I Possess the SSS Skill: Future Sight-Chapter 9: The Orphanage (1)

- Kyle Valtier’s POV -

Raindrops struck the window of my dilapidated apartment like angry fingers demanding entry.

I sat in the darkness, my back pressed against the damp wall, the faint blue glow from my cracked phone screen casting distorted shadows across my face.

My finger slid across the screen as I read the bold headlines flooding the underground news networks and dark web forums of Elysium.

[Shocking Leak: Underground Laboratory Discovered in Sector G! Are the Syndicates Turning Humans into Mechanical Monsters?]

[Arcane Intelligence Concealing the Number of Missing People from Lower Classes and Orphanages!]

[Leaked Photos: Mutated Corpses and Corrupted Eitra Tubes... Who Is "The Doctor"?]

My fingers stopped scrolling.

I stared at the images attached to the articles. Blurry, secretly taken pictures of massive glass tubes containing human bodies floating in thick yellow fluids, grotesquely distorted with wires and bones that did not belong to them.

A sharp pulse throbbed in my lower abdomen, where the scar from the sniper’s bullet had been sealed by the energy of the Purple Ghoul Core.

The monstrous Eitra fused into my blood began to boil in response to my emotions.

Those images... those words... "human experiments," "orphanages," "transformation."

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to suppress the nausea twisting in my stomach.

The air in my room suddenly became heavy, saturated with an old, disgusting smell.

It wasn’t the usual moldy odor of my apartment.

It was the sharp scent of chemical disinfectants mixed with a faint metallic smell... like rust.

Or old blood.

"These reports..." I muttered hoarsely as memories clawed at the walls of my mind—walls I had spent years building.

"They remind me of things... things I buried under ashes."

The news wasn’t talking about new crimes.

For me, it was talking about ghosts from the past.

Ghosts that used to visit me in nightmares... but now I was seeing them on the front pages.

My phone slipped from my hand onto the wooden floor.

I rested my head against my knees and surrendered to the darkness as it dragged my consciousness toward the abyss of distant memories.

To a time when I wasn’t the Black Joker.

When I wasn’t a G-rank hunter.

To a time when I was just a child...

Waiting for his turn in the slaughterhouse.

...

...

...

(Nineteen Years Earlier — "Dawn’s Hope" Orphanage, Lower Sector)

Somewhere far from the glass skyscrapers and dazzling neon lights of Elysium stood a grim gray concrete building surrounded by rusted iron fences.

It was known as Dawn’s Hope Orphanage.

A name so ironic it would make demons laugh.

Inside, it was a maze of cold corridors lit by buzzing fluorescent lamps that cast a pale, sickly glow on walls painted a faded yellow, peeling like dead skin.

In the large dining hall—filled with the smell of watery oatmeal soup and cheap floor disinfectant—sat a four-year-old boy on a tall wooden chair.

He had jet-black hair, messy and untamed.

But what truly distinguished him—and what made many of the orphanage caretakers avoid looking at him directly—were his eyes.

They were a deep crimson.

Not reddish-brown.

But a pure blood-red, like a ruby dipped in fresh blood.

The child’s name was Kyle. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

He had no surname.

He had been found wrapped in a ragged blanket on the orphanage doorstep during a stormy night.

Beside him sat a young caretaker named Kayla.

She was twenty-seven years old, with warm chestnut hair usually tied in a simple bun behind her head, and a face marked with deep exhaustion hidden behind a gentle, motherly smile.

Kayla wasn’t just an employee in that desolate place.

She was the emotional lifeline for those abandoned children.

She watched Kyle eat with gentle attention.

Her eyes overflowed with tenderness mixed with hidden sadness as she looked at his crimson eyes fixed innocently on the bowl of soup.

"Eat well, little one," Kayla whispered softly, her voice smooth like silk as she gently ran her hand through his messy black hair.

"You have to grow big and strong.

When you grow up, you’ll be able to leave these cold walls.

You’ll be free. You’ll see the real sky... the stars... not this gloomy gray ceiling."

Kyle nodded eagerly with childish enthusiasm, trying to eat faster.

But his large wooden spoon slipped from his small hand, spilling some of the sticky oatmeal soup onto his worn cotton shirt.

Kayla sighed with a warm smile, though a subtle tremor ran through her fingers.

"Oh my, Kyle! You have to focus while eating. Didn’t we agree you’d be a neat and grown-up boy?"

She pulled a cloth napkin from the pocket of her apron and leaned down to carefully wipe his mouth and shirt.

If an observant adult had watched closely, they would have noticed that Kayla’s excessive attention to cleaning him wasn’t just about hygiene.

It was a desperate attempt to keep him perfect—tidy and flawless.

As if she feared he might be punished for the smallest mistake.

She smiled at him, but her eyes held suppressed terror.

A terror a four-year-old child could never understand.

To them, life seemed "normal" for children who had never known another world.

Playing in the enclosed courtyard.

Eating calorie-controlled meals.

Sleeping in shared dormitories.

After breakfast, it was time for their scheduled play period.

Kyle sat in the corner of a warm room on a worn-out rug.

Three other children about his age sat beside him.

They were his companions—his chosen family in that lonely place.

The first was Victor.

A boy with bright blond hair like strands of sunlight and blue eyes as clear as the sky.

Victor was full of energy, always smiling—the little leader of the group.

The second was Edgar.

A very quiet boy with short black hair and wide brown eyes full of curiosity.

Edgar was the smartest among them. He loved taking apart broken wooden toys and trying to rebuild them.

The third was Serin.

A fragile girl their age with soft silver hair that fell over her small shoulders and pale blue eyes leaning toward gray, like frozen lakes.

Serin was extremely shy and always clung to the sleeve of Kyle’s or Victor’s shirt.

The four played with worn wooden blocks until they were exhausted.

They lay on the rug, breathing heavily after a burst of innocent laughter.

Victor spoke, his blue eyes shining with excitement.

"Did you hear? Yesterday was a magical day! Three children were adopted all at once!"

Edgar’s brown eyes widened with childish shock.

"Three?! That’s unbelievable! Kayla said luck rarely smiles on more than one child a month."

Serin spoke in her soft, quiet voice.

"Yes... I saw them leave.

They took Oliver, Lily, and Thomas.

They wore beautiful new clothes.

Miss Grace said they were going to heaven outside."

Kyle listened carefully, his crimson eyes shining as a wide smile spread across his face.

"Heaven... Kayla told me the outside is beautiful too.

I hope we all get adopted together.

Or maybe one family will take all of us so we’ll never be separated."

To them, adoption was the holy grail.

It meant escape from watery soup, cold corridors, and hard beds.

It meant family, warmth, and new toys.

They didn’t know that the word "adoption" in the dictionary of this orphanage carried a meaning far more horrifying than their small minds could imagine.

When night fell, the lights in the children’s dormitory were turned off.

The room held dozens of small iron beds, but Kyle, Victor, Edgar, and Serin always dragged their thin mattresses together and slept side by side on the floor, drawing warmth and comfort from one another.

That night, everyone sank into deep sleep.

Everyone except Kyle.

The air was terribly cold, and the silence was suffocating.

Suddenly, Kyle heard a sound.

A very faint sound—like metal hinges that desperately needed oil.

It was the heavy wooden dormitory door opening slowly and quietly.

Kyle moved slightly, rubbing his crimson eyes as he forced them open in the pitch darkness.

He blinked several times to chase away the sleep.

At the end of the room, near the door...

A shadow stood there.

"Kayla...?" Kyle whispered in a sleepy child’s voice.

It was indeed Kayla.

But she didn’t look like the kind caretaker he knew.

In the pale moonlight filtering through the high window, Kayla looked terrified beyond description.

She was breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling rapidly.

Her face was drenched in sweat, and her eyes darted around the dormitory as if she were searching for something...

Or perhaps guarding something from an unseen danger outside.