Chapter 1: Born of the Abyss (Part 1)
Weakness.
It is a curse, a wound that never heals, a chain that binds the soul to suffering.
To be weak is to be nothing. To be invisible. To exist, but never truly live.
I have known nothing but pain. Since the moment I drew my first breath, suffering has been my shadow. It walks with me, it speaks to me. It is the only thing that has never abandoned me.
When I try to remember my past, all I see is darkness. Not the kind that comes with night, but a void endless, consuming. I do not remember colors. Black and gray were all I knew, all I understood. My world was colorless, lifeless.
Was I even born?
Or was I simply thrown into existence, discarded like something unwanted?
I never felt human. Not truly. I watched people laugh, smile, live. I mimicked them, but it was never real. I was an outsider, trapped in a body that did not feel like my own. A soul that did not belong.
Day after day, I asked myself: Am I truly alive? Or am I just an echo of something that should never have been?
The silence always answered.
But today, there is no silence.
The air was thick with tension. The once-empty world around him shifted, pulsing with an ominous presence. The distant echo of boots crushing the dirt sent tremors through the ground.
Shadows moved beyond the heavy mist, forming the shapes of men warriors approaching with calculated precision. Their presence swallowed the air, thickening it with danger, with death.
A cold wind whispered through the barren landscape, stirring the dust at his feet. He did not move.
A single bead of sweat traced down his forehead, gliding over his cheek before falling into the earth. His body should have trembled, but it didn't. His breath should have quickened, but it remained steady.
Then, he laughed.
The sound was hollow, unnatural in the suffocating silence. It was not the laughter of joy or amusement, but the laughter of a man who had already lost everything.
The warriors hesitated. Their leader, a man with eyes as sharp as a blade, studied him with calculating interest.
Then came the order.
"Kill him."
The archers raised their bows.
The swordsmen tightened their grips.
Still, he laughed.
Then came the pain.
An arrow struck his foot. A sharp, white-hot agony that forced the air from his lungs. Another arrow pierced his arm, sending a fresh wave of pain through his body.
The world blurred.
More arrows flew.
And then
The sound shattered the darkness, slicing through the battlefield like a blade. The warriors vanished. The pain, the fear, the inevitable death gone.
My eyes flew open.
My chest heaved as I gasped for breath, my skin slick with sweat. My hands trembled, gripping the sheets beneath me as if they were the only thing keeping me from falling back into the abyss.
It was a dream.
Just a dream.
A laugh, raw and broken, escaped my lips. Relief washed over me, so overwhelming that I almost wept.
I was alive.
"Bless! Wake up!"
My mother's voice snapped me further into reality.
I turned my head, blinking at the doorway. She stood there, arms crossed, impatience evident in her eyes.
I tried to move to sit up
Pain.
A sharp, searing pain shot through my foot. My arm throbbed, as though something had torn through it.
My breath hitched.
No.
No, no, no.
This wasn't real. It couldn't be real.
But the pain my body remembered it.
Terror gripped me, its cold fingers wrapping around my throat. My mind reeled.
What if the alarm hadn't woken me up?
The thought sent a fresh wave of chills through my body.
Would I have died?
Would that have been my final moment?
The realization struck me like a hammer to the chest. My eyes burned, my vision blurred. A sob wrenched itself from my throat.
I had done nothing with my life.
Achieved nothing.
If I had died
I would have left behind nothing.
What a sad way to die.
The weight of it crushed me, dragging me down into a pit of despair. I wept, harder than I ever had before.
My mother, still standing at the doorway, frowned. To her, this was nothing more than fear of school. After all, my father had warned me that today, we would collect my results. And if I had failed, punishment was inevitable.
She sighed, shaking her head.
"Bless, you'll be late for school."
She didn't understand.
She didn't know that, for the first time in my life, I had felt death.
And for the first time
I was truly afraid.