Night wrapped the house in a suffocating shroud of silence.
The stranger—the man with the tattoo—remained. He knelt beside Zaren once more and gently placed a small food pack into the boy's limp hands. His movements were careful, almost hesitant, as if he feared the child might shatter if touched too firmly.
"Eat," he said softly. "Even a little."
Zaren didn't respond. He didn't look at the food. His fingers didn't even curl around the plastic wrapping. He was a ghost in his own body.
The man's phone vibrated in his pocket, a harsh, mechanical buzzing in the quiet room. He pulled it out, the blue light of the screen casting a ghostly glow on his face as he read the message:
Rai, come fast. The meeting is about to start.
For a moment, the man said nothing. He looked at the message, then at the broken boy on the floor.
"…I have to go."
He stood up, his joints popping in the silence. He looked down at Zaren one last time. The child didn't meet his eyes; Zaren was staring at a spot on the floor where the light no longer reached.
The man turned toward the door. He paused, his hand on the frame for just half a second, his back to the room.
"Live," he said quietly.
Then he was gone. The night swallowed him whole, leaving Zaren alone in the house of shadows.
Darkness filled the room as the last of the embers in the hearth died out. The air felt heavy, thick with a grief that wouldn't fade, a scent of copper and cold air. Zaren sat beside his mother's body. He didn't move. He didn't try to cover her. He simply existed in the space beside her.
There was no sound.
Tears slipped down his face, silent and hot, without a sob or a gasp to accompany them. Time stretched, warping into something unrecognizable. The night passed slowly, painfully, each second a mountain he had to climb.
"…Why…?"
The whisper barely existed, a tiny puff of air in the vast dark.
"…Why…?"
Again.
"…Why…?"
The same word, over and over, a mantra of the broken. He repeated it as if the sheer repetition might force the universe to provide an answer, to undo what had been done. But the universe remained silent.
Morning eventually came. Pale, sickly dawn light crept through the windows, touching the walls, the floor, and finally—her face. Nothing had changed. The nightmare was still real in the light of day.
Outside, the frantic sound of hurried footsteps broke the stillness. A young woman ran toward the house, her breath uneven, her face a mask of terror.
Maki reached the doorway. She saw the room. And she froze.
"…No… no…"
Her knees buckled, hitting the floor as the sound of her grief finally broke free. Her breath caught in her throat, a choked sob. Then, Maki's eyes widened as she noticed it—a slight movement in the corner.
Zaren was alive.
She rushed to him, scrambling across the floor on her knees. She dropped beside him, her hands trembling as she reached out to touch his shoulders.
"Zaren…?" she whispered, her voice thick with tears.
No response.
Zaren stared straight ahead at the wall. His eyes were open, but there was nothing in them. No fear. No tears. No recognition of the woman who held him. Just a vast, echoing emptiness. Maki pulled him into her arms, holding him with a desperate strength, as if letting go might make him disappear into the shadows too.
"I'm here," she said softly, her voice cracking. "I'm here now."
Zaren didn't react. He was a statue of flesh and bone.
Three days later.
The room was quiet.
Zaren sat by the window, unmoving, staring at the light outside as if it belonged to a different world, a different dimension he could no longer reach. Maki placed a plate of food beside him, the steam rising in the cool air, and stepped back.
She hesitated, her heart aching at the sight of his hollow profile. She spoke gently, her voice barely above a whisper.
"You don't have to talk," she said. "Just… stay."
Silence was her only answer. Then—barely—Zaren's lips moved. The sound was so small it almost didn't exist, like the rustle of dry leaves.
"…They'll pay."
Maki froze. The air in the room seemed to sharpen.
Zaren's voice was still quiet—but this time, it was clear. It was a voice that had aged a decade in three days.
"The one who killed them…" A pause. Not of hesitation, but of cold, calculated thought. "I'll kill him."
Maki grabbed his shoulders, gripping him tightly as her own emotions broke through her restraint. "No," she said firmly, her voice trembling. "Don't say that."
Zaren looked up at her. For the first time, he met her eyes. There was no anger in them. There was no hot rage or screaming fury.
Just emptiness.
Time moved forward. Years bled into one another, and Zaren changed. He trained.
He didn't train in grand, gilded halls under legendary masters. There were no ancient scrolls or mystical techniques. There was only simple, brutal, human effort.
He did push-ups until his arms gave out and he collapsed into the dirt. He ran alone through the empty, pre-dawn streets until his lungs burned like they were filled with acid. He fell. He stood back up. Every. Single. Time.
At school, he was a ghost that occasionally bit back. He got into fights—not to dominate others, not to impress the girls or earn a reputation. He fought only when pushed. Only when cornered. He fought with a mechanical efficiency that unnerved the other boys.
At night, while the rest of the world slept, he sat alone in his room. Books were spread open across the floor like a map of a battlefield.
Muscles.Joints.Nerve systems.
He studied the human body like a machine—learning how it moved, how it balanced, and most importantly, how it failed. He looked for the friction points, the weaknesses, the places where a single strike could end a life.
His eyes stayed focused, the "Why?" of his childhood replaced by a silent "How?"
Five years passed.
Zaren stood alone under the vast, uncaring night sky, his fists clenched at his sides. The soft boy who had laughed in the orange light of 5:57 PM was gone, buried under layers of scar tissue and resolve.
He didn't cry anymore. He didn't scream.
He prepared.