The town slept.
The streets lay empty beneath a sky thick with restless clouds, the moon hidden behind shifting shadows. Houses stood silent, their windows dark, their doors locked tight. Safe. Secure.
Protected from things they did not know existed.
Ozion walked unseen among them.
His feet barely whispered against the pavement, his breath dissolving into the cold night air. No one stirred. No one peeked through their curtains. Even the stray dogs kept their distance.
They never saw him.
Not when he was a child—too quiet, too alone.
Not when he was a boy—too weak, too unwanted.
Not now—when he was something else entirely.
He stopped beneath a flickering streetlight, lifting his gaze toward the sky. The wind stirred, curling around him, carrying whispers he didn't speak aloud.
Seventeen years.
Seventeen years since his mother held his hand. Since her voice, rough with exhaustion but warm, told him stories of gods and demons. Since she whispered the same words, again and again, as if they were the only thing that mattered.
"Never die. Stay alive."
Ozion's jaw clenched. The memories had sharp edges, cutting him open before sinking back into the dark. He had no past, no name beyond the one she had given him. No father, no history, just the vague knowledge that someone—somewhere—had abandoned them both.
But that wasn't what kept him awake at night.
It was the other thing. The thing inside him. The one that stirred beneath his skin, waiting, watching, growing stronger with each breath.
His fingers twitched at his side.
The streetlight above him flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then died.
Darkness swallowed the street. The night grew heavier, as if something vast had shifted beneath it, something no one else could feel.
But Ozion felt it.
His shadow stretched unnaturally long behind him, curling at the edges, flickering as though it had a mind of its own. The air trembled—not wind, not movement, but something deeper.
Something waking up.
He exhaled, slow and steady, forcing his hands to still, forcing his thoughts back into their cage. Not yet.
He turned, slipping into the night.
The town remained silent. The people remained asleep.
For now.