The night reeked of smoke and blood.
Lyra Avelin ran barefoot through the burning wreckage of her village, her lungs searing as fire devoured every home she had ever known. The screams of her neighbors had already gone silent—swallowed by the monsters that had come from the dark forest.
Her legs trembled, scraped raw from fleeing, but she couldn't stop. Not yet. Not until she found somewhere—anywhere—the monsters could not reach.
A crash thundered behind her. A hut collapsed in a blaze of sparks. She bit back a sob, clutching the satchel pressed to her chest. It was empty now. She had lost her younger brother's hand in the chaos, lost her parents in the smoke, lost everything. The satchel was only habit, the useless reflex of someone trying to hold onto scraps of a shattered life.
Branches whipped at her face as she burst into the forest. The night was alive with snarls—beasts hunting her down. Their glowing eyes darted between the trees, stalking her, savoring her desperation.
Lyra's foot caught a root. She fell hard, her palms skidding against damp soil. Pain bit deep. She didn't rise. What was the point? The world had ended. She would die here, torn apart like the rest of them.
And yet—
She heard something. Not the laughter of monsters. Not the crackle of fire.
A low hum. A vibration that crawled beneath her skin, ancient and terrible.
Lyra lifted her head. Ahead, past a tangle of black roots, stood ruins—half-swallowed by earth, jagged like the bones of a forgotten god. Strange symbols burned faintly across fallen stone. And in the center of it all…
A man.
He was bound by iron chains that pulsed with runes, his arms spread wide against a monolith. His head hung forward, hair shadowing his face. Across his bare chest ran lines of black—marks like veins of ink that pulsed as if alive.
For a moment, Lyra thought he was dead.
Then the monsters arrived.
Three of them—wolf-like things with twisted limbs and jaws too wide—burst from the treeline. Their claws dug into the earth as they circled her, drooling from serrated maws. Lyra scrambled backward, her heart hammering.
The chained man stirred.
His head rose. His eyes opened.
They weren't human eyes.
They glowed—storm-gray, shot through with silver fire.
The hum grew into a roar, and suddenly the air rippled around him. The monsters turned, sensing what she now felt in her bones—an overwhelming presence, like a tide of death pressing against their skin.
The man inhaled sharply. Black marks along his arms flared.
And then—
He exploded.
Not with fire, not with lightning, but with something rawer—shadow and pressure bursting outward in a violent wave. The three beasts screamed as their bodies tore apart, shredded into ash. The trees closest to him split down the middle. The ground quaked.
Lyra shielded her face, coughing through the sudden dust storm.
When it cleared, the forest was silent.
The man was no longer slumped. He stood, the broken chains dangling from his wrists, his body coiled with unnatural strength. His gaze fixed on her, unreadable, dangerous.
Lyra's breath caught.
He had saved her.
No… not her. He had killed them without even trying. He hadn't even looked at them.
She took a hesitant step forward. "You—"
The moment the word left her lips, the black marks surged across his body. A wave of energy snapped outward, slicing the earth between them like a blade. Lyra stumbled back, nearly falling.
"Stay away." His voice was low, hoarse, yet it cracked with power. "You don't know what I am."
Lyra froze. The pressure rolling from him made her knees shake. Her instincts screamed at her to run. This was no savior. This was something worse—something the world itself wanted sealed away.
But she had already lost everything. And maybe that was why her next words came out steady.
"What ever you are you just saved me."
He take one look at his body as the markens in his body glow low. "I could kill you by accident."
"Then let me die beside you—I just lost everything, who else can kill those monsters without even looking."
The man's eyes widened faintly. For a heartbeat, the curse marks dimmed, as if her voice had reached through the storm inside him.
"Foolish girl," he whispered, almost to himself.
The ground shook violently. Lyra flinched, turning as another pack of monsters emerged from the treeline—dozens this time, their roars shaking the forest.
The man raised his hand. Shadows coiled around his palm, forming into a blade of black steel that hissed with curses.
Lyra stood behind him, clutching her satchel though it was empty. For reasons she couldn't name, her fear had dulled. Even as the monsters closed in, even as the cursed man prepared to unleash his terror again, she stayed.
The man—this monster in chains—spoke without looking at her.
"If you stay… then you'll see what kind of monster I truly am."
---