Rain hammered against the dense forest canopy, thick fog clinging to the trees as her boots tore through the mud. She ran with one arm wrapped tightly around her swollen stomach, shielding the life inside her. The air surrounding her radiated such intense heat that falling raindrops hissed, vaporizing into steam before they even touched her skin. A fallen log blocked the path ahead. Without breaking stride, she thrust her hand forward, flame igniting across her knuckles to blast through the rotting wood. Her lungs burned with every ragged breath—the heat of her own power eating away at her from the inside.
Why... Why did you leave us?
She glanced back through the gloom. A heavy silhouette was closing the distance, matching her stride for stride.
Damn it...
She twisted to face him, but her shoes caught in a slick tangle of roots. Her legs gave out, slamming her heavily into the cold mud. The impact knocked the wind from her burning lungs, leaving her gasping against the wet earth as footsteps slowly approached. She tried to drag herself forward, a desperate attempt to escape, but it was already too late.
A cold blade sank deep into her chest.
The world went quiet. Warm blood spilled from her lips as she forced her eyes open to look up at him.
"Why... why did you do that?" Her voice was barely a rasp. "Are you really going to make our son suffer more than what he will already face...?"
The father was already lost behind his pure, starless dark eyes. He didn't answer. As the mother breathed her final breath, her last thought was of him—of the memory where he held her, promising that everything would be okay, that he would protect the son.
But he didn't keep his promise.
The father looked down at the dead mother; he noticed something was moving inside the womb; a child was crying. The father leaned down as he cut the umbilical cord between the mother and the child. He picked him up as he looked at how he was crying. The father turned around as he approached a figure standing behind the shadows; he handed him the baby as the figure looked at the child.
"He is still breathing, huh?"
The figure looked at how the child was behaving under the rain hitting his bare skin.
And the scene changes. We are now at the house, a small house with a single room and chains all around the place.
The first thing the child met was food; he gets food, he eats, he drinks milk, and he gets to grow enough, so the father finally starts the order the scientist warned him about.
The way he got food wasn't just feeding. It was forced, without a single love in it, and just growing in a flat state where he can't learn anything except surviving.
And after that, the child reaches the age of six. After eating and growing healthy, he meets the room that has been waiting for him.
The child gets chained inside that room, and the father does it without a single thought in his mind. He seems to be controlled by a person, or maybe the curse itself?
And the first torture he will ever meet starts. The swings feel mechanical, feel cold, but the father wasn't even there; he's lost somewhere behind his own eyes.
The first few swings were the hardest of all.
The first one was directly on the left eye, making a jagged, long scar on a child who's only six, and he survived by the will of his power; it's like a promise where the power makes you feel the torture instead of letting you die in one shot.
The swings continue, another one on his left arm this time. Instead of only one hit in that specific spot, it was two, making an ugly V-shaped scar.
The hit isn't just hard; it's killing.
This isn't a ruler across the palm. Every swing kills a nerve on contact — death, over and over, just wearing a different face each time.
And that wasn't it; the child was forced to count every single hit. If he forgot just a single one, he would get a harder hit and a reminder of where he stopped. He continues.
Six... seven... eight... uhh...
And a harder hit fell on his hand, making him scream out loud. And the father reminds him, casually.
Nine.
And the count continues like this for what feels like eternity, reaching a number that shouldn't have been reachable from a body still breathing.
One hundred and one... one hundred and two... one hundred and... and three... o-one hundred and... uhhh... I-I mean one hundred a-and five?
Another swing in his hand made him scream in pain.
One hundred and four.
The father reminds...