Kain watched the escape pod vanish into the void.

  His breath caught in his throat as the final seal hissed shut. Behind the transparent barrier, his parents stared back—his mother, eyes brimming with tears; his father, fists clenched, unable to hide the torment written across his face.

  And then they were gone.

  Silence settled in their absence, but it didn’t bring peace—only a deafening emptiness.

  Kain stood alone in the heart of a collapsing world.

  His heart screamed.

  They left because they had to… because I made them.

  I have to be strong. I have to… finish this.

  A low, tearing sound echoed from behind.

  He turned.

  From the fractured air, a monstrous hand forced itself further into reality—its black claws dragging along the rim of the spatial crack. Space itself wept as the creature widened the tear with a sickening screech.

  Kain froze. His body refused to move, every instinct begging him to run. But there was nowhere to go—and even if there was, he wouldn’t take it.

  No turning back now.

  His eyes darted across the ruined control room.

  Then he saw it.

  A sword. Sleek. Untouched. Resting beside a scorched console like it had been waiting just for him.

  Kain sprinted.

  Pain flared through his side from earlier wounds, but he pushed on, reaching out. His fingers closed around the hilt.

  And then… he turned.

  The creature had stepped through fully now—its grotesque form stretched and hunched, with eyes like burning coals and a grin carved too wide across its face.

  “A child,” it rasped, voice curling with cruel delight, “who’s never even wielded a blade… standing before me.”

  Kain swallowed. The sword trembled in his grasp.

  His heartbeat pounded like war drums in his ears.

  I need to survive. I have to survive.

  But even he knew the truth.

  There was no winning this.

  Only delay. Only defiance.

  He lowered his stance, just as he’d seen his father do in training. Just one lucky strike. One misstep. That’s all I need.

  But he never got the chance.

  There was no warning.

  Just pain.

  Blinding, world-ending pain.

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  His body flung backward like a ragdoll. Bones cracked. His lungs refused to draw air. When he opened his eyes, all he saw was red—blood clouding his vision.

  He couldn’t even scream.

  The creature’s voice returned, cutting through the haze like shattered glass.

  “Hah… I’ll give you this, boy,” it sneered. “You’ve got guts.”

  Kain barely made out the blurred silhouette stepping closer.

  “You stood before one of us. At your age? That’s rare.” It paused. “I’ll make you a deal.”

  Kain’s bloodied lips parted, but no sound came.

  “I could kill you here. Easily. But I see a spark… a warrior. So I’ll give you a chance. A single, cursed chance.” The creature raised a clawed finger. “I’ll cast you into a random spatial fracture. You’ll likely die—ninety-nine percent chance, give or take. But if you live… perhaps you’re worthy of more.”

  Live?

  Kain thought of his parents—of his mother’s blood-streaked smile, of his father’s desperate fist pounding the pod’s glass.

  If there’s even the slimmest chance I can see them again… I’ll take it. I’ll take anything.

  He forced a breath past cracked ribs and bloodied teeth.

  “…Yes.”

  The creature grinned wider.

  “Then so be it.”

  Darkness surged from its hands as it drew symbols into the floor with a blackened relic. Space groaned in protest.

  The sigil flared.

  Reality split open once more—this time into a black void so dense it seemed to devour the light itself.

  Even through blood-filled vision, Kain could see it.

  A tear in existence.

  An abyss.

  “Enjoy, little one,” the creature whispered, voice almost gentle.

  And then Kain’s body lifted—weightless—and was thrown into the dark.

  Somewhere far away…

  A rift cracked open across a forgotten sky.

  Kain’s limp form tumbled from the heavens and crashed into solid ground.

  The impact knocked the air from his lungs.

  He lay there, motionless, vision swimming with blood and haze. His fingers twitched weakly as he struggled to wipe his eyes.

  When the red cleared… he wished it hadn’t.

  A gray-and-blood-red sky churned overhead, casting a sickly hue across an endless field of black, lifeless soil. The very air felt drained—like the world itself had been bled dry.

  Kain’s stomach twisted.

  This… isn’t a place meant for the living.

  But the chaos had stopped.

  No battles. No screams. Just… silence.

  For the first time in what felt like forever, he was alone with his thoughts.

  And his pain.

  Agony laced every breath, every twitch. But even through it, his mind drifted—not to survival, not to vengeance…

  —but to them.

  His mother, eyes glistening with bloody tears.

  His father, roaring with helpless rage.

  Tears slid down Kain’s cheeks, mixing with the blood.

  This pain… it’s nothing. If it means they live.

  His hand brushed against something cold near his chest.

  The necklace.

  The one his mother had given him when he was five. The red crystal still hung there—inside it, a single drop of healing potion.

  With trembling fingers, he grasped it.

  Unscrewed the top.

  And slowly, shakily, brought it to his lips.

  The warmth hit first—a gentle wave spreading through his chest like a mother’s embrace.

  But then the warmth twisted.

  A sharp, stabbing pain erupted from his heart, racing up to his skull like lightning. His entire body seized in agony, as if his veins were rejecting something foreign—or awakening something buried.

  His vision flickered—black, then white.

  And in the darkness… her face appeared.

  His mother.

  Kneeling. Smiling through tears. Pressing the necklace into his small hands.

  Her lips moved, saying something—but no sound came.

  The image faded, and the pain returned tenfold.

  Kain screamed silently, his throat too raw to give voice. His fists clenched so tightly that blood spilled from beneath his nails.

  But none of it compared to the agony ripping through his lungs and heart—like something inside him was being torn open.

  Then it shifted again.

  A strange, cooling sensation poured through his body—not just through blood, but something deeper. Something older.

  Kain gasped as the pain dulled slightly. Not gone. Not even close. But now he felt something knitting him back together—slowly, carefully, like a broken body remembering how to breathe.

  Not everything was healed.

  But he could feel it.

  Something inside him had changed

  The sensation faded, but something remained—an echo beneath his skin, like embers buried under ash.

  Kain slowly pushed himself up, arms trembling under his weight. His breath came in shallow gasps. Every inch of him ached, but he was alive. Barely.

  The world around him pulsed with unnatural silence.

  He looked up.

  That sky—twisted, red, and gray—stretched endlessly above, swirling like a storm that had long since forgotten how to rage. The ground beneath him was cold and cracked, black as obsidian and lifeless as bone.

  No wind. No sound. No sign of life.

  Yet something in the distance stirred. A rumble, soft but deliberate, like the world had noticed him.

  Kain’s fingers drifted to the crystal at his chest. The warmth was gone. It was just glass now.

  Whatever his mother had given him… it had been used.

  He was alone now.

  But not empty.