The light of dusk slipped through the linen curtains, painting the humble house in shades of gold.Elian Blackwood reviewed the planting plans at the table. His face carried the calm of someone who trusted in providence, even amid hardship.
Elyra, smiling softly, hummed a prayer as she set a pitcher of fresh water on the table.At the center of the room, Elior played with his younger sister.
Liora ran around laughing, a flower crown perched on her head, while her brother lifted her and spun her gently.
"God has blessed us with peace," Elyra said, watching her children. "And in this house, there will always be room for anyone who needs love."
Elian took her hand.
"That's right. As long as we keep our faith, no evil will ever touch us."
Liora clung to Elior's neck and asked innocently,
"Mom, Dad… do you think angels are always watching over us?"
Elyra hugged her and smiled.
"Yes, my love. Even if we can't see them, their light is always with us."
Elior looked at his sister and, in silence, swore to himself that he would always protect that beautiful glow shining in her eyes.
The sun filtered through the trees, filling Velmira with gold.The scent of freshly baked bread mingled with the murmur of the river.It was a morning like any other… or at least, it should have been.
Elior sat on the balcony of his room and did not come down for breakfast. His elbows rested on his knees, his gaze fixed on the horizon. His silver eyes, usually bright, looked dull and uneasy.
Elian approached him.
"Aren't you going to eat? Your mother made your favorite rolls."
Elior did not answer right away. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
"Dad… don't you feel like the air is strange?"
"Strange how?"
"Heavy. Like something bad is about to happen."
Elian watched him in silence, trying to smile.
"Maybe you're tired. Perhaps you had an unsettling dream."
Elior shook his head.
"It's not a dream. I've felt it for days. Like… something bad is getting closer."
At that moment, Liora ran up with a flower in her hand.
"Elior, look! It's for you!"
Elior smiled and gently patted her head.
"Thank you, little sister. You always know how to make everything feel less strange."
From the doorway, Elyra watched in silence. She had heard part of the conversation, so later, while preparing an infusion, she approached Kael.
"Elior is restless. He says the air feels dense, like something is coming."
Kael set his cup down and looked toward the forest.
"Sometimes… those who are born with light sense the shadow before anyone else."
Elyra looked at him, surprised.
"What do you mean?"
Kael did not answer. He simply sipped his drink slowly, as if tasting a premonition.
"Take care of him… even more than you already do. That kind of feeling can weigh heavily on a child."
At the market, Elior and his father traded bread, honey, and cloth. The sun shone brightly, yet the boy still felt the same weight in the air.
"Do you think others feel it too?" he asked quietly.
"Feel what?" his father replied.
"That heaviness… like the sky is about to break."
Elian sighed.
"Sometimes what we feel isn't felt by others. But that doesn't mean it isn't real."
Old Choko approached with a smile.
"Elior! Did you come to bring honey? You have the same serious face your mother gets when she frowns."
Elior forced a smile.
"Sorry. I haven't slept well."
"Maybe you're growing," the baker laughed. "That hurts too, you know."
Elior laughed weakly, though the weight in the air did not fade.
Back home, Elior sat beside Kael under the old oak tree. The man carved wood in silence.
"Uncle Kael… do you feel it too?"
Kael barely lifted his gaze.
"What do you mean?"
"That… I don't know how to explain it, but the air feels too heavy, and I have this feeling that something is about to happen."
Kael paused his work for a moment, then nodded.
"Keep trusting what you feel, son. Not everyone is born to look straight at the sky."
Elior lowered his gaze.
"And what if what's coming isn't good?"
Kael looked him straight in the eyes.
"Then you will endure. Even if you bleed, even if you cry. You will learn. Life hurts… but it also teaches how to heal."
SEVEN DAYS BEFORE THE TRAGEDY…
Elior woke with a start in the middle of the night. Outside, the sky lit up with silent flashes of lightning. There was no thunder—only light.
He went downstairs and found Kael, who had stayed in the house that night. He was sitting on the floor, meditating.
"Can't you sleep either?"
Kael slowly opened his eyes.
"The nights are intense, aren't they?"
Elior nodded.
"Yeah. But almost no one seems to feel them, uncle. Just me… and you."
Kael placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Maybe that's why you were born with that light. To see what others cannot."
Elior clenched his fists.
"I don't want to see anymore. I just want everything to go back to how it was before."
Kael sighed.
"Nothing ever goes back to how it was. But you're not alone, Elior. Never forget that."
FOUR DAYS BEFORE THE TRAGEDY…
Elior walked alone through the forest. He had always felt at peace there. But this time, the branches seemed to whisper things he couldn't understand. He felt watched.
A figure appeared among the trees: a deer, perfectly still. It stared at him with completely white eyes. Elior took a step back. The deer turned halfway around… and vanished into the mist.
When he returned home, Liora was waiting for him at the entrance.
"Where were you?"
"Walking."
"Don't go alone. Mom says the forest has been strange lately."
Elior hugged her.
"You're right. I won't go alone again."
THREE DAYS BEFORE THE TRAGEDYThe Dream
Elior slept deeply, his body still beneath the blankets, but his mind had crossed a threshold that asked no permission.
He found himself standing in a field without time. There was no sky. There was no ground. Only a white abyss that hurt the eyes.
Before him rose an enormous figure, featureless, like a silhouette carved out of light. It had no face… and yet, it looked at him with a burning intensity.
The figure extended a hand. From its fingers flowed strands of golden light that intertwined in the air. They seemed to be weaving something… or unraveling it. Elior tried to step back, but his feet would not respond.
Behind that shadow, a second celestial body emerged on the horizon. It was not a sun. It was a white light so pure it wounded everything it touched. The entire landscape began to be consumed—field, shapes, even silence itself.
The light advanced like a cold wave. It flooded everything. Elior felt his chest ignite from within. His flesh grew faint. His soul, exposed.
He wanted to scream, but there was no voice. He wanted to move, but he was dust within the brightness.
Then the figure, with that absence of features, tilted its head and whispered something to him. A single word.
It was not any known language. It was not a song, nor a command. It was a prayer that vibrated inside his ribs.
The light reached him. It passed through him. Everything burned—not like fire that scorches from the outside, but like a cold that carves into memory.
Elior opened his eyes, drenched in sweat. The room smelled of cold tea and wood. Liora slept peacefully beside him, unaware of the abyss he had visited.
He sat up in bed, hands covering his face. His heart pounded as if it were trying to escape his chest. He tried to remember the word he had heard. He couldn't. Only the white remained, and the noise that white left behind: a rough silence, as if something had stolen the notes of life itself.
From the kitchen, Kael—still in meditation—turned his head slightly and murmured without opening his eyes:
"It has begun."
The Tragedy of Elior BlackwoodMarch 20th
A day that began with laughter and blessings.
It was Elior Blackwood's tenth birthday, and the small town near the mountains was filled with joy.Everyone knew him. Everyone loved him.
His serenity was contagious, and his family was the soul of the place: kind, generous, and deeply devoted.
That day, the sun shone with unusual warmth, as if the sky itself wished to celebrate with them.
Gifts. Songs. Hugs.Life seemed perfect.
Elior played with his younger sister, Liora, among flowers and fallen leaves, while their parents, Elian and Elyra, prepared dinner.
But as the sun began to set… something changed.
From 6:00 p.m. onward, a strange density took hold of the air.The wind turned still.Animals fled.The elders murmured omens.
Some said a storm was coming.The most devout whispered, "A battle."
Kael, who had gone to the temple to retrieve Elior's gift, felt a presence that belonged neither to Geheris nor to Aetheris.He prepared himself at once and ran toward the stench and malice he sensed.
At home, Elian frowned.
"Something is coming… I feel it in my bones. No one is going out tonight."
10:30 p.m.
The ground shook.It was not a simple earthquake.
The sky tore open.Golden light collided with crimson flames.The earth split beneath their feet.
"Mom! Dad! What's happening?" Liora screamed in fear.
"Don't go out, Liora!" Elior replied, trying to shield her.
"Elian, the neighbors! We have to help them!" Elyra cried.
"Elior, take your sister and hide! Quickly—don't come out until we return!" Elian ordered, his voice firm.
The town descended into chaos.Burning houses.Desperate screams.
In the sky, an archangel with radiant wings battled a demon with twisted horns, its body made of burning shadow.
"Wait!" Liora ran after their parents, terrified.
"Liora, no!" Elior chased after her.
Then he saw it.
An archangel descended like a war-born star, drenched in golden blood, wielding a spear of light.Before him stood a demon: a mass of black fire, gigantic claws, roaring with fury.
Stunned, Elior whispered:
"What… what are you?"
But no one else reacted.They couldn't see them.Only he could.
The first impact shook the heavens like a war drum.A shockwave swept through the town.People and houses were thrown aside.
Elior hit the ground. A massive shard pierced his right arm.
The titans collided again with brutal force.Another shockwave erased everything in its path.
Bleeding, Elior ran to where his parents and sister were trapped beneath wood and stone.
Elian, his legs pinned, struggled to free Elyra and Liora.
"Elior, take your sister and run! Don't look back!"
"I'm almost freeing her—hold on, my daughter," Elyra said, gasping.
Elian remembered his promise: he would protect Elyra no matter the cost.Summoning impossible strength, he managed to loosen his wife's legs just enough for her to free Liora.
"Dad! I can't leave you!" Elior cried through tears.
Then the demon—wounded and enraged—noticed him.
"A living soul… pure… I need… your fire!" it roared in a rasping voice.
It lunged toward Elior like a starving beast.
But the archangel intercepted it midair with overwhelming fury.
"I forbid you from touching what does not belong to you, bastard!"
The clash hurled Elior away once more, throwing him to the ground meters from his family.
Both beings crashed nearby.Their blood mixed: incandescent, pure, and thick—black.The mixture spilled into Elior's wound, burning him from within.
The battle did not stop.
The demon raised a storm of fire.The archangel answered with blasts of divine light.
"Your heavens are empty, Azhaël! No one listens anymore!" the demon spat.
"Silence, bastard of Gehenna! My justice needs no witnesses!" the archangel roared, rage twisted into an exaggerated smile.
With a final motion, Azhaël drove his celestial sword through the demon's chest.
But the strike unleashed yet another shockwave.
The archangel raised his weapon to the sky.
"By Zhael'naht! In the name of the Kingdom of Aetheris, let all corruption be purged! Let the flame of judgment consume the impure, the blasphemous, the dark! So it shall be!"
A white circle expanded from his body.A purifying light erupted, scorching everything in its path.
Elior suddenly remembered the white light from his dreams and screamed:
"No! My family is there! Stop! Please!"
He tried to run—but fell.
From the ground, he saw Liora trapped between stones, reaching out her hand.
"Elior! Brother, help me!"
And then… the light enveloped her.Her. His mother. His father.
It erased them from the world.It purged them.
Elior screamed.
A scream that tore not only the night apart… but his soul as well.
"Mom… Dad… Sister… I have to find you… Why can't I move? What was that light? Who were they? Where is my family? Aren't angels supposed to protect us?!"
He slammed his fists into the ground in fury.
"Then… why? Why? WHY?!"
His voice broke into hatred.
"You killed them… so I will end you. All of you."
The surviving villagers ran toward the sound of that scream.
The archangel, standing amid the ruins, withdrew his sword from the demon's lifeless chest.He smiled—aloof, proud of his victory.
As he adjusted his hair, he felt a pressure.A fixed gaze.
A child covered in blood stared at him.Not with fear.With hatred.
The archangel thought it impossible for a human to see him.He dismissed it.
He took flight and vanished into the clouds.
Elior turned his head toward his home.Only ashes remained.
Those who found him no longer saw the peaceful child, the serene soul of the village.They found someone unrecognizable: covered in blood, mute, empty.
On the night the sky closed over Velmira, Kael was not there.
Hours earlier, he had felt a tremor in the mountains—a murmur only he could perceive.With his black robe and celestial katana on his back, he departed before nightfall.
He knew new rifts were forming beyond the mountain range.
He found them: cracks of dark radiance.From them emerged lesser creatures.
Kael did not hesitate.He sealed one, then another, then more.
His energy spread like a net, containing the evil.
But in his urgency to protect the borders, he did not feel what was happening at the heart of the town.He did not hear the pleas.He did not sense the fire.He did not witness the silence that followed.
Only when a wave crossed the night—a scream of soul, not of voice—did he stop.
It was Elior.
"Handle this yourselves!" he ordered the other angels who had arrived.
Then he vanished in a white flash.
When he reached Velmira, it was already too late.
The temple burned.The smoke was thick, as if the world itself were crying in ash.
And there, in the middle of the road, among blood and debris, was Elior.On his knees.In shock.His gaze empty, yet alive.
Covered in wounds.Covered in loss.Covered in a loneliness Kael recognized instantly.
His instinct was to embrace him, to protect him.But he knew nothing could return what had been taken.
Without a word, barely able to stand, Elior—covered in blood—approached the place where his parents and sister had been.He fell to his knees and begged God to please return them to him.
Words and suffering that were never answered.