Warmth.
Real, gentle warmth.
It wrapped around Kairo's skin like sunlight through a window — soft, golden, alive. He blinked, slow and heavy, and found himself seated at a small wooden dinner table.
His legs dangled off the chair.
His feet didn't reach the floor.
The air smelled of stew and baked bread, sweet and savoury, with the faint hint of sage his mother always added in winter.
His mother hummed as she stirred a pot, her silver hair tied back loosely. She turned, carrying a steaming bowl, her smile tender and bright.
"There we go," she said, brushing his hair with warm fingers he hadn't felt in years.
"You always get quiet before dinner."
Her touch had a rhythm — the same soft circles she used whenever he had nightmares.
His father sat across from him, leaning back in his chair, laughing with that warm, gentle sound Kairo had forgotten the shape of. The chair creaked under him — the same old creak from the same old wood.
"Look at him," he chuckled.
"Still making that sleepy face. You'd doze off before the food even cooled."
His mother giggled.
And without meaning to — without thinking — Kairo laughed too.
A small, bright, childlike sound slipped out.
Halfway through, he froze.
That wasn't his laugh.
That was a laugh he hadn't made since he was seven.
He blinked.
Why did that feel… natural?
He looked down.
His hands were tiny.
His sleeves short.
His voice, when he whispered, came out high and fragile:
"…why are you talking to me like I'm still a kid…?"
They didn't hear him.
His mother set the bowls gently.
His father reached over and patted his head with a rough, calloused palm — the same feel from years of training.
Everything felt perfect.
Too perfect.
Edges too smooth.
Colours too warm.
Even the warmth itself felt… wrong.
Something tugged at him — quiet and uneasy.
Kairo slid off the chair.
His bare feet touched the wooden boards — warm, too warm — and he walked toward the tall mirror in the corner.
Each step felt softer than the last, as if he were gliding.
He raised his eyes.
A child stared back.
Seven years old.
Silver hair messy.
Eyes bright with a light he lost long ago.
He pressed his hand to the glass.
The small hand in the reflection pressed back.
Perfectly.
Wrongly.
His breath thinned.
"…huh…?"
The warmth didn't leave —
but something inside him did.
A single thought rose through the haze:
…why am I seeing this?
Footsteps approached softly behind him.
His mother knelt, cupping his cheeks with both hands.
Her palms were heartbreakingly warm.
"It's okay, Kairo," she whispered, voice trembling with impossible gentleness.
"You don't have to be strong right now."
"You can rest."
His father stepped beside her, resting a hand on his small shoulder.
"You've been working so hard, son," he said softly.
"You've carried enough."
Kairo's throat tightened.
"Huh…?"
The house fell unnaturally quiet.
Even the candlelight seemed to hold its breath.
Drip.
A single red drop hit the wooden floor.
Slow.
Heavy.
Thick.
Kairo stared.
Another drop.
Then another.
The puddle spread — deep, metallic red.
Not paint.
Not stew.
Not anything that belonged in this warm little room.
The warmth flickered.
The air trembled.
His mother's hands stuttered like a fading projection.
His father's smile stretched thin, trembling at the edges.
And underneath it—
a faint, distant growl.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The world cracked open.
Kairo blinked—
—and the warmth peeled off his skin like someone ripping away a blanket in winter.
Cold slammed into him.
Snow.
Wind.
Fur.
Teeth buried in his hip.
Claws ripping through his back.
Blood steaming into the air.
A wolf shook him violently, sending agony through every torn nerve.
The red on the wooden floor wasn't paint.
It was his blood
leaking out of him
drop by drop
onto the snow.
His breath broke.
"Oh…"
The thought didn't come with fear —
just a numb, sinking understanding.
"I'm… about to die."
And the wolves kept tearing into him as the memory dissolved into nothing