, filled with active and busy people.

However, Khan's family lived in a residential area that can only be reached after traveling by car or train for thirty minutes through a hill overlooking the city's famous coastline. There, clusters of shabby old houses remained, forced out from urban redevelopment.

That's why there were no customers at this inn.

However, from early morning, Simon was busy, getting ready to go to the doctor's appointment with Johanna. Presently, he's been struggling for several minutes to get his twenty-year-old car started.

"Should I take a look at it for you?" Khan asked lightly as he walked by, but Simon shook his head, his face bright red.

"I know her better than you do. I've been with her a long time."

When the car finally started after a long struggle, Simon let out a sigh of relief. He wiped his brow with his handkerchief and smiled with embarrassment.

"I'll be back soon. If any guests come..."

"If guests come?" Khan asked back playfully. Simon laughed. They both knew.

And it was true. There were never any guests at the inn.

"Do you need anything? I can get it for you on our way back."

"I'm fine. I'm just... worried about mom's leg," Khan said carefully.

Simon ruffled Khan's hair. Johanna had been suffering from severe joint pain, and recently she had to spend most of her days sitting down. Not wanting to worry his son, Simon reassured him.

"It's what happens to everyone our age."

The couple knew that alone time was precious for a boy of Khan's age, but the small old inn lacked the financial margins to hire helpers.

They were just so proud of, and grateful for, their son, who eagerly helped them around the place.

Simon affectionately ruffled his son's ash-grey hair once more. He was surprised at how high he had to stretch his arm up to reach Khan's head. He wasn't a short man, after all. But then again, he tried to conceal his surprise.

It was a stormy, full-moon night then. Six years had already passed since they ran from the village with Khan, and three years had passed since they settled in Greyville.

Within that time, the boy who had been lost in the dark regained his sunny smile under their care. Khan became the precious child of an ordinary old couple. They loved him, and he grew up healthy.

That Khan grew up differently than other kids was not an issue for the couple, but they had to move around frequently to avoid the gaze of others. When people noticed certain things about Khan, rumors always followed and his school life became rough.

That's why Simon liked Greyville.

There was just the right amount of families here that made it not too quiet but not too crowded either, and the houses were separated quite a bit from each other. And, with accelerated industrialization and urban development, the city had reached a certain size such that there was no small-town vibe where everybody knew each other's business. That's why the couple and Khan settled here.

"Drive safe. And actually..." When Khan trailed off, Simon searched his son's eyes.

"Actually?"

"I would like some chocolate from Anders' store."

"Haha. Sure. I'll get you some."

At some point, Khan realized that he couldn't taste anything unless it was something very strong.

But he wasn't going to tell his parents that. His parents never showed it, but he knew their hands were full already. That was enough to worry him.

After seeing his parents off, Khan returned to the kitchen and opened the small window. In the distance, Lilac Forest looked like a maze of thick, green foliage under the expansive blue sky.

Khan was the only person in Greyville who knew the vast, beautiful forest well.

Last summer, he found a lost puppy belonging to Mika, the granddaughter of the Raon shop owner. And the summer before that, he found the elderly owner of the laundromat who suffered from dementia in under an hour.

If he couldn't see the entrance to Lilac Forest, it meant that summer was beginning. That meant Khan would be quite busy for a season.

Khan opened the cabinet under the kitchenette and lifted the hefty box with ease. He lifted it effortlessly, as if it were a feather or cotton candy. Nobody would be able to tell the box was full of produce.

Khan skillfully picked out the moldy fruits and vegetables. Their inn didn't have a lot of visitors so they didn't keep a lot of food on hand, but given that Greyville was a hot and humid city, food spoiled very quickly.

Khan sometimes even forgot that his family ran an inn.

Bang!

Khan doubted his ears for a moment, which perked up instinctively.

Someone was there. It sounded like there were a few people, all quite large and burly.

Bang, bang, bang!

After the second time, Khan lowered himself and looked out towards the front door below.

Khan paid close attention to what his senses detected; his senses which were extraordinarily sensitive compared to others. It was quiet, but he definitely heard men talking, and he got a whiff of an unfamiliar, but intriguing scent.

They didn't smell like anyone he'd met around here.

There are never any customers at Grey Inn.

But...

Bang, bang!

To Khan's surprise, customers appeared.

Original story: HYBE
Co-planning: HYBE / NAVER WEBTOON