The path ahead was steep and treacherous, veiled in shadows cast by the dense forest canopy. Elias followed his mentor through the silent woods, feeling the night close in around them. They had been walking for hours, the quiet between them as vast as the darkened world stretching before him.
As they approached the foot of the mountain range, the mentor glanced back at him. The moonlight barely reached through the trees, but he could see the grim determination etched into the boy's face.
"What's your name, boy?" the mentor asked, his tone sharp yet curious, breaking the long silence.
Elias didn't hesitate. He didn't feel like that name, that identity, mattered any longer. "I have no name," he replied, voice hollow, as if he were speaking from some distant place within himself. "I left it behind, just like everything else."
The mentor halted, surprised at the cold certainty in the boy's words. He studied Elias's face in the dim light, catching a glimpse of something far beyond the pain. This boy wasn't running from his past—he had discarded it, as if shedding old skin. There was no trace of fear or regret in his expression, only emptiness, a hollow calm.
"You can't walk the path of shadows without a name," the mentor said at last, his voice hardening with a sense of finality. "And I refuse to call you 'nothing.'"
The man paused, his gaze resolute as he assessed the figure before him.
"From this moment on, you will be Shade," he declared. "You are no longer the boy you once were. You are reborn in darkness, and shall be molded by it."
Something shifted within him, almost imperceptibly, as he took in the name.
Elias had been a ghost of his past-a victim, a broken shell.
Shade was something else entirely.
The boy who once bore that name was gone, lost in the night. Only the shadow remained, and it felt.... right.
After what seemed like endless hours of climbing, the landscape shifted. The thick woods receded, and the towering rocks of the mountain range loomed ahead. The path became more treacherous, the wind howling around them, but Shade walked on without faltering. The air grew colder, sharper, and the weight of the world seemed to fall heavier with each step.
At last, they reached the cave entrance-a dark maw in the mountainside, swallowed by shadows. The mentor stopped and gestured toward the cave.
"This is where I'll personally train you," he said, his voice low and serious. "This is where you will be forged into the strongest assassin. The shadow itself."
Shade didn't speak. His eyes were fixed on the cave, a place where nothing existed but darkness and the promise of pain. Without hesitation, he entered.
Inside, the cave was small yet vast, an ancient, hollow space carved by time. The air was thick with the earthy scent of stone, cold and damp.
The silence was oppressive, as if the walls themselves were waiting for something to happen. It was a world detached from everything-no contact with the outside world, nothing but the shadows and the trials that would await him within.
The mentor's voice echoed through the cave's depths as he followed Shade inside. "This place will be your world now. Here, in these shadows, I'll train you to become what you're meant to be, and forge you into a weapon molded by the shadows"
Shade stepped deeper into the cave, feeling the darkness swallow him whole. It felt... right. The shadows were not just his refuge now; they were his home.
The mentor's words continued, almost lost in the vastness of the cave, but their weight pressed heavily on Shade's mind. "Your training begins here, and it will push you to the very edge of life and death. Each day, I'll test your body, your mind, your limits-until there's nothing left of weakness in you."
Shade didn't respond, but his eyes reflected an emptiness that spoke louder than any words could. He didn't need comfort. He didn't need reassurance. All he sought was purpose.
The mentor paused and turned to him, his expression hardening. "And from this point on, you will call me Master."
Shade's gaze never wavered, and though the word felt foreign to him, it was the command he would obey. He had already shed the boy he once was. There was nothing left but the shadow ahead.
The mentor spoke with an air of confidence, unaware of what he was truly setting into motion. He spoke of a weapon being forged, one that would be powerful and deadly.
But the mentor had no way of knowing, he had unleashed something far beyond his control-a monster bound by neither loyalty nor restraint. In this cave, in these shadows, he would mold Shade into something else, something beyond even his wildest expectations, and something the world had never seen.