They called him a void. They called him nothing. In a city that measured worth by strength, a boy who could not awaken was a shame stacked thin as paper. He lived on the fourth floor of a crumbling block, where the walls smelled of old cigarettes and fried oil.
His name was Riley. Or that is the name people used when they had to speak it politely. Most of the time they did not speak his name at all. He answered to the hollow echo of footsteps and to the whisper of neighbours who closed doors faster when he passed.
Morning came in gray slashes through the narrow window. The world outside moved with the loud confidence of people who had ranks. Posters on the street showed proud faces: A-rank champions, B-rank medics, C-rank hunters. Blue Star was loud. It promised glory and prizes where the strong took more than they needed.
Riley kept his hands in his sleeves. His hoodie was thin and patched. He ate quick, cheap bread and pretended not to care about the taste. He had learned to move like a shadow so people would not notice the bruises on his arms. Bruises were a language in this city: proof that someone had reached and left their mark.
At school they called him a failed seed. Teachers looked the other way when other boys shoved him into lockers. Girls pretended not to see the kicks. The Awakening Day had come and gone, and Riley's chest had stayed empty. They said he had no star, no spark. In Blue Star, empty meant expendable.
Home was worse. His parents and clan abandoned him kick him out and leave him on his own to faces hard like cut stone. They respect power and serve the strong, and a weak son was another mouth. When the awakening ceremony come and he failed to awaken then they said this: "We cannot raise a burden like you Begone." The words were precise and final. They left him at the school. The boy with his heart broke left with nothing. They did not even look back.
Left alone, Riley learned to vanish. He slept on roads on alleys and after sometime later with the help of part time jobs he got an apartment or someone out of pity give him he sleep on thin mattress and kept the window open a crack so he could hear the city breathe. Sometimes he walked the alleys at night and watched people trade power for food. He watched hunters walk like lions and felt the hollow ache of not belonging. But he don't lose hope he kept attending school in order to change his life but.
Bullying wore many faces. A classmate would trip him in the hall and laugh. A neighbour would shout from the doorway, "Just die you useless." Store owners refused him unless he showed a small spark. Once a boy who could already lift a car threw him into the trash and joked about the day Riley finally melted away.
News spread of a gate opening two blocks away. Gates led to trials where people risked life and bone to hunt monsters to earn money and fame. Trophies came back sometimes—new ranks, new eyes, new voices. Riley watched the celebrations through glass, tasting a sharp salt of envy. He wanted one chance more than anything, a hand reaching out of the dark.
He tried to force it. He read old guides and watched burnt tapes of failed attempts. He drank bitter leaves and prayed to names that meant nothing. He curled up and begged the sky for a sign. Nothing answered. The city kept its loud teeth. No one handed him mercy.
At night his mattress sagged and the fan swung, cutting shadows into a slow language. Silence filled with small betrayals: the creak of floorboards when someone passed by without offering help, the thin laughter drifting up when the windows showed a bright team carrying home a new rank. Each sound felt like a small blade.
Riley had one small treasure: a picture folded thin in his wallet. It was a crumpled photo of a boy smiling under an old tree. On the back, a note in a handwriting that once sounded like warmth said, "For one day, be brave." He kept it close as proof there had been a time someone believed in him.
But courage is quiet, and the city ate it slowly. Weeks grew harder. Food ran low. His landlord knocked and raised the rent. Men with thick hands offered him work he could not do. The lights he saw in other people's lives dimmed until only the dull glow of streetlamps remained.
One evening, after rain had washed the city into a thinner kind of cold, Riley climbed to the roof. Wind scolded his hoodie and tugged loose hair across his face. Below, the city was a scatter of lives with ranks—glinting and dangerous. He thought of the way his parents' eyes had gone empty when they leave. He thought of the classmate who had pushed him until his throat hurt.
He held the photo and traced the handwriting like a ritual. Rituals kept his hands busy and his mind from falling deeper. A part of him still wanted the world to be different. Another part had learned the names of endings and knew each one by the way they felt in his chest.
On the roof he sat near the edge with legs drawn in. The rain slowed to a thin drizzle, painting the air silver. In the distance hunters laughed over a small victory, their suits glowing faint. He closed his eyes and for a moment imagined a life where he was loud and proud. The dream was brief, a dishonest flame, and when it died the cold of reality felt like metal.
He remembered the worst day. Not the night his parents left—though that cut deep—but the day a classmate spat, "If you can't wake, at least be useful and die." The laughter after it sounded clean and sharp. They went back to their games and rankings. Riley was left with the copper taste of shame.
That night his hands did not shake as much. Maybe exhaustion calmed the tremors. He took out a small bottle he kept hidden under the mattress. The label had faded and the liquid inside seemed smaller than he remembered. He did not want to be brave. He wanted quiet, a silence without knives.
He looked at the photo once more. "Be brave," it had said. He had failed that small order. "Sorry" felt empty. "Forgive me" tasted like dust. He wanted to explain to the smiling boy, but he had no reasons that would stand in a world built of force. He had only the slow memory of being pushed.
He uncapped the bottle. The room smelled like medicine and lemon. He breathed in and out. There was a point where nothing mattered but the small motion of lips and the closing of eyes. He lay back and let the air fill his chest and leave it.
From the street below came a shout—a winning cry. He imagined it as a bell for those who could be seen. The bell mixed with drizzle and the distant roar of the city until sounds folded over him. He clutched the photo one last time and whispered, "Be brave, for me."
His eyes closed and waited for the sleep that would not come. The rooftop lights blurred. The skyline softened. For a thin moment the world seemed to hold its breath with him. Then he felt everything slide away like water from a cup.
In the thin space where his thoughts thinned, something foreign touched him—a cold, clean edge that did not belong to the city. He did not think of rank or revenge. He thought only of the word on the back of the photo and how he had failed the promise to be brave.
Riley's breath stopped. The city pulsed on, unaware. A candle guttered far away. On the roof a pigeon fluffed its wings and hopped to the next tile. Down below a pair of hunters argued about the next night's hunt. Life kept living, carved by strength and noise.
But hollows can be filled when least expected. As Riley's eyes softened, something watched. It was not human. It slid like shadow into the space he left and wrapped itself around the thin shell of a boy who had no more room for suffering.
The rooftop air smelled of rain and iron and the last small breath of a life quietly breaking. A distant thunder crack said nothing. The end of a small story can be the start of another. The photo in his hand warmed, as if a new name had been placed on it. The words "be brave" were no longer just memory; they were a question thrown into the dark.
Then, as the roof light blinked once, a different silence fell—one that felt like the world waiting. Someone far away would hear it, and someone else would open their eyes to a room that smelled of blood and lemon. The shift was small. It felt like the turning of a key in a lock no one knew existed.
Below, the city kept its bright business. Above, clouds drifted. On the roof, a boy with a faded photo lay still, and the rain moved on his skin. Something unseen touched the hollow, and the story tilted.
Soon, a stranger's breath would wake another soul and change the rules of Blue Star forever.
© 2025 Kael Virell. All rights reserved. This original work may not be copied, reproduced, or adapted in any form without written permission from the author. Unauthorized use will result in legal action and platform takedown to protect the creator's ownership and rights. Immediate enforcement.