'Bright'
It was a futuristic fantasy novel, detailing the protagonist's journey through a world plagued by monster sieges and the enigmatic 'Gate'. While the novel was far from exceptional—having only twenty-five readers—it had captivated Cahll not for its plot but for its portrayal of a character who met a grim fate. He had read it late at night, alone in a quiet room, drawn in by the strange, unavoidable sense of inevitability that clung to the sub-villain Cahllen Von Wolver. The boy's misery had been documented so thoroughly, so coldly, that it had a certain morbid fascination. But now, inhabiting his body, the words of the novel felt different—closer, painful, and real.
Cahllen Von Wolver, marked as a sub-villain, had an unfortunate fate. Sickly and doomed to die even before the protagonist's return, his death wasn't caused by the hero but rather by the author's decree. As a villain, he was bound to a life of misery, dictated by his creator, and every scene surrounding him had been written to show his weakness, his incompetence, and his fragility. He wasn't the type of character a reader rooted for; he was a cautionary tale, a foil, a symbol of how power and lineage could crush the undeserving.
Cahllen stared at the ceiling, tracing the gentle curves in the plaster, trying to ground himself. He was alive in a child's body, weak and fragile, yet the room felt both familiar and alien. His chest tightened, not from physical strain, but from the weight of knowing the hardships awaiting him—the lonely, cold routines of a life ruled by expectation and subtle cruelty.
"Cal."
The voice broke through his thoughts. Cahll turned to Hoshino, the second-oldest of the four children, standing quietly in the room. Six years old. Small and still, yet there was a calm precision in the way the boy held himself. Cahllen could see why he had earned the codename Sloth in later life—there was patience and calculation in every blink, every tilt of the head. But there was more. Underneath that stillness, he could sense a gentle vulnerability, the faint tremor of a child learning to navigate a world that demanded perfection too soon.
At the moment, the family consisted of four children: Archviel, the eldest; Hoshino, the second; Silvester Leonhard, the third; and Cahllen Von Wolver, the youngest.
The remaining siblings had yet to be born, and when they were, the infamous organization known as 'Sins' would emerge—a network of seven influential heads, each destined to leave their mark in the family's dark legacy. Cahll, however, was never part of this group, and he had long since come to terms with that. His exclusion was both a curse and a blessing: he was hated by his siblings, yes, but that disdain meant he could move unseen, avoid the hard work, and observe from the sidelines. A spectator in his own life, and in a way, a fortunate one.
He studied Hoshino with an unusual tenderness, noticing the small quirks that humanized the boy. The way his cheeks puffed slightly when he spoke, the careful press of his lips into a thin line, the subtle downward glance when unsure if his words carried enough weight. Cahll realized that beneath the composed exterior of the novel's description, this child was still just a child—learning, feeling, and surviving in a world that expected far too much too soon.
"Yesh?" Cahll replied, his lisp soft and uncertain. The sound of his own voice startled him, a reminder of how delicate and vulnerable his body had become.
"Are you fine now?" Hoshino asked, flat and distant, yet there was a trace of concern if one listened carefully. Cahll caught it in the slight pause before the boy spoke, the almost imperceptible tilt of his brow. For a child raised in a rigid environment, even the smallest gestures of care were carefully measured, rare, and precious.
Cahll remembered what the novel had told him: Hoshino was destined to grow into the De Facto Leader of 'Sins'. The codename Sloth wasn't meant to denote laziness; it was a testament to control, patience, and quiet strength. And even now, the glimpses of those traits flickered through the child's movements and expressions. Cahll felt a pang of empathy. He had spent his entire life in shadows, trained to survive, to conceal, to dominate, and yet here was a child, burdened with expectations he could not yet understand.
Hoshino's quiet nature made him appear detached, but Cahll saw the contradictions—small hints of warmth and hidden interests. The soft admiration for furry and fluffy things, the fascination with music and the arts, little secrets that would grow into skills and passions. There was humanity there, fragile but persistent, and Cahll found himself smiling at the thought. He wanted, in that moment, to shield the boy from the harshness he had read about, even if only in small ways.
For now, though, Cahll allowed himself to simply observe. How Hoshino's eyes would flicker when he considered something carefully, how his lips tightened when he held back an impulse, how the slight frown of concentration made him look older than he was, even while he remained unmistakably a child. These were not metrics, not labels, not floating text—they were glimpses of real human life, of a child learning to exist in a demanding world.
Cahll let a slow, steadying breath fill his chest. In this quiet room, surrounded by the soft sounds of the household and the faint smell of polished wood, he felt a strange comfort. Even if the novel's trajectory was grim, he had a chance to act differently. He could choose small kindnesses, small connections, and find ways to survive not just physically, but emotionally. And for the first time since waking in this new body, he felt a flicker of hope.
He would survive, not because of destiny or family legacy, not because of power or money, but because he could. Because even in this frail body, he had a mind that remembered, a heart that observed, and eyes that could see the humanity hidden beneath the rigid exteriors of this strange, cruel world.