Riyan's POV
I was born into ordinariness—the kind of middle-class existence where comfort was taken for granted and tragedy seemed like something that happened to other people in news stories you scrolled past without really reading.
My parents were good people. That's what everyone said, and for once, everyone was right. Max and Beyoncé—names that now feel strange on my tongue after years in a body that calls different people "mother" and "father"—had clawed their way up from orphanhood through sheer determination and mutual devotion. They'd built a life from nothing, and I was the centerpiece of that life, the living proof that their struggles had meant something.
They loved me with the fierce, protective intensity of people who'd grown up without love themselves and were determined their child would never know that emptiness.
I should have been happy. Should have been normal.
But even as a child, I knew something was wrong with me.
The other children played—running, screaming, laughing with the unselfconscious joy that childhood was supposed to contain. I watched them the way a scientist observes lab rats, curious about their behaviors but fundamentally unable to connect with whatever drove them. Their games seemed pointless. Their laughter felt performative. Their friendships appeared to be elaborate social contracts based on convenience rather than genuine affection.
I preferred books. Preferred the company of ideas to the company of peers who seemed determined to waste time on activities that served no productive purpose.
The other children found me unsettling. I could see it in how they'd quiet when I approached, how their parents would give me assessing looks when they thought I wasn't paying attention. There was something about me—some quality I couldn't identify but they could instinctively sense—that marked me as *different* in ways that made people uncomfortable.
My parents called it being "mature for my age." Teachers called it being "exceptionally bright." Other adults used phrases like "old soul" with the kind of uneasy admiration that suggested they weren't entirely comfortable with what they were observing.
None of them used the word that would have been more accurate: *detached*.
I loved my parents. Or rather, I understood intellectually that they'd sacrificed for me, worked themselves to exhaustion to provide opportunities I didn't take for granted. I felt gratitude, which I'd learned was the socially appropriate response to such devotion.
But actual emotional warmth? The kind of visceral, overwhelming affection other children seemed to feel naturally? That was harder. It required effort, conscious performance of behaviors I'd observed and catalogued as "how children show love."
I got very good at performing.
My parents never knew. They saw a brilliant, devoted son who studied hard, helped around the house, and made them proud with academic achievements that validated every sacrifice they'd made. They never glimpsed the cold calculation beneath the warm smiles, never understood that I was operating from a script I'd written based on observation rather than genuine feeling.
I wanted to be normal. Wanted to feel what others seemed to feel so effortlessly. But wanting something and being capable of it are very different things.
So I compensated by being useful. If I couldn't love them the way they deserved, I could at least make their lives easier. Could be the son they'd dreamed of, even if that son was more performance than reality.
It was sustainable. Lonely, perhaps, but sustainable.
Then came the night that broke everything.
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**Third Person POV**
**November 12th - 3:56 AM**
**New Creek, Small Town Nowhere**
The moon hung full and bright over the small town of New Creek, casting silver light across streets empty except for the occasional cat or late-shift worker heading home. It was the kind of town where everyone knew everyone, where doors were often left unlocked, where tragedy was something that happened on television rather than in your neighbor's home.
That illusion of safety was about to shatter.
In the modest two-story house on Maple Street, nine-year-old Riyan slept the deep, dreamless sleep of childhood. His room was a organized chaos of books—fiction and non-fiction mixed together with no apparent system except that he knew exactly where everything was. Comic books sat next to philosophy texts too advanced for his age. Fantasy novels shared shelf space with true crime anthologies that would have concerned his parents if they'd known he was reading them.
Down the hall, Max and Beyoncé slept in their own room, Max's arm draped protectively over his wife even in unconsciousness. They'd fallen asleep discussing mundane things—bills to be paid, Riyan's upcoming parent-teacher conference, whether they should finally replace the water heater that had been making concerning noises.
Normal things. Safe things. The concerns of people who believed tomorrow would come and be mostly like today.
Outside, a figure stood in the shadows across the street, watching the house with patient intensity. He'd been watching for weeks now, learning their patterns, their schedules, their habits. Knew that Max worked the early shift at the plant. Knew that Beyoncé taught at the elementary school. Knew that young Riyan walked himself home after school because they'd raised him to be independent, to be responsible.
Knew that they trusted their safe little town to protect them.
That trust was a weakness he intended to exploit.
The figure—a man in his early forties with unremarkable features that would be difficult to describe to police later—felt the familiar tingle of anticipation building in his chest. This was the moment he lived for. Not the act itself, though that had its pleasures. But this moment right before, when he stood on the threshold of transforming peaceful lives into absolute horror.
When he held the power to decide who lived and who died, who suffered and for how long.
The knife in his pocket was familiar weight, well-balanced, sharp enough to slide through flesh with minimal resistance. He'd used it before—not here, in towns carefully selected for their distance from New Creek, their lack of connection to this place where he'd finally settled.
Practice. That's what those had been. Preparation for something more meaningful, more personal.
This family. This perfect little family with their perfect little son. They deserved to understand that safety was an illusion. That the world was a place of random violence and meaningless suffering, and that their love and devotion meant nothing in the face of someone who'd decided they should die.
At exactly 3:56 AM, he crossed the street.
The front door was locked, but the window near the kitchen opened easily—they never bothered securing it because who would break into a house in this neighborhood? The question was almost funny in its naivety.
He moved through the house with practiced silence, his footsteps barely disturbing the floorboards. Past the kitchen where family photos cluttered the refrigerator. Past the living room where toys were scattered despite Beyoncé's attempts to keep things tidy. Past the bathroom where Riyan's toothbrush sat next to his parents' in a cup decorated with cartoon characters.
Evidence of a life built on hope and love and the stupid, blind faith that good things happened to good people.
He stood outside the master bedroom door, listening to the soft sounds of sleeping bodies—Max's light snoring, Beyoncé's deeper breaths. Living people, unaware that their lives were about to end.
The anticipation was almost unbearable now, a physical pressure in his chest that demanded release.
He opened the door with infinite care. Crossed to the bed with steps that barely displaced air. Looked down at Max's sleeping face, peaceful and trusting.
Then he pulled out the knife and drove it into Max's stomach with all his strength.
The scream was immediate and beautiful—a raw expression of agony and shock and the sudden, horrible understanding that safety had been a lie.
"AHHHHHHH!"
The killer laughed, a sound of pure ecstatic release. "HAHAHAHA!"
He pulled the knife out and stabbed again, higher this time, the blade sliding between ribs with practiced ease.
"ARRAAAHHH!"
Another scream. More laughter. The killer was lost in it now, the cycle of causing pain and drinking in the resulting suffering. This was what he lived for. This moment of absolute power, of reducing another human being to nothing but agony and terror.
Max tried to fight back, his hands coming up in weak, ineffective attempts to push the knife away. But shock and blood loss were stealing his strength faster than he could comprehend. His blood was everywhere now—soaking the sheets, splattering the walls, pooling on the floor.
"AAAAAHHH!"
Beyoncé woke to nightmare made real. Her husband writhing in agony, blood everywhere, a stranger standing over them with a knife dripping crimson. Her mind couldn't process it at first—this couldn't be real, this had to be a dream, this didn't happen in New Creek—
Then survival instinct overrode shock.
She didn't think. Didn't try to save Max, though guilt for that would haunt her for the rest of her very short life. Her only thought was her son. Her baby. Her Riyan who'd been sleeping safely down the hall and was now in danger from this monster who'd invaded their home.
She rolled out of bed, hitting the floor hard enough to bruise. The killer was so absorbed in his work with Max that he didn't immediately notice. She scrambled to her feet and ran, her mind blank except for one driving imperative: *Get to Riyan. Save Riyan. Nothing else matters.*
Behind her, Max's screams were weakening, becoming wet, gurgling sounds that suggested terrible damage to vital organs. Behind her, the killer's laughter continued, mad and joyful and utterly inhuman.
She ran down the hall, her bare feet slapping against hardwood, towards her son's room where a light had just flickered on.
Where Riyan stood in his doorway, nine years old and clutching a baseball bat that would be useless against what was coming, his expression not showing the terror she'd expected but something else.
Something colder. More analytical. As if he were observing this scene from outside himself, cataloguing events for later review.
"Mom?" His voice was steady. Too steady. "What's happening? Why is Dad screaming?"
Beyoncé grabbed his arm, tried to pull him toward the stairs, toward escape. "We have to go. Right now. Don't ask questions, just—"
"Well, well, well."
The voice came from behind them, wet with blood and satisfaction. The killer stood at the end of the hallway, backlit by the light from the master bedroom where Max's screams had finally stopped. His knife dripped steadily, creating a small puddle on the floor.
"The wife and the son. How perfect. The whole family together for our special night."
His smile was the kind of expression that proved humanity was capable of genuine evil. Not the evil of passion or desperation or even insanity. But the cold, calculated evil of someone who understood exactly what they were doing and chose to do it anyway because causing suffering brought them pleasure.
Beyoncé pushed Riyan behind her, her body becoming a shield. "Please," she said, and hated the pleading in her voice but couldn't stop it. "Please, he's just a child. He's nine years old. Let him go. Do whatever you want to me, but let him—"
"No."
The killer moved forward with leisurely confidence. There was nowhere for them to run now. The stairs were behind him. The windows were too high to jump from safely. They were trapped.
"I want him to watch. Want him to understand what happens to people who think they're safe. Want him to carry that lesson for whatever short, traumatized life he has left after tonight."
He lunged.
Beyoncé tried to fight, her nails raking across his face and drawing blood. But she was a elementary school teacher who'd never been in a real fight, and he was a practiced killer who'd done this before. The knife found her stomach, then her chest, then her throat in rapid succession.
She fell, her body collapsing between Riyan and the killer.
And Riyan stood there, bat still clutched in small hands, watching his mother die with that same cold, analytical expression. As if he were observing a particularly interesting documentary rather than living through the worst night of his life.
The killer paused, studying the boy with newfound interest. This wasn't the reaction he'd expected. Most children would be screaming, crying, breaking down completely.
But this boy just... watched.
"You're an interesting one," the killer said, tilting his head. "What's your name, boy?"
Riyan's voice was flat, emotionless. "Nemora."
It wasn't his real name—not the one his parents had whispered over him, not the one tied to laughter, warmth, or childhood. But as he stared at his mother's blood crawling across the floorboards, something inside him snapped… and something else was born. A cold, silent blaze of conquest and revenge coiled in his chest, devouring whatever softness he had left. He forced his face into a mask of emptiness, pretending not to care even as the people he loved were butchered in front of him. The killer, amused by his stillness, eventually grew bored and walked away.
Only after the footsteps faded did Riyan slip into the nearest room, shut the door with trembling hands, and collapse—silent sobs shaking the body of a boy who could no longer remember what it felt like to be human.
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**Author's Note:**
This chapter establishes the traumatic origin of Riyan's psychological issues. The name "Nemora" represents his psychological break and transformation. This backstory explains but doesn't excuse his current sadistic tendencies.
**Content Warning:** Next chapter will contain the conclusion of this flashback, including violence involving a child. While I'll handle it as tactfully as possible, reader discretion is strongly advised.
**Reader Discussion:**
- How does this context change your view of Riyan's current behavior?
- Should trauma excuse or just explain violent tendencies?
- Do you think he can heal from this, or is he permanently damaged?
**Next Chapter Preview:** "Riyan's Past Life [Part 2]" - The conclusion of the Nemora incident and how he survived/escaped.
Power stones and comments appreciated!
*- Your Author*