Lucas "Luka" Carter never wanted to be special. At 18, he carried the weight of a life he hadn't chosen, trapped between constant fear and a safety that felt more like a curse than a virtue. Born in a forgotten little town in the American Midwest, Luka grew up under the simple roof of a single-story house, where the biggest danger was the drunk neighbor yelling on Saturday nights. His mother, a woman with calloused hands and tired eyes, worked as a supermarket cashier, earning just enough to keep them alive but never enough to dream of anything more. Luka was the typical average kid: medium height, brown hair falling in messy strands over his forehead, and brown eyes always searching for an escape. He wasn't strong, he wasn't brave, but he wasn't cruel either. He was just… Luka.
In American school, he perfected the art of disappearing. He faked stomachaches to skip gym class, invented excuses to avoid the bullies who stole lunch money from the younger kids. But even though he was an admitted coward, Luka had something he couldn't avoid: a heart that bled for others. When a classmate cried over a bad grade, it was Luka who offered a shoulder and an extra pencil. When someone forgot their lunch, it was Luka who split the mumbled sandwich his mom made. He didn't want to be that way—helping others only brought trouble—but he didn't know how to be different.
Everything changed two years ago, when he was 16. His mother, exhausted from a life of scraps in the U.S., saw a golden opportunity: a job as an assistant in a clothing store in Tokyo, offered by a distant friend who swore Japan was "the future." Luka hated the idea from the start. Leave a small town where he knew every corner, every hiding spot, to go to a country on the other side of the world? He spent nights awake, his stomach churning, imagining earthquakes, crowds, and—worst of all—having to speak a language he barely understood. But his mother didn't give him a choice. "You'll study Medicine there," she declared, her eyes shining with a determination Luka never had. "You'll be a doctor, you'll have a future I could never give you." He wanted to protest, to say he hated blood, that he fainted at the sight of a syringe, but her look silenced him. So, with a backpack full of old clothes and his heart in his throat, Luka was dragged to Japan.
The move was a nightmare. The 14-hour flight left his legs numb and his head fuzzy, clutching the armrest with every turbulence, certain he'd die. Arriving in Tokyo, Ward 20 greeted them with narrow streets, clustered buildings, and a silence Luka found fake, as if the city were holding its breath. The house his mother secured—a two-story place with three bedrooms and two bathrooms—was better than he expected, but it still felt alien, with creaking walls and a musty smell that never went away. The living room, next to the kitchen, became his mother's territory, with a worn-out sofa and a TV that picked up more static than channels. Luka claimed the attic as his refuge, filling it with medical books, scribbled notebooks, and boxes of bandages he'd grabbed from internships, as if they could protect him from something he couldn't even name.
Two years later, at 18, Luka was in his first year of Medicine at Kamii University, pushed by his mother to follow a path he despised. He'd advanced topics out of sheer desperation—not wanting to repeat a year and face her disappointment—and now, with decent grades and an effort that left him drained, he'd earned permission to intern as an assistant in local hospitals. Not that he liked it. He spent shifts carrying charts, cleaning operating tables, and averting his eyes whenever blood dripped from a patient. But it was a job, and it kept his mother quiet, so he swallowed his fear and pressed on.
### Daily Life in Ward 20
It was a Saturday morning, the gray sky drizzling a fine mist that fogged the house's windows. Luka woke early, as always, his alarm blaring at 6:30 a.m. He groaned, rolling over in the narrow bed on the second floor, the mattress sagging under his weight. The faint smell of weak coffee wafted up from the kitchen—his mother was already up, preparing something before rushing to her shift at the store. Luka rubbed his eyes, his messy hair falling over his face, and dragged himself out of bed. He threw on worn jeans and a gray T-shirt, the uniform of someone who didn't want to be noticed, and trudged downstairs, the cold handrail under his fingers.
In the kitchen, his mother stood with her back to him, cutting an apple with a dull knife. "You going to your internship today?" she asked without turning, her voice hoarse from sneaking cigarettes on work breaks.
"Yeah," Luka mumbled, grabbing a cup of coffee that was already lukewarm. "Afternoon shift. Just gonna study a bit first."
She nodded, the sound of the knife against the cutting board filling the silence. "Don't forget to lock everything when you leave. I heard neighbors talking about break-ins around here."
Luka swallowed hard, the coffee burning his throat. "Okay," he replied, already picturing burglars climbing through the attic window while he was gone.
After his mother left, he grabbed the newspaper she'd left on the kitchen counter. It was a habit he'd picked up in Japan—reading the headlines, even if half the kanji still mystified him. That day's front page blared big red letters: "Another Missing Person in Ward 20: Police Investigate Possible Attacks." Luka frowned, skimming the text. It mentioned a 30-year-old man found dead in an alley a few blocks away, his body "mutilated in a grotesque manner." The police suspected a wild animal or a "deranged criminal," but rumors among residents pointed to something else: ghouls. Luka snorted, tossing the paper aside. "Ghouls? Seriously? That's manga stuff, not real life," he thought, shaking his head. He'd heard the rumors at school and the hospital—tales of flesh-eating monsters lurking at night—but to him, it was just bored or crazy people talking. The world was bad enough without inventing nightmare creatures.
With the coffee gone, Luka climbed to the attic, the only place where he could breathe. The pull-down ladder creaked under his feet, and the smell of dust hit him as he opened the hatch. The space was organized chaos: anatomy books stacked on a wobbly table, notebooks full of crooked notes, an open box of gloves next to a stethoscope he never used right. The light from a single bulb swayed, casting shadows on the slanted walls. He flopped into an old chair, opening a book on cranial trauma—required reading for the internship—but his eyes wandered, his brain fighting boredom and the constant fear of failing.
Outside, the drizzle turned to rain, drumming the roof in a rhythm that made him edgy. He focused, scribbling a note about skull fractures, but a noise made him freeze. A snap, from the backyard. Luka swallowed slowly, his heart racing, and peeked through the attic's dusty window. The yard was empty, just wet grass and a broken fence, but he swore he saw a shadow move near the crooked tree. "It's just the wind," he muttered to himself, his voice shaky. "Or a cat. Cats make noise, right?" He returned to the chair, but the book lay forgotten on the table, his fingers gripping the pen too hard.
By noon, Luka decided to eat before heading to the hospital. He went downstairs, grabbing stale bread and a leftover chunk of cheese from the fridge. He sat on the living room sofa, the TV on a news channel he barely understood. The anchor talked about another case, a woman missing near the train station. "Authorities urge residents to exercise caution," she said, as blurry images of a dark alley flashed on screen. Luka chewed slowly, the dry bread scratching his throat. "They should lock up these crazies already," he grumbled, turning off the TV. Ghouls? No. To him, it was just another day in a world full of bad people, and he didn't need imaginary monsters to feel scared.
After washing the dishes—because his mom freaked out if he left the sink full—Luka grabbed a backpack, tossing in a notebook, a water bottle, and his internship badge. He checked the house's locks three times, a habit of someone who never felt safe, and opened the front door. The rain had stopped, but the air was heavy, the smell of wet earth mixing with something he couldn't place. He took a deep breath, adjusting the backpack on his shoulders, and started walking to the hospital, eyes glued to the ground to avoid any odd stares on the street.
That's when he heard footsteps behind him.
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