Sol was nothing special
Once, on a routine patrol, Roan, a guard from the quiet village of Lagan, was checking the fences near the forest when he heard a baby crying.
At first, he assumed it was a banshee trying to lure someone into the woods. Still, curiosity made him investigate, and to his surprise, he found an actual baby crying under a tree.
"Just another day at work," he sighed.
It wasn't rare to come across abandoned children. The war against the demons had thrown the world into chaos, and many families couldn't care for their young anymore. But this was the first time Roan had found a baby so deep in the forest.
"Lucky he hasn't been eaten by monsters or maybe unlucky to be born in this hellish world," Roan muttered as he picked the child up.
He took the baby back to the village and handed him to the orphanage. The matriarch accepted the child with visible reluctance, resources were already scarce, and there were too many mouths to feed.
Sol remembered none of this, of course. As far back as his memory went, the orphanage was always struggling, short on food, short on warmth, short on everything.But looking back now, that might have been the happiest time of his life.
At the age of five, when other children were playing and laughing without a care in the world, despite war and hunger, one brown-haired boy sat silently on a swing, frowning at a tattered storybook.
Sol was a quiet, withdrawn child. He never played with the others, rarely spoke, and always seemed to be buried in some book.
But even the loneliest child can find a friend.
"Sol, what are you reading?"
"Nothing you'd understand, Mars."
"Oh, okay. Wanna go to the forest?"
"You idiot. How many times has the matriarch scolded you for that?"
Mars was wild and free-spirited, the complete opposite of Sol. But he was the only one who ever talked to him. The other kids avoided Sol, annoyed by his cold demeanor.
"Come on! It's not dangerous. Plus, Camila found a new path we can sneak through. We'll get fruit!"
"But..."
"We'll be back in a few hours. It's no big deal."
"I don't know..."
"So you agree! Let's go!"
Reluctantly, Sol followed Mars and his little group. Looking back, he would remember this as the moment everything changed.
"Would you look at that. I'm going to be rich soon."
A rough-looking merchant carried the unconscious Mars over his shoulder.
Everything had gone horribly wrong.
They'd run into the man while playing near the stream. At first, they were cautious, but when he offered dried jerky, the hungry children eagerly accepted.
The rest was a blur.
"Fooling kids might be the easiest job in this damn world," the merchant laughed to himself.
One by one, they all began to feel dizzy and drowsy. Sol, half-conscious, looked up at the man, struggling to keep his eyes open.
"Now... where should I sell them..."
And with those final words, Sol's world faded to black.
When Sol awoke, he was in chains.
The air reeked of sulfur and burning incense. Cold stone walls surrounded him, torches flickering dimly along a long, shadow-drenched corridor. Everything was damp and heavy, like the world itself was holding its breath.
He tried to move, but an iron collar dug into his neck and yanked him back.
'Where… am I?'
He wasn't alone. Dozens of other children were caged nearby, most unconscious, others quietly weeping or shivering in sickness and fear.
_Creak.
Sol barely had time to make sense of his surroundings when the metal door at the end of the corridor groaned open.
What stepped through was something that blurred the line between man and monster.
Skin pale and sickly grey. Horns arcing back from his skull like a crown of bone. His eyes burned gold, liquid, cruel, ancient. He wore robes embroidered with alchemical glyphs, their symbols glowing faintly in the dim torchlight.
Sol had never seen a demon before, but he had read about them, and this… this was exactly what the old books had warned of.
"A… A demon! Run!"
One of the children screamed.
_Boom!!
The scream ended in an instant. The child exploded into a burst of gore flesh, blood, and bone splattered across the corridor.
"Hmph… fragile. Pathetic. Malnourished."Paymon's voice was dispassionate, like a scholar judging worn-out artifacts. He walked past the cages, examining the children like livestock at a market.
"Ahhhhhhh!!"
Screams erupted. Panic. Hysteria. The children clawed at their cages, trying to disappear into the walls.
"Tch. How annoying."
Snap.
In a blink, the corridor went silent. Not a breath. Not a heartbeat. It was as if the very air had been stolen from their lungs.
Paymon stopped in front of Sol's cage.
He tilted his head slightly."There's something… different. Curious soul signature. Weak… but strange."
Sol couldn't breathe. He didn't understand the words, but the way the demon looked at him made his blood freeze.
Snap.
The merchant who had sold them rushed in, panting. "This one. I'll take this one."
"O-Of course, my lord. You have a keen eye."
That moment was the end of Sol's childhood, and the beginning of his hell.
Paymon dragged Sol deep into his domain.A suffocating castle carved into the earth, its walls slick with blood and time. Torches flickered along endless halls. Rusted chains hung from the ceilings. The air was thick with rot and magic.
It wasn't a castle.It was a mausoleum for the living.A place where screams were absorbed by the stone and never heard again.
Here, Sol was not a person.He was a specimen.
Sometimes he was whipped. Sometimes he was starved. But the worst was when he wasn't touched at all.
He was opened, with cold blades and colder eyes.He was sewn shut, not to heal, but to keep him alive for more.He was injected, with poisons, spells, liquids that scorched his insides until he begged for unconsciousness.
There were no explanations. No comforting lies. Only the scratching of quills, the clinking of glass, and the unblinking gaze of a monster who saw him as a puzzle to be solved.
Time lost meaning.Pain didn't.
Sol forgot how many times he was cut. How many times he screamed. How many nights he lay awake, praying to gods who never answered.
He forgot the taste of food. The feel of sun on his skin. The sound of another voice speaking his name.
There was no one left.No comfort.No rescue.
And yet… he didn't die.
Not because he was strong.
Not because he fought back.
But because even death, in its mercy, seemed to have abandoned him.
And now, now that he was finally dead, there was no light. No peace. No release.
Only a cold, hollow void stretching into eternity.
Sol had always believed that death would be his escape. That even if the world tortured him, death would at least be kind.
But here, in this quiet, endless darkness, even that hope began to rot.
Maybe the weak aren't even allowed to die peacefully.
Maybe... this suffering never ends.