The old man lay slouched against the warehouse wall, one hand pressed to the wound in his stomach, the other trembling on the cold concrete. His breathing was uneven—shallow, unsure, fading.
He wasn't afraid of dying.
He was afraid of dying with unfinished words.
"Kihoru…" he murmured, as if the name itself carried weight. "If only I'd known… if only I had paid attention when it mattered."
His voice cracked—not from pain, but from something heavier: regret.
"I used to think people like you only existed in books," he whispered. "Those quiet types who carry a whole hurricane inside… and no one notices until it's too late."
The lights flickered above him, making the shadows dance across his face. He blinked slowly, and for a moment his eyes softened—not with fear, but reflection.
"I saw that boy once," he said weakly. "The shy one. The kid who kept his head low, always clutching his books like they were the only things keeping him alive."
A shaky breath left him.
"And I just walked past. Another adult who didn't look twice at a child who desperately needed someone."
He closed his eyes briefly, letting the warehouse melt away as memory took over.
THE BROKEN CHILD
Kihoru's childhood wasn't defined by days—it was defined by nights.
Nights filled with shouts.
Nights filled with bottles hitting walls.
Nights where his mother said things like "It's okay" while wiping blood she pretended not to taste.
Their house was small, but somehow still full of places to hide. Kihoru always chose the corner of his room, the one spot where he could curl up and hope the noise wouldn't reach him.
At school, the noise was different—but not kinder.
"Hey fatboy!"
"Move, you walking pillow!"
They shoved him against walls, took his tiffin, snapped his pencils for fun.
No one defended him. Teachers looked through him like he wasn't even there.
Kihoru learned something important:
He didn't belong anywhere.
But what no one ever noticed was how he sat at his desk every single night, studying like he was trying to build another world with his bare hands.
He wasn't trying to top exams.
He was trying to escape his life.
One morning, his father—smelling of alcohol even before sunrise—kicked his schoolbag across the floor.
"You think studying will make you a man?" he shouted. "You'll end up as useless as your mother!"
Kihoru didn't answer.
He just gathered his books quietly, hands shaking but refusing to let go.
Because deep inside him—beneath all that fear, beneath all that loneliness—something had begun to change.
A small, silent determination.
A promise he made only to himself:
"One day… no one will be able to touch me."
He wasn't dreaming of revenge yet.
He was dreaming of safety.
And that, for him, was enough to keep going.
BACK IN THE WAREHOUSE…
The old man exhaled slowly, almost peacefully now.
"We all thought he was just another quiet kid," he said. "But no… he was learning how to survive. And surviving like that… it makes you dangerous."
His voice was faint, but steady.
"That boy we ignored… he became someone none of us were prepared for."
His eyelids dropped halfway.
His final words came out like a confession.
"Maybe your story was never about becoming great, Kihoru…
Maybe it was about becoming… unstoppable."
His hand slipped from his wound.
His breathing stopped its uneven rhythm.
Outside, the wind carried on as if nothing happened.
Inside, a chapter had closed—
the first whisper in the long, brutal story
of The Man No One Saw Coming.