Cold.
Sweet, soothing, calming cold. That was what Willow felt as he marched with his fellow recruits toward the borders — the dividing line between life and death. The infinite Wall that separated humanity from their doom. Or at least, that was the idea behind it.
The Wall loomed on the horizon like a silent god. Its shadow stretched across the snowfields, swallowing the land inch by inch. A reminder that the life he once knew — the life he left behind — was over. And this new life he chose, out of necessity and nothing else, was his future for who knew how long.
Each step he took crunched against the frozen ground. Heavy. Yet strangely light.
His slim, frail body swayed under the raging winds that threatened to blow him away at any moment. His oversized, ragged coat flapped wildly, barely holding against the freezing air. The boots he wore were worn and cracked, barely protecting his numb feet.
His long, unkempt, disheveled chestnut hair with strands of green whipped across his face. Frost clung to the lashes that framed dull emerald eyes. His lips were dry and cracked. His nose reddish from the cold. Snot ran down, and he didn't bother wiping it.
The harsh shouts of the guards from the front and rear of the caravan tore through the wind. The heavy hooves of their massive horses struck the ground with authority.
A reminder.
He was alive.
Alive in this hellish place.
And there was no salvation coming.
Willow exhaled slowly, breath dissolving into mist.
"Well… at least this damned journey will end soon," he muttered. "I can't feel my feet, for God's sake."
No one heard him. Or maybe they did and didn't care.
As the shadow of the Wall finally covered him completely — like an omen, like a countdown — Willow found his thoughts drifting to the events that brought him here.
Not that there was much to remember.
From what he knew, he never knew who he was. No name before Willow. No family. No faces waiting for him somewhere. His amnesia ran deep — not like forgetting, but like something that was never written to begin with.
One day he didn't exist. The next, he woke up inside an abandoned hut at the outskirts of a small city in a kingdom he never bothered to remember.
Because remembering required caring.
And caring required safety.
He had neither.
His earliest memory was rain dripping through a broken ceiling.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Cold water striking his forehead.
He remembered opening his eyes slowly. The smell of mold. The ache in his bones. The emptiness in his head.
No panic. No screaming. Just silence.
He lay there for a long time staring at the missing plank above him. Gray sky beyond it.
He tried to remember something. Anything. A voice. A name. A face.
There was nothing.
Only a faint sensation — like someone once called out to him from far away. A voice too blurred to recognize. That was the only fragment he had.
Not a memory.
Just the feeling that maybe, once, someone had said his name.
He didn't even know if that was real.
The town didn't welcome him.
It endured him.
He spent his first days running from older boys who thought he was strange. Hiding behind crates when shopkeepers noticed him staring too long at food stalls. Digging through scraps behind taverns, ignoring the smell because hunger burned worse.
He learned fast.
Which streets were safe. Which ones weren't.
Which dogs attacked. Which humans attacked.
Instinct took over most of the time.
Fight or flight became his only state of existence.
Whether facing human, non-human, or beast, the answer was always the same.
Survive.
And so he survived.
Three years.
Three long, unforgiving years.
Like an alley animal who learned to hunt only when the last eye fell asleep.
That was his life.
Hope was a myth.
Desperation was fuel.
There was no room for dreams.
Dreams consumed energy.
Energy meant survival.
But that wasn't entirely true.
There was one thing.
One small, ridiculous thing he once wanted.
On cold nights, when he managed to steal enough coins for bread and a corner inside a rundown inn, he would lie awake staring at the wooden ceiling.
And he would imagine something impossible.
A small house.
Not big. Not luxurious.
Just a place where rain didn't drip on his face.
A door that locked from the inside.
A bed that belonged to him.
That was it.
That was the dream.
Not glory.
Not power.
Not revenge.
Just a place that was his.
He never told anyone.
He barely admitted it to himself.
Because wanting something made losing it hurt more.
There was also that moment.
That almost-kindness.
The winter during his first year was brutal. Snow swallowed the streets. He hadn't eaten in two days.
He followed the scent of bread to a small bakery near the edge of town.
He didn't intend to steal. He didn't have the strength. He simply sat beside the warm brick wall outside and closed his eyes.
He remembered boots stopping in front of him.
He forced himself not to look up.
A pause.
Then something landed beside him.
A small piece of bread.
Not fresh. Not warm.
But edible.
He waited.
The boots didn't move for a few seconds.
Then they turned and walked away.
He looked up just in time to see the back of a woman entering the bakery.
He never saw her face. He never knew her name.
He never went back there again.
He didn't know why.
Maybe because that small act unsettled him more than cruelty ever did.
Kindness felt dangerous.
Like something that could crack the shell he built around himself.
Still, sometimes, when hunger twisted his stomach too violently, he remembered that piece of bread.
And the strange warmth that came with it.
When he reached fifteen years old — that fateful, hateful day that changed his life — he made a mistake.
He bit off more than he could chew.
In an act of utter desperation — because he was hungry, thirsty, and cold — Willow did the unthinkable.
A mistake that, well…
It cost him his life.
Literally.
Like a wounded, starving animal, he followed a small merchant caravan, convinced that stealing a few gold coins at night would be easy.
After all, he had done it before.
Small merchants don't usually hire guards or mercenaries. Who in their right mind would risk their life over a few gold coins — a mundane currency with little real value?
Willow's method was simple.
He would follow the merchant out of town. When night fell and exhaustion claimed them, he would sneak in silently and take only a few coins — just enough to survive for a couple more days.
Never too much.
Never enough to provoke anger.
It was an easy endeavor most of the time.
It ended with his stomach full and a few warmer nights.
But that day, hunger clouded his judgment.
Lack of sleep dulled his senses.
And he made crucial errors.
While sneaking into the small encampment, he failed to notice the engraved rings on the merchant's fingers — rings that only a magus could use.
His second mistake was greed.
He overstayed his welcome.
He stole more than he should have.
That was all it took.
It didn't take more than a few seconds for the magus to feel the vibrations traveling through the earth each time the sole of Willow's foot pressed against the ground.
The magus's eyes snapped open.
He thought it was a beast.
In panic, still lying on the ground, he extended his arm and conjured a jagged shard of hardened rock in haste.
In one swift motion, he turned and hurled it toward the intruder.
The sound came first.
Rock tearing through flesh.
Bones shattering.
Blood splashing against dirt.
Only then did his eyes properly land on Willow.
Not a beast.
Just a boy.
"Shit… it's just a small teenager… damn it."
He got to his feet and walked closer, only to witness the last vestige of life draining from Willow's body.
All this while, Willow's mind was frozen.
One moment he was searching through a bag.
The next, a stabbing pain tore through his torso, overwhelming every sense he had.
His legs lost all power.
His knees buckled beneath sudden weakness.
The world tilted.
He fell sideways into a puddle of his own blood and gore.
Warm.
Sticky.
Spreading.
His vision blurred.
The pain, strangely, began to fade.
He couldn't even form a coherent thought.
Death embraced him quietly.
He lived like an animal.
He died like one.
Figuratively.
And literally.