The rain pounded against the rooftops of the small village, drowning out the tortured screams that had long since become a haunting echo in his mind. He lay curled up in a filthy alleyway, his body shaking, his breath ragged, but the pain of his bruises was nothing compared to the agony carved into his soul. His clothes were nothing but tattered rags, clinging to his frame like a ghost of what once was.
They called him a monster.
"Stay away from him!" a woman had once shrieked, yanking her child away. "He's cursed!"
"His skin is like the shadows," an old man had spat in disgust. "And those eyes… no human has eyes that black."
But it wasn't just the whispers. It wasn't just the glares. It was what they did. What they made him watch.
He was five years old when they dragged his parents into the centre of the village. His mother had fought, screamed his name, but they beat her until her voice was hoarse. His father had tried to protect them, but a dozen men pinned him down like a wild animal. They told him it was his fault. That he had tainted their family with his cursed existence. That he had to learn what it meant to be born a monster.
So they tortured them.
They made him watch as they shattered his father's fingers, one by one, crushing the bones under heavy stones. They laughed as they slashed his mother's face, carving deep wounds that would never heal. Every cry, every plea, every pained gasp burned itself into his memory. He tried to close his eyes, tried to block it out, but they forced his head up, made him watch. And when he finally collapsed, too weak to stand, they let him believe it was over.
But it never was.
The next night, they did it again. And the night after that. Each time, it got worse. They let his parents heal just enough to suffer more. They made sure he was there, always watching, always powerless. He would wake up screaming, only to find himself still trapped in the nightmare.
And then, one night, his mother whispered his name.
"Run…"
Her voice was barely more than a breath, her body broken beyond recognition. But those eyes, those gentle eyes that had once been full of warmth, pleaded with him.
"Run… and live."
He didn't remember how he did it. He didn't remember dodging past the guards, or the feel of the cold mud beneath his feet as he ran. He just ran. And he never looked back.
For years, he wandered. Starving, hiding, surviving. The world had already taken everything from him. There was no justice. No hope. Only hunger and pain. And yet, through it all, one thing remained.
He wanted to live.
Not for revenge. Not for redemption. He wanted to be strong. Strong enough that no one could ever take anything from him again. Strong enough that the world could call him a monster, and it wouldn't matter.
It was on one of those nights, starving and desperate, that he found himself outside an old, crumbling dojo on the outskirts of a ruined town. The wooden sign above the entrance was worn, the characters barely readable. He knew what they meant, though.
House of the Empty Fist.
A place where the weak came to learn. A place where the lost found purpose.
His feet dragged him inside, his body running on instinct more than thought. He had no money, no strength, nothing to offer but the raw, unrelenting will to survive. Yet, as he collapsed onto the wooden floor, his vision darkening at the edges, he saw a man standing over him.
A giant of a man, scarred and weathered by battle, his eyes like steel.
"You have nothing," the man said. "No home. No family. No future. But I see it in your eyes. You are still fighting. Tell me, boy… what do you seek?"
For the first time in his life, he spoke his dream out loud. His voice was hoarse, but the fire in it burned through the cold.
"I want to be strong."
The man looked at him for a long moment before turning away. "Then get up. If you have the will to live, I will teach you how to fight for it."
And for the first time in years, the boy had a reason to keep going.
He had a future to fight for.