The rain smelled of rust and graves.
It fell in long, silver threads upon the ruins of Hollow Reed Village — once a place of soft laughter, now a graveyard carved into the mud.
Every house had burned. Every body had cooled.
And amidst the blackened earth knelt a boy.
Osric's fingers dug into the dirt, nails breaking as he clawed for something — anything — beneath the ashes.
His mother's amulet. A simple string of prayer beads, carved from willow bone.
He found it, cracked in half.
The same way his heart felt.
He pressed it to his forehead, trembling.
Rainwater mixed with tears, and blood from his palm smeared the beads crimson.
"They said Heaven watches all," he whispered, voice raw. "Then why didn't it watch this?"
He looked up — toward the blackened clouds that swallowed the stars.
There was no answer. Only thunder.
His breath came shallow and sharp. The night air felt thick, like a shroud around his lungs.
Bodies lay scattered in the mud — his father among them, eyes still open, staring at the heavens that had betrayed them.
Osric's fingers tightened around the amulet. "If the heavens won't punish them," he muttered, "then I will."
And with that whisper of fury, the amulet cracked completely, splintering in his grasp.
A single drop of blood slipped down his wrist and fell into the earth.
The ground pulsed.
A faint tremor, so soft it could have been the echo of thunder — yet it came from beneath, not above.
Then, a voice.
Low. Ancient. Genderless. It slithered through the rain like smoke.
> "You call to Heaven and receive silence.
You call to vengeance… and I answer."
Osric froze. His eyes darted around, searching the shadows between the ruined huts. Nothing. No figure, no face. Only the whisper.
> "Do you wish for retribution, child?"
The boy's throat went dry. "Who are you?"
> "I am the voice that answers when prayers rot.
Say their names. Bind your grief. Offer your pain."
He hesitated. Then, his lips trembled. "Mother… Father…"
The rain stopped. Just like that — silence.
The air grew heavy, as if the world itself were holding its breath.
Then the mud beneath him turned black, spreading outward in veins that pulsed like living roots.
Pain tore through his chest. He gasped, clutching at his heart as something alive began to twist within him — a seed of flame and shadow threading through his veins.
> "Thus, the Curse Vein awakens," the voice hissed.
Osric screamed. The pain wasn't just physical — it was memory, regret, grief made manifest.
Every image of his dead parents flashed before his eyes, then melted into darkness.
When the agony finally faded, his breathing was ragged, but the world… the world looked different.
He could see it now — thin strands of shadow weaving through the air, clinging to corpses, pooling in puddles of blood.
He could feel misfortune, like heat from a dying fire.
The voice purred.
> "You see the truth. The living are blind, but you… you are chosen."
"Chosen?" he whispered hoarsely. "For what?"
> "For the Path of the Maledicted Soul."
Osric blinked. He didn't know what that meant — but his hands trembled, alive with dark energy.
A flicker of motion caught his eye — one of the bandits who had slaughtered his village lay nearby, barely breathing.
A rasp escaped the man's throat. "H-help…"
Osric stared at him.
The man's face was smeared with soot and blood. One of the killers who had laughed while his parents screamed.
His grip tightened. He could feel the whisper in his mind, seductive, patient.
> "Say the word… let the curse flow."
Osric's lips parted. A single word escaped, soft as the rain.
"Die."
The bandit convulsed. His eyes rolled back, veins blackening like spreading ink. His skin shriveled, and his final scream choked into silence.
Osric stumbled backward, horrified — and yet… exhilarated.
He could feel it — power humming in his veins, wild and ancient.
He had answered injustice.
For the first time, Heaven had been silent, but something else had listened.
He looked at his hand, trembling, then at the corpses that surrounded him.
> "Every curse begins as a prayer," the voice whispered.
"And every prayer demands a price."
The mark on his chest pulsed — a dark sigil shaped like a thorned eye. It throbbed with rhythm, like a heartbeat not his own.
"What… what price?" he asked.
> "You will learn," the whisper said, fading like smoke.
"The seed is sown. Walk the path… and reap your sorrow."
---
The storm moved on. The rain turned gentle again.
Osric sat there until dawn, silent among the dead.
When the sun rose, its light touched the ruins — but it did not warm him.
He rose, clutching the cracked amulet. The once-white beads were now blackened, streaked with faint veins of red.
In the distance, the temple bells of the Exorcist Sect rang, tolling for the dead.
If they found him, they would burn him for bearing a curse mark.
But Osric no longer feared them.
He had seen Heaven's silence, and he had heard the whisper beneath it.
He turned toward the mountains, eyes hollow yet bright with purpose.
"I will find whoever sent those bandits," he murmured. "I will burn their blessings to ash."
The sigil on his chest glowed faintly — a black eye opening once more.
> "Walk, child of despair," the whisper sighed, carried on the morning wind.
"The first curse has been cast."
---