Kairo sat kneeling in the snow.
Cold.
Silent.
Snow hammering the ground relentlessly.
His breath fogged the air in thin, trembling clouds.
His eyes were blank—no light, no focus.
Above him, the sky still burned red.
Ash drifted in slow spirals over the ruins of Velronia.
He looked around Lagos.
Desolate.
Dead.
Empty.
No footsteps.
No voices.
No life.
Just him.
Alone.
Kairo stood slowly, as if the cold had frozen his thoughts solid.
He didn't speak.
He didn't think.
His brain was empty.
His eyes were empty.
Then—
Growling.
Low.
Wet.
Hungry.
He turned.
Five wolves surrounded him.
Huge, thick-furred, gray and black.
Drooling so aggressively the snow beneath them turned slick.
He stared back at them with no expression.
Their eyes bulged unnaturally.
Their jaws hung too low.
Their bodies twitched with starvation.
"When's the last time you've eaten," he said softly.
The words fell flat—
no spirit,
no fear,
no emotion.
Just a sound.
Then suddenly—
his vision blurred.
The world tilted.
Snow rushed up to meet him.
He was on the floor.
He didn't know how.
He turned his head weakly to the right.
The wolves were closer now, circling, jaws wet, teeth exposed.
And one of them—
one of them was holding something.
Something red.
Something dangling.
Something dripping.
"...what?" he muttered.
He squinted.
It looked like—
a piece of fabric?
skin?
meat?
His thoughts tightened.
…is that—
A drip hit the snow beside him.
Red.
Thick.
Not ink.
Not paint.
Blood.
He looked down.
Red streaks trailing across the ground.
A pool forming where he lay.
His right sleeve—
empty.
The realization struck him like a blade to the chest.
And then the scream came.
A raw, bloodcurdling scream that tore out of him and echoed through the dead, frozen village.
It shook the empty trees.
It carried through the ruins.
Nothing answered.
His arm was gone.
Torn off.
He lurched upward, falling, scrambling, shaking uncontrollably.
The wolves growled louder, closing in with violent hunger.
Kairo's breathing spiked.
His heart hammered.
His vision shook.
His remaining hand grabbed the hilt of his katana.
He drew it—
but his grip was trembling, slipping, weak.
The wolves stepped closer.
Snow crunching.
Breath steaming.
Teeth bared.
Kairo stood there shaking, blade quivering in his single hand—
terrified.
He stepped back.
His breath shattered in the cold air.
His thoughts spiralled, collapsing in on themselves.
I'm scared.
I'm scared.
I'm scared.
His heartbeat slammed against his ribs.
He glanced down—
his missing arm gushing blood in thick, steaming rivers that stained the snow a deep, spreading red.
His remaining hand gripped the katana hilt.
Shaking.
Slipping.
Barely holding on.
The wolves moved closer.
Growling.
Teeth exposed.
Drool dripping in strings.
Eyes bulging—
wild, starving, unhinged.
Kairo's legs trembled.
His spine locked.
His lungs squeezed shut.
He felt his knees start to buckle.
He felt the world tilt.
He felt—
afraid.
Not cautious.
Not anxious.
Not tense.
Pure, paralyzing, animal fear.
The kind that freezes the body
before the mind can even scream.
One of the wolves lunged—
a streak of black fur and teeth aiming straight for his throat.
Kairo sidestepped on instinct and swung his katana across its back.
His blade cut air—
but before he could regain footing—
CRUNCH.
A second wolf collided with him mid-swing, jaws snapping shut around the katana's spine.
Its teeth locked onto the steel, grinding with insane force.
"What—"
He didn't finish.
Another impact hit his ribs like a hammer.
And suddenly—
Kairo was on the floor.
Face-first in the snow.
Wind knocked out of him.
Cold stabbing into his skin.
A sharp, tearing agony ripped through his body.
"W–what…
the hell…"
His voice cracked.
His mind stuttered.
It hurts.
It hurts.
It hurts.
He looked over his shoulder—
and froze.
A wolf had mounted him, jaws buried deep into his back.
Not biting.
Ripping.
Blood sprayed onto the snow as chunks of flesh were torn from him violently.
Kairo squirmed, clawing at the ground.
He screamed—
but the wolf bit down harder.
Another growl behind him.
Another shadow.
Another set of teeth.
The entire pack was closing in.
His vision shook.
His thoughts fractured.
I'm…
going…
to die.
His body convulsed from the pain as everything inside him collapsed into panic.
And then—
faces flashed through his mind.
Elyra.
Faran.
Cyran.
Noah.
Iris.
Seraphier.
His mother.
His father.
Everyone he'd met.
Everyone who mattered.
Everyone he failed.
Their faces flickered like dying lights—
barely recognizable through the pain.
His scream tore out of his throat, raw and broken, echoing through the dead, frozen village.
Kairo blinked.
His vision blurred—
snow exploding in white shapes before his eyes.
Through the storm, through the haze, he saw one of the wolves step away from the pack.
It crouched in the snow
and began crunching on something.
Loud.
Wet.
Bone splintering between its jaws.
Kairo's breath froze in his throat.
His heart stopped.
That was—
…my arm…
Dizziness hit him like a wave.
His head swayed.
The world tilted.
The pain in his body faded—
not because it stopped hurting,
but because his nerves were shutting down.
He didn't even realize
that another wolf had torn into his hip—
that its teeth were chewing through muscle
and grinding against bone.
Blood poured out of him in thick, steaming streams, melting into the snow beneath his body.
Another wolf pinned his legs down, its paw heavy, crushing—
pushing him deeper into the freezing ground.
He couldn't move.
He couldn't think.
He felt…
helpless.
Not metaphorically.
Not emotionally.
Completely, brutally helpless.
The world was dimming.
The edges of his vision trembled.
His breathing stalled.
And in that collapsing moment—
in the snow, in the blood, in the pain he couldn't feel anymore—
a memory surfaced.
His father's voice.
Not warm.
Not soft.
Just real.
"The world is cruel, Kairo.
And it does not care who you are."
The words echoed through his mind
as his body was torn apart in the freezing, empty village.
"I'm sorry."
The words slipped out of him like a dying breath.
Then everything closed in at once.
Claws.
Jaws.
Teeth.
Weight.
Fur and heat and blood.
His bones cracked.
His ribs bent.
His veins burst.
Blood poured out in violent, pulsing streams.
His spine shook under the pressure.
His teeth ground together so hard it felt like they'd shatter.
His whole body tensed—
reflex, terror, agony tangled together.
And then—
He moved.
His body lurched upward
while still being devoured.
A wolf's jaws clamped around his shoulder, teeth sinking deep—
but he didn't stop.
He grabbed his katana with his remaining hand,
snow still crusted along the steel—
and he kicked.
A savage, violent, desperate kick.
His heel smashed into the ribs of the wolf on top of him—
a sick, sharp crack splitting the air.
The wolf whimpered and flew back, sent rolling through the snow.
The others growled, circling again.
No hesitation.
No fear.
Just hunger.
Kairo didn't care.
His heart was trying to tear through his chest.
His vision pulsed—
snow, red, fur, blood, blur.
He stood there—
one arm missing,
back torn open,
hip shredded,
body breaking—
and he did not care.
He tightened his grip on the katana until his knuckles went white.
His breath shook.
His legs wobbled.
His nerves screamed.
But he inhaled—
slowly.
Sharply.
Deliberately.
A breath meant for survival.
The wolf he'd kicked staggered back into formation, standing with the pack again.
Five predators.
Five pairs of unhinged eyes.
Five starving bodies ready to tear him apart.
And Kairo…
stood alone.
Broken.
Bleeding out.
Half-conscious.
Barely alive.
But standing.
Sword in hand.
Breathing like he was ready to kill something bigger than wolves.
Kairo inhaled—
a slow, shaking, freezing breath.
And for the first time since it began,
a single truth stabbed into his mind:
This wasn't a vision.
This wasn't Scheing Rever lying to him.
If he didn't move now—
"…I die."
The words scraped out of his throat.
He ran.
Through the blood.
Through the snow.
Through the pain screaming in every torn nerve.
The wolves lunged as one.
The first aimed for his chest—
jaws wide, teeth bared, full weight behind it.
Kairo jumped.
He brought his katana down with both gravity and desperation,
slamming the blade straight into the wolf's skull.
CRACK.
The steel pierced bone with a sickening, wet crunch.
The wolf collapsed instantly—
but Kairo didn't stop.
He landed on the katana's handle,
his entire weight driving it deeper,
crushing bone, ice, and skull in one violent stomp.
One down.
Four left.
He panted—
each breath fogging white, shaking with adrenaline and blood loss.
He jumped back, boots skidding across the snow.
Instinct pulled his hand toward his waist—
It came away drenched.
Pure red.
Thick.
Heavy.
Not ink.
Not snow pigment.
Not anything that belonged in an art museum.
His blood.
He stared at the wolves.
Chest heaving.
Blood dripping.
Vision shaking.
Then he muttered—
Low.
Ragged.
Forced.
"...what? Are you scared?"
His voice cracked, but he pushed the words out anyway, trying to make them sound confident.
Strong.
Defiant.
But they weren't.
They weren't meant for the wolves.
They were meant for himself.
I am, he thought.
The truth stabbed deeper than any tooth.
I am scared.
He clenched his trembling hand tighter around the katana hilt, knuckles whitening, breath shaking.
He wasn't taunting them.
He was begging himself not to collapse.
Not to fall apart.
Not to die.
Then—
something cold drifted down onto his head.
Snow.
Soft flakes landed across his silver hair, melting instantly against the heat of his skin.
More fell — hundreds, thousands — dusting his shoulders, clinging to the torn fabric of his clothes, mixing with the blood pouring from his wounds.
Scarlet dripped down his arm.
Scarlet pooled beneath his feet.
Scarlet coloured the snow.
And when the flakes struck the red, they didn't fade.
They bloomed.
Ice merging with blood until the ground around him became something unreal — a swirled canvas of white and crimson.
It looked like…
scarlet heaven.
A cruel, beautiful painting only misery could create.
His blood stained the snow in twisting streaks, like brushstrokes across winter's canvas.
His breath fogged into thin ghosts.
His fingers numbed to the bone.
His body tensed and loosened all at once — a contradiction held together by fear.
He felt his skin harden in the cold.
He felt the wind bite his wounds.
He felt the world tightening around him.
And the wolves—
They circled him.
Running through the snow in a loose ring, churning white powder into whirlwinds around his legs.
Their paws crunched with violent rhythm.
Their jaws dripped long strings of saliva.
Their howls cut through the silence like razors.
Their eyes—
Wide.
Wild.
Desperate.
They dug into him like claws, unblinking, hungry, waiting for him to fall.
Kairo stood at the centre of them, bleeding out into the snow, wrapped in a halo of scarlet frost and dying breath—
Looking like a boy frozen between heaven and hell.
Blood dripped from his hand.
He blinked—slow, heavy, unfocused.
Then he felt it.
A sharpness on his right hip.
A weight.
A presence.
A furry creature—
a wolf, something that should've been a companion,
something meant to be gentle—
was mauling him.
Its jaws dug deep into his waist, tearing through skin and muscle without hesitation.
Kairo stared.
He didn't scream.
He didn't fight.
He didn't even flinch.
He just lay there, eyes blurring, breath fading, watching the animal tear into him like he wasn't even human.
His mind drifted.
His thoughts barely formed.
And then—
…without you guys…
A slow exhale escaped him.
Huh.
I really am… nothing.
The snow fell harder.
The wolves tightened their circle.
Crimson spread beneath him like a dying halo.
Scarlet heaven swallowed him whole.
Then—nothing.