A long time has passed ever since they kidnapped me. I curse the day I choose to leave my home. Truly, that day changed my life forever. Like many, I have wondered: what comes after death? I think I know the answer.
— N°73
Black Tears is an 8 page one-shot published by Mexican author Blackened Krono. It was sent to a one-shot contest hosted by anime review magazine Conexión Manga and chosen as the winner for issue 258 in September 2012.
The short story is about a nameless protagonist, kidnapped by a mysterious organization for its experiments. Our character, named N°73 by one of the doctors, soon discovers that they captured more children to turn them all into what the scientists feared the most: the darkness. N°73, finding out their reason for turning them into monsters, decides to kill them all, and falls to the darkness.
The work hasn't been rereleased nor ever translated to English. You can find the author here
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Tropes present in this short story:
- Body Horror: N°73 and many other youngsters were kidnapped and experimented upon to become chimera-like creatures based on the darkness the scientists were afraid of the most. 73 has crab-like legs for hands, and a bat-like wing skeleton coming out of his back, and his entire body is surrounded by eyes. 73 remarks he can't even feel his heart anymore.
- Book Ends: The story starts and ends with the same words, "I curse the day I choose to leave my home".
- Downer Ending: The story ends with 73 killing his kidnappers, but in the process, the darkness covered everything in a matter of minutes, ending his existence too.
- Death of Personality: The ending is vague, with 73 saying the darkness consumed everything including himself. It is implied 73 lost his personality, becoming the darkness— an animalistic monster.
- Eldritch Abomination: The demonic presence the scientists called "the darkness", a being they all feared.
- Mad Scientist: The scientists that captured N°73 have kidnapped countless children (if our protagonist number means anything, almost a hundred) and turned them all into monsters, all with the purpose of creating what they fear more: the darkness. They are stereotypical one-note madmen, with them having spiral glasses, and we don't know how or why they got funded for their research, or why they even decided to give a body to an entity they fear.
- Nameless Narrative: No character is named in the story. Our nameless protagonist is named N°73 by one of the scientists.
- Shout-Out: What little we know of the entity the scientists feared, it's called "the darkness" or "the dark" by them. That's the same name for The Darkness, an antihero with ancient demonic powers.
- Was Once a Man: All the kidnapped children and 73 used to be human. Not anymore, with them becoming creatures of the night.
