The world was colder than Kairen remembered.
Colder, and far less kind.
He walked through the ruins of the forest village, barefoot, his clothes soaked in blood — not all of it his own.
The night winds howled through the shattered trees like the cries of the dead.
He heard them all:
His father's last gurgling breath.
His mother's choked sobs.
His sister's tiny, broken voice.
Kairen kept walking.
Because if he stopped — if he let the memories catch him — he would never move again.
---
The nearby town glowed with warm lights.
Safety, maybe.
People.
Hope.
He stumbled toward it, clutching his side where cracked ribs stabbed with every breath.
Someone will help me, he thought desperately. Someone will see... someone will care...
But as he staggered through the town gates, all he found were eyes.
Cold.
Judging.
A child cried at the sight of him — this broken, blood-soaked boy — and his mother pulled him away sharply.
Whispers filled the air.
> "Thief, probably."
"No, look at him. He's cursed."
"Get away from here before he brings trouble."
A guard approached, sneering.
"Move along, beggar," he barked. "We don't need your kind here."
Kairen tried to speak, to explain, but the words died on his tongue.
There was no explaining.
There was no mercy.
The guard shoved him back into the dirt without hesitation.
Kairen lay there, tasting dust and blood, as the gates slammed shut behind him.
Alone again.
Discarded again.
---
He crawled to the edge of the road and curled up beneath a dying tree.
The stars above stared down in their frozen indifference.
He was shaking.
From cold.
From grief.
From rage.
Tears burned in his eyes, but he swallowed them down.
There's no point in crying anymore.
The world didn't care.
No one cared.
They had left him to rot.
---
And then — in the deepest pit of his despair — he heard it.
A whisper.
So soft he thought it was the wind at first.
> "Poor little broken thing."
Kairen stiffened, glancing around.
No one.
Only shadows.
> "Alone... unloved... unwanted..."
"But not useless."
"No, no. Not useless at all."
He clutched his head, heart pounding.
I'm losing it.
> "They discarded you like garbage."
"They killed your family."
"And still you crawl like a worm?"
"Pathetic."
Kairen clenched his fists until his nails bit into his palms.
"Shut up," he whispered hoarsely.
> "You don't have to stay weak."
"Let me in."
"Let me show you how to make them all suffer."
The voice wasn't outside.
It was inside.
Deep inside his chest, where the black hole of grief and rage had swallowed everything else.
> "You were meant for more, Kairen."
"You are not the victim."
"You are the reaper."
Kairen squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his forehead into the cold dirt.
He didn't want to listen.
But something deep inside — something savage — stirred in answer.
A slow, burning hunger.
Not just for survival.
For revenge.
---
Hours passed.
Or maybe only minutes.
Time no longer mattered.
When Kairen finally lifted his head, something was different.
The boy who had stumbled into the town was dead.
In his place crouched something quieter.
Harder.
Colder.
His heart still bled.
But now the pain had a shape.
It had a name.
Devil
Kairen rose to his feet, wiping the blood from his cracked lips.
In the distance, the fires of the town flickered against the night sky — so warm, so untouchable.
One day, he promised himself, they would all feel what he had felt.
One day, their gates would not save them