Oz: Pandora Heart

A chime, clear and cold as a winter bell, sliced through the void. A door of wrought iron and stained glass appeared, and through it stepped a girl. She was small, with short, dark hair that barely moved in the soulless air, and eyes the color of a stormy sea. In her hands, she held a giant, golden scythe.

The chime was a discordant scream of metal, a sound that vibrated in his bones. The air split open, not with fire, but with a thousand red roses—thorns, petals, and all—exploding from the gilded seams of reality. From the rift, crimson hands, long and spindly as a spider’s legs, reached out and seized him. The nobles screamed. His father did not. His father only watched, a strange, terrible relief in his eyes. pandora heart oz

“Oz?” Gil’s voice cracked. “It’s been… ten years.” Alice was a Chain, a monstrous being from the Abyss, but she was also a broken thing. She had no memories. Her only clue was the name “Oz Vessalius” whispered by the very Abyss that had imprisoned him. Their contract was not one of power, but of mutual hunger. Oz would help her find her lost memories, scattered like glass shards across the world. In return, her power—the reality-warping might of the B-Rabbit—would be his chain to swing. A chime, clear and cold as a winter

And all the King’s horses and all the King’s men, Couldn’t put Humpty together again. But a boy with no name, a doll with no heart, Found the shell in the dark, and he mended the part. He wound up the key, he set the gears right, And gave the egg a new soul, a beautiful, terrible light. In her hands, she held a giant, golden scythe

“You poor, stupid children,” it gurgled. “You think you’re searching for the past? You’re walking straight into the Tragedy of Sablier . The one who turns the gears… is the one who was never meant to be.”

But chains cut both ways.

“Maybe I was never meant to exist,” he said, his voice steady. “But I’m here. And I’m not a key. I’m not a doll. I’m Oz. And I’ll decide my own ending.”