Ten years ago, 3 years before Rubeus was born, when his mom and dad first met each other. It was on a rainy night, the beautiful starlight sky was shadowed by a family of clouds. The rare thread of light that could pass through was lighting the darkest corners.
The wind was calm, the trees even more. The rain was falling on the street filling up the road. It was a calm night, the only sound being the multiple raindrops reaching their short-term goal. There were only two people on the street that night, one being a pandemic doctor coming from his late patient's house, and the other, a young farmer girl that had just closed her stall in the adjacent village. Only a couple of hours ago, and was now coming back.
The two of them bumped into each other, the young girl falling on the ground with her empty basket now broken. The doctor started to apologize and helped her back to her feet. She looked hurt and cold. So he offered to let her warm up at his house which the young farmer soon declined, but after seeing the road and sky she decided to accept with a sight, he even offered to give her a new basket to replace the one that had broken. It was quite tempting since it was her only basket. And she really did need one.
On that note, she asked him where he lived, and he pointed at the house that was right in front of them, she nervously laughed before running with him to get out of the heavy rain, and into his cozy-looking wooden house.
It had a small crack for a door handle, and inside was a single room with everything for one person, which included a double bed. Realizing that, the girl soon blushed panicking about whether it was a good idea or not to go inside. She accepted the help of the stranger, who at first glance looked quite normal.
Was she going to lose her innocence tonight? Was he going to ask for indecent things? The young man, looking at her red innocent face laughed and said, "Ahahah, don't worry miss, if you want to stay for the night I'll sleep on the ground, you'll have the bed, I won't be doing strange things, not that I think your thinking about that of course.", holding back another laughter.
She felt offended and decided to just hit him in the stomach, the guy fell on the ground in pain, laughing harder than the rain. The girl opened her mouth, and in an angry tone she said, "You could have some respect for a beautiful young miss, you won't get to see someone as perfect as me often after all.".
The masked doctor holding back once again his laughter got up and took off his mask, revealing a beautiful, almost perfect face, with only a scar on his right eye which made him blind on that side.
Looking at the masterpiece she had in front of her, she started to blush and utter, even with a scar, she thought, "How could something so beautiful… be?", she couldn't take her eyes off him, which of course made him fluster too. "hum, co- could you maybe stop looking at me like that?", realizing her mistake, she quickly glanced in the other direction.
—-----
He knew what he needed to do, his mind was now set, and he had a goal, a mission to accomplish—looking into the eyes of his beloved wife, of his beloved mother. What was she to him again? And before he could even understand what was happening, his thoughts exploded, it was like another person had entered his head.
Memories of somebody else started flowing through his mind, his eyes widened in pain, pain like he never felt before, pain he couldn't begin to understand. However, he knew one thing, he knew that the pain was a must to advance, not why or how, but he knew.
Like awakened from his slumber, he stood on his two legs, looked one last time at the body lying in front of him, and turned around. He looked up and then down, took a wooden piece off the floor, and picked up a box from under it.
After catching a glimpse of it, he opened it, inside was a mask, a long robe, a pair of gloves, a hat, a hood, and a pair of boots. It looked like clothes that a doctor would use, after a while, he took everything out and put it on. Even if a moment ago it was too big for him. It fit perfectly now, it wasn't the fabric that changed, but him, he was now way over six feet.
The memories of another flooded his head as his mind crumbled and reformed. A pained scream echoed through the room, lingering in the air before fading into silence. When the noise ceased, so did the agony, but in its place arose a far more terrifying question, who was he?
Rubeus, at just seven years old, found himself burdened with memories that did not belong to him. On one side, the tender seven years of a young boy's life. On the other, over thirty years of a stranger's experiences, vivid and oppressive. The two clashed violently within him, waging a battle that he could not win. Slowly, the boy began to fade, his essence overwhelmed by the weight of a life he had never lived.
It wasn't possession. He wasn't overtaken by someone else. Instead, he was being replaced—piece by piece, thought by thought—by something foreign, something unrecognizable. That he still existed at all was a miracle, even if only fragments of his former self remained.
His body, like his mind, had changed. He stood tall now, towering over the doorframe he once struggled to reach, his frame stretched and grown far beyond his years. His raven-black hair, once neatly trimmed and orderly, hung long and wild around his face, as though it too refused to belong to the boy he had been.
Rubeus's ruby-red eyes—once bright, innocent—now reflected nothing but emptiness. They were hollow, devoid of life, like a silent scream trapped within. There was no warmth, no spark of emotion. His gaze was that of a stranger's, cold and detached as if the soul that had once animated them was gone.
Even his sharp nose and grim expression seemed alien, artifacts of a life that should never have been. His lips, locked in a permanent line, bore no trace of the smiles that had once lit up his face. The person standing there was no child, nor even a man, but something in between—a vessel.
Every inch of him screamed that Rubeus was no longer the boy who had once lived in this body. He was a hollow shell, filled with the memories of another, someone who should not exist.
It was as if his mind had fractured, splitting into two distinct beings—one, the remnants of the boy he once was, and the other, a stranger who wore kindness like a curse. The stranger wasn't cruel, he didn't rage or lash out. He whispered instead, gentle and calm, offering fragments of a life filled with wisdom, sorrow, and strength. Yet even his gentleness was an act of violence, unintentional but unrelenting, as his presence smothered what little remained of the boy.
Then, like a blade cutting through the fog, Rubeus understood. These memories—the vivid flashes of joy, pain, and fury—they weren't the echoes of a stranger. They were his father's. The new personality clawing for dominance, the calm yet desperate voice urging him forward, was all that remained of the man who had given him life. His father's fragments, broken and incomplete, had fused with Rubeus's soul, carrying with them a single, burning purpose.
The body was no longer a vessel, it was a battlefield, caught between the child clinging to his fleeting innocence and the remnants of a man who sought to make right a terrible wrong. As the memories flooded Rubeus, a vision of his mother emerged—her face soft and kind, her laughter echoing faintly in his ears. But then there was the memory that Rubeus had lived through, seeing her body, lifeless, cold, bloodstained, abandoned in the wake of violence. His father had seen it too, not with his own eyes, but through the flood of memories that fused with Rubeus's. A secondhand agony that only deepened the weight of his grief.
The truth was undeniable, his father had come to him not out of malice, but out of love—twisted, desperate love. He sought to use Rubeus, to wield his son's body as a weapon to avenge the woman he had adored. Their memories had fused, their souls entangled, but it was no union. It was war. The boy wanted to live. The father wanted revenge. And in their silent, ceaseless struggle, the body they shared grew ever more hollow.
Rubeus stood there, his raven-black hair wild, his ruby-red eyes hollow, staring at the fractured reflection before him. Who was he now? A boy, a man, a weapon? He could feel his father's purpose twisting within him, urging him to act, to kill. And though he knew his father's love burned at the heart of it all, it did not comfort him. It terrified him.
For in that moment, Rubeus realized one thing with chilling clarity, there could only be one survivor.
In the end, it was his father who won, his presence swallowing what was left of the boy, yet even in that crushing victory, a faint, twisted fragment of Rubeus clung to the shadows—silent, fading, but never fully gone.