1 Prologue

I work as a matchmaker.

Ever since I was a child, I can see strings, strings that connect us to other people. Strings can take a variety of colors and can change at any time, depending on your feelings towards other people.

When you like a person and they become your friends, the string that connects you both is white. When you start to feel dislike, irritated, annoyed, betrayed, jealous, envy, lust, hurt or other negative emotions, the color starts to change. From white, it eventually converts its color to black. In other words, strings change their colors because what you feel for others changes.

You might be asking, red strings are for the one true love, right?

The right term for it is 'fated partner' or 'predestined partner' but can never be called 'one true love'. People's hearts can change you know. Red can turn into black. Just like how a couple who loves each other, but after a few years, can loathe each other.

But the red string of fate, the one that connects in your pinky, is not the only red string we have. There can be 3 or more connected in your heart to other people. I call them 'fleeting love'. A person you fell in love but never ended up with.

This ability has been passed on to my family for generations. Most of my female ancestors don't have a fated partner, so they end up growing old alone. But all of them have someone they love. And they always die. Always. I remember my Aunt, who possesses the same ability as me said.

" You'd rather wish you didn't fall in love with someone, Alice. It will only kill you... To watch that person die in front of you... Believe me I know. "

I believe her. I fell in love. And he died. That's why I swear I will never love someone again. An ability we have. A great responsibility we bear. And a curse to live with. I never asked for this.

My name is Alice Jade Martinez. I'm 18. And this is my story.

______________________________

I handle my father's dirty business in the back.

I was borne and raised like a machine. Kill and decide when will a person take their final breath. I received orders to assassinate and I do it. I was not raised to ask questions.

Blood, carnage, broken limbs and dismantled bodies became my home. When people get addicted to inhaling drugs, I get intoxicated seeing the life seeps out from my target's eyes. There is always a hidden beauty, a raw treasure uncovered when ruining people's faces, dismantling and disfiguring them that makes my heart race.

As a child, I know my artworks scare everyone. Only father see the beauty of blood. And appreciate me mass killing his servants. I was twelve when I started. I was twelve when he trained me. I was adopted but he treated me like I'm his real son.

At his orders, I take down all his rivals. Make the killings more inclined to suicide. One after another. Blood is a beautiful ink that colors my world. Emotion is a foreign being I never possessed.

I know what they all say about me. I know what people think about me. This boy is not human, I heard them say. Because I lack the basic emotions that define and separate us from other species.

Maybe they are right. Maybe I am not human after all. There is a bottomless pit inside me that is so hollow it's sucking me dry. Nothing can fill in the gap. Nothing can shed a light to this numbing darkness. Nothing can give me pleasure…except my artworks of disembodied bodies.

My name is Keith Sky Sinclair. I'm 17. And this is my story.

___________________________________________

Where does a story truly begin?

Is it when you meet your fateful encounter? Or when the love you sought for years, finally became mutual? Or that moment when the past broke your heart and the future came along to mend it? Or when you're special someone asks your hand in marriage?

Or maybe it can start at...

When you realize, the person you love the most already belongs to someone else? Or when the love you thought will last forever, is just an illusion you put up because of your expectations. Or when that pretentious miracle of someone, coming along your way, promising to fix your heart with his love, only to tear it apart, leaving you all alone, and much broken than before. Or worse, the person that took your heart and became your everything, doesn't belong in this world anymore. And no matter what you do, and where you go, his presence is everywhere. Torturing you with his memories, his traces that felt so real, and the state of loss he left.

You may think these circumstances are the climax or the end of your life. But it's just the beginning. Of a new chapter, of a new journey. With each episode controlled by an unknown invisible force called 'fate'.

And this story is one of those circumstances led by fate. Two people, connected by a bond called 'red string of fate' where one end lost its destination and was bent out of shape again and again. Another end became all twisted and stuck, unable to entangle. But no matter how much this 'bond' is stretched, tested, contorted, and pulled beyond limits, it never breaks. Even in death.

This story is about a matchmaker who can't fall in love and a killer who can't feel anything.