Valen's unconscious body lay still, enveloped by the aftermath of the ritual, but his mind was far from restful. His dreams took on a haunting clarity, plunging him deep into the past life he had tried to forget—the life of Ethan Cross.
The memory began with stark vividness as if it were happening all over again. He was seven years old, standing in the middle of his childhood home.
The air was unnaturally quiet, the kind of silence that followed the tragedy. He could still hear the distant echoes of the neighbors talking in hushed tones about the accident. A "freak incident", they called it.
But to Ethan, it was no accident. His parents were gone—taken from him in an instant—and he was left alone, holding the hand of Lilia.
The house was eerily quiet, but the silence felt wrong. It was the kind of silence that only followed the tragedy.
He stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by scattered belongings, but none mattered. The only thing that mattered was the empty space where his parents should have been.
His chest felt hollow, a weight pressing down on him that he couldn't quite understand at that age.
Next to him, Lilia's small hand trembled in his. She looked at him, her eyes wide and full of confusion and fear, too young to grasp the full scope of what had happened.
She was his sister—adopted, but blood didn't matter. To Ethan, she was everything. He clutched her hand tighter, as if holding onto her would somehow keep them both safe from the harshness of the world outside.
"I'll take care of you," Ethan had whispered, though even at that young age, he wasn't sure who he was trying to convince. Himself, or her?
The memory played out slowly, painfully, each second reminding him of the promises he had made. Promises he would spend the rest of his childhood struggling to keep.
The scene shifted, blurring around the edges, and now Ethan was ten years old. The pressure on his shoulders had grown since that fateful day.
His days were filled with endless work, running errands for anyone who would pay him enough for a meal. Washing dishes, and delivering messages—small, insignificant tasks, but they were all he could do.
And the money he earned was barely enough to feed them.
Lilia was getting weaker. Ethan could see it, though she always tried to hide it. Her face had become pale, her body too thin for her age.
She would smile at him, her lips twitching as if the effort was almost too much. And at night, she cried softly into her pillow, thinking he couldn't hear her.
But he did. Every sob cut through him like a knife, a reminder of how much he was failing her.
Sometimes, days would pass without food. Ethan would go without, trying to give Lilia what little they had, but it was never enough.
She would lie to him, saying she wasn't hungry, even as her stomach growled. Her bright spirit, the light in her eyes, was slowly dimming, and there was nothing Ethan could do to stop it.
His dreams captured the agony of it all—the hopelessness, the guilt. Ethan had been her protector, but he was powerless to keep her safe.
The world was indifferent to their suffering, and no matter how hard he worked, there was no escape from the crushing poverty that suffocated them both.
The scene shifted again. Ethan was twelve, and this was the day that everything changed. The day he met Vincent Kane.
Ethan was running an errand, his usual routine, when a man approached him. Tall, well-dressed, and with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, Vincent introduced himself as an old friend of Ethan's parents.
The man's words were smooth, too smooth, but Ethan, desperate for help, didn't notice.
"I knew your father," Vincent had said, placing a reassuring hand on Ethan's shoulder. "He was a good man. I want to help you, boy. You and your sister shouldn't have to live like this."
At first, Ethan had been wary. Strangers didn't just offer kindness, not in the world he had grown up in.
But Vincent was different—or so Ethan thought. He spoke of his father with such familiarity, and when he offered Ethan a job at his company, the pay was too good to refuse.
For the first time in years, Ethan felt hope. He brought home real food—meat, fresh bread—and Lilia's eyes lit up with joy.
It was a sight he had missed, one that made every hardship feel worth it. He bought her small trinkets, new dresses, anything to bring back the bright, cheerful girl she had once been.
Life began to change. For three years, things seemed to improve. Ethan worked odd jobs for Vincent—running deliveries, helping with paperwork.
He was grateful and even started to see Vincent as a father figure, someone who had saved them from the depths of despair.
But in the back of his mind, there was always a lingering unease. Vincent was too generous, too kind. And Ethan, though thankful, couldn't quite shake the feeling that there was something darker beneath the surface.
Time blurred again, and Ethan was thirteen. He was sitting across from Vincent, but this time, the man's tone was different. Colder. The warmth and kindness were gone, replaced by something else.
"You've grown, Ethan," Vincent had said, his smile thin. "It's time I tell you the truth."
The truth came like a hammer to the chest. Vincent wasn't a businessman—at least, not in the way Ethan had believed.
He ran an empire of crime, one that spanned across the darkest corners of society. Human trafficking, drugs, assassination—it was all part of his empire. And Ethan's parents had been involved, too, whether he liked it or not.
Vincent wasn't offering Ethan just a job anymore. He was offering him a place in that empire. As an assassin.
Ethan's blood ran cold. The shock was too much to process, but what hurt more was Lilia's reaction. She was sitting beside him, and when Vincent looked to her for confirmation, she nodded.
"Ethan, we need this," Lilia had said, her voice soft but firm. "We can't go back to how things were. Please."
Her words broke him. He couldn't understand why she would want him to do this, to become something so monstrous. But at the same time, he couldn't bear the thought of seeing her suffer again.
He had no choice. Or at least, that's what he told himself. For Lilia, he would do anything.
The memory lingered on the edge of a decision that would change his life forever.
Ethan could feel the weight of it all pressing down on him as the dream continued, his heart heavy with the knowledge that this was the moment he had chosen survival over morality.
Ethan's next memories were of pain—physical and emotional. The training Vincent put him through was brutal, designed to break him and remake him into a killer.
His body was pushed to the point of collapse. Days blurred into nights, each one more grueling than the last. He was trained in weapons, hand-to-hand combat, poisons—every skill he would need to be an assassin.
He remembered the beatings, the exhaustion, the constant, unrelenting pressure. But worse than that was the psychological toll.
They forced him to kill animals, to watch the life drain from their eyes as practice for the real thing.
Every moment of his training chipped away at who he had been, replacing the boy who wanted to protect his sister with something colder, harder.
But even as his emotions dulled, as the violence became second nature, Lilia was always there in the back of his mind.
He told himself that everything he endured was for her, that he had to become stronger for her sake.
But a small part of him—the part that was still Ethan Cross—wondered if he was losing himself completely.
As the memory faded, Ethan's unconscious mind drifted, but the weight of his decisions lingered like a shadow over his heart.
He had taken his first steps into darkness, but the journey ahead would only get worse.