MBOMEN 01

Episode 1. What Must Not Be Seen (1)
2023.12.01.

The earliest memory Laila Chrisrad held was the bitter scent lingering in the cradle.

Lying in the cradle was none other than Laila herself, a newborn. She had seen the light of the world for less than a week, and breathing on her own was extremely difficult. The unknown smells and the unpredictable air touching her skin were unbearable.

Wrapped in a coarse — probably low-quality hemp — swaddling cloth, Laila was lifted by her mother. When she brought her face close, Laila could smell the bitter scent emanating from her. Her mother was exhausted and struggled to breathe as much as Laila did.

“You have different eyes than mine,”
her mother said to her.

“Don’t look at them. Don’t listen to them, and don’t wave your hand to them. Let them wail as they pass by. My daughter, your name is Laila. And just as my mother, her mother, and all witches before us did, you also carry the name Chrisrad.”

Then she laid Laila back in the cradle and sat down with a creak in the chair, sighing deeply. She had given birth to Laila there, and would remain seated there even at the moment of her death.

Sometimes she wept, sometimes groaned as she looked at Laila in the cradle.

For a long time, Laila thought it was a dream, but at some point she realized it wasn’t. It was Laila’s memory, the first mother she met. A small and complete world.

Laila Chrisrad, daughter of a witch. That was the name she answered to.

The village of Ridgicus was located at the northern edge of the kingdom of Searow. Most people here lived by tending sheep or goats, and during autumn or winter, they did lumber work. When the weather grew cloudy or cold, from the valleys to the peaks, the entire mountain range of Logas turned a dull gray, and people lived simple lives beneath it.

Laila Chrisrad’s life was the most monotonous and humble even among the plain and sparse Ridgicus village. Her house stood alone at the entrance to the Logas mountains, so old that no one knew when it was built. From afar, it looked like a dilapidated abandoned house, and sometimes Laila herself wondered how it hadn’t collapsed yet.

Whatever the reason, it was a relief. For Laila, who couldn’t easily go down to the village when she needed something, a roof standing firm against wind and storms was, to exaggerate slightly, a blessing.

“Hmph, what a blessing,” Laila muttered bitterly as she looked up at the worn roofboards with a basket tucked under her arm.

Meanwhile, children in Ridgicus grew up hearing warnings from the moment they could walk and run: “Don’t go near the entrance to the Logas mountains.” If a child stubbornly asked why not, their parents didn’t hit them with a stick but said:

“There lives a witch there. If you go close, she’ll kill you quietly without anyone knowing and put you in a cauldron. Otherwise, she’ll take your pretty eyes and replace them with sharp stones.”

Their words were half truth, half lies. Laila was the daughter of a witch—and a witch herself—but she had no desire or intention to boil children in cauldrons or gouge out their eyes.

Still, since she liked quiet, she never felt the need to correct the rumors. Laila’s monotonous and humble life had mostly been peaceful and comfortable.

Until some problem arose around her recently.

“More again… Two more than yesterday,”

Laila muttered to herself while climbing the mountain to pick mushrooms. Her head was unnaturally stiff for someone climbing a steep path, and her gaze was stubbornly fixed straight ahead as if someone were pulling it with a string.

“You must not look. Not at that… You must not look.”

Laila’s breathing grew slightly rough. As she grabbed a protruding branch and pulled herself upward, a group of children sitting clustered on a nearby rock all turned their heads simultaneously toward her movement.

The children, regardless of gender, wore ordinary clothes, and ranged in age from toddlers around three to mischievous kids about twelve.

But one thing…

In place of their eyes, there was nothing. How to describe it? It was as if scooped clean with a spoon. Yes, completely empty.

“Don’t look at me.”

Laila felt the fine hairs on her body stand on end and desperately thought,

“But you can’t see anything anyway, right? Don’t look. Please don’t look at me.”

She strained her neck to avoid looking at them. When she finally reached the relatively flat edge of the forest after climbing the steep path, she suddenly felt a chill down her spine. The hand holding her basket tightened.

The ghost of a boy without eyes was following her.

That boy was one of the few children whose name Laila knew: Tommy, the eleven-year-old biggest troublemaker in Ridgicus village, who always led other kids around.

Laila took a breath and started walking steadily. The boy silently glided closer to match her pace. Pretending to check mushrooms while squatting under a tree, Laila gritted her teeth when she saw him a bit closer than before.

“Damn… stuck to me.”

She hadn’t looked at them. Or had she? Had she been paying too much attention? Why was he following her? Why!

“Calm down.”

Laila breathed slowly, talking to herself. The gloomy, gray translucent boy persistently clung to a corner of her vision. She tried desperately not to turn her head toward him, turning away and walking.

“Stay calm. Don’t panic.”

Her pace quickened, but whenever she glanced back, the boy was still there. Like a boiled egg with only the yolk removed, only the eyes were cleanly gone, and he followed her relentlessly with a blank expression.

“Damn it! How far are you going to follow me?”

Unable to bear it, Laila suddenly shouted and threw down her basket, then started running. Her footsteps quickened, and a hiss like a snake filled her ears.

—Laila…

“Shut up, Tommy! Don’t call me!”

Laila screamed, but the voice continued. No matter how much she covered her ears, it didn’t stop—in her head, in her ears…

—Laila…

“Ah!”

Laila’s body stumbled backward on the slippery leaf litter. She kicked off her half-removed shoe, barely regaining her balance. But when she looked back, she gasped and bit her tongue at the two holes that were right in front of her.

—Got you.

The boy who met Laila’s gaze—though he had no eyes to look with, at least that’s how she felt—smiled broadly.

“…Go away, Tommy.”

Laila stepped back, gritting her teeth, whispering. She wanted to swing something at him but had nothing in her hands since she’d thrown down her basket. As she clenched her empty fists and shook her head, Tommy’s ghost came closer, still smiling and even seeming happier than before.

“Tommy, I said go away. Go play with your friends. Sit on a rock and get some air, or just disappear somewhere. Damn it, Tommy!”

Please don’t come closer.

Please.

Her lower lip began to tremble, then her jaw. The chattering of her teeth echoed, but Laila was so terrified she didn’t realize the sound was coming from herself. The boy now laughed so widely that his mouth looked like it could stretch to his ears.

“Tommy!”

At that moment, something crawled out of the empty eye sockets of the boy.

What was it? A snake? A centipede? Or something else? It moved like it wrapped once around the boy’s grayish face and then shot straight at Laila like an arrow.

“No!”

Laila screamed and reflexively raised her arms to cover her face. Then—

Suddenly, a grating sound pierced her ears, as if a blade was being dragged across a stone slab. Lowering her arms and looking ahead, Laila trembled and opened her mouth in disbelief.

—Screech… Kick…!

Tommy—or rather, the boy who once was Tommy—was twisting grotesquely. His joints bent in impossible directions, and the long thing that had crawled out of his eyes writhed like it was burning.

Laila watched the horrific sight in a trance. The boy’s body twisted more and more, shrinking until it looked like a roughly shaped lump of plaster. What had once been his shoulder bulged out like a strange tumor before popping loudly.

“Oh my god, what is this…?”

Backing away while stammering, Laila bumped into something. Thinking it was a tree, she hurriedly turned her head up. It wasn’t a tree. But it wasn’t a ghost either.

It was a strange man. Very tall, with long almost white hair tied in a single ponytail. The most distinctive feature was the monocle on his right eye.

“Finally found you.”

The man said, gently grabbing Laila’s shoulder with a large hand. Laila, dumbfounded, parted her lips, and the man, slightly bowing his head, stared intently into her eyes.

“Yes… You really do have eyes different from mine.”

At that moment, the voice of the mother, long thought to be faint and gone, brushed through Laila’s mind.

—You have different eyes than mine.

Laila blinked slowly. Her pupils were red like pomegranate seeds. The man examined them as if they were rare jewels, then suddenly spun Laila’s body around.

Laila’s eyes widened as if they would pop out.

Tommy was gone. Instead, all twelve children who had been gathered on the rock were there.