Omen did not want to die.
The thought alone made his palms sweat.
But then he remembered the guard, the fat man's voice.
The way he spoke about Lilith like she was an object.
Like she was so,e disposable object.
That memory burned deeper than fear.
If he stayed weak, he would become like them.
And someone born with a crippled dantian didn't get second chances in this world.
He had learned that lesson on Earth.
The boy still remembered the shame.
The way he couldn't look Stella in the eyes.
And so, he decided.
Omen would never be useless again.
And so he closed his eyes, and began chanting.
***
The words of the Sutra flowed from his mouth slowly at first.
The language felt weird on his tongue, each line colder than the last.
He could almost feel the air around him being sucked into his lungs faster.
Lilith stepped back and watched him carefully.
As Omen continued, the blood circles around him began to glow faintly blue.
The eyes of the corpses lying around him flickered.
One pair at a time.
One by one, they turned into liquid, flowing towards the boy's body.
Every single eye started welling up from it's dead body's sockets.
Omen gasped as a wave of cold energy slammed into his chest.
His heart skipped a beat.
Then another.
And then again another.
Something was wrong, he realized.
This wasn't what was supposed to happen according to the Sutra.
"Lilith…" Omen whispered.
"Yes," the girl replied softly.
"…it's starting." Omen's body shivered as a strange pulling force rose from under the earth.
No…not from the earth but the corpses.
The eyes had almost fully melt, dripping blue liquid that slid like thin veins along the ground, crawling toward him like living threads.
"W-wait—" Omen tried to pull back, but his hands felt heavy.
Lilith watched but didn't move.
"This is normal," she said.
"Don't fight it."
But her voice sounded distant.
Everything around him felt distant.
The blue liquid reached his skin.
The moment it touched him, Omen screamed.
It felt like ice and fire together, crawling into his veins.
His vision blurred.
His heartbeat sped up and then…slowed down.
Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion around him.
"Lilith!" The boy gasped. "It hu-hurts a lot!!"
"I know," the girl said quietly. "That means it's working."
The blue liquid spread over his arms and chest, forming lines that looked like closed eyelids.
Dozens of them.
He stared down at himself in shock.
"Wha-what is this?!"
"The markings," Lilith said. "The Sutra's eyes."
Omen felt his body tighten, bones creaking under pressure.
"I can't…breathe…"
"You don't need to." The girl's tone turned cold.
"You're supposed to stop breathing." Pain shot up from Omen's spine as he felt something wriggling his way in.
His fingers twitched violently and the world around him twisted like melting glass.
The ritual was killing him.
He knew it.
His lungs had just started suffocating when a curdling scream left the boy's throat.
"ARGGHHHHH!!" His eyes, once a pair of beautiful black started swelling up.
Omen instantly lost all control as he used his hands to cup his eyes, hoping the would stop squirming, but the pain only worsened.
Streams of tears escaped Omen's eyes and his whole body started convulsing.
"St-Stop this, I can't….Urrghhhh, no save me!!" Screams continued resounding through the forest as the boy's eyes started melting, the liquid slowly flowing down his face to his neck and ultimately to his chest where his slow beating heart lay.
His vision darkened. Omen knew that he was dying.
"Stupid," Lilith's voice broke through the ringing in his ears, worried but sharp. "Listen to me."
He tried to focus on her shape through the blurring colors, already unable to see the world around him.
Omen had lost his eyes, unlike what was said in the ritual that he loses his life first.
"Don't fear it," the girl tried to calm him down. Since every Sutra is different and this was the first times she had seen one like this, the girl could only try to console him. "Let go. Let it take you."
Omen's throat tightened as he shook his head haggardly.
"I don't want to die…"
Lilith stepped forward until she was right in front of him, hugging his almost bare and injured figure.
"You will." Lilith whispered firmly, scratching the blue stone that had been studded inside her abdomen out as she pushed it into his heart, leaving a mangled mess of blood and bones inside his chest.
"Trust me."
Just for a moment…the pain softened as Omen exhaled shakily and closed his eyes.
"All right…" he whispered.
Then, he let go.
***
The markings along his skin glowed bright blue.
Every corpse around him started shaking violently as the last of their eye-light drained away.
The circle pulsed and the ground seemed to crack.
Lilith watched silently, leaping out of the circle to not become any more a hurdle in the process.
"You're almost there…" the black haired girl whispered.
Omen felt his heartbeat stop completely, his body collapsing forward as the world around him went completely dark.
The last thing the white haired boy remembered was Lilith rushing forward to save him from falling.
.
.
.
A long silence filled the camp, only the crackling of the dying fire audible.
Lilith stepped closer, crouching in front of Omen's lifeless body.
The eye markings on his skin began to open,
one by one like tiny blue eyelids lifting, just as soon receding, digging inside his skin all the way till none of them were viable.
The girl placed a clawed hand on the boy's cheek.
"…Wake up," she said softly.
Her lips curving into a faint smile as she caressed his neck.
"A ghoul never dies."
And then…a twitch.
Omen's finger moved.
Another twitch.
His eyelids trembled.
It was a matter of seconds before the boy's eyes opened again.
An eerie pair of rancid blue that locked eyes with Lilith's red ones.
Right then, something strange happened, a second pair of small, ghost-like eyelids opened by the line around his Adam's apple, and his hands…and legs.
Lilith's smile grew wider. "Welcome back, Omen" she whispered fondly.
"You're one of us now."
***
The Southern Districts,
South York, zone 3.
Earth.
Outside one of the dimly lit single storey houses stood a women in in blue robes, her long, cascading hair white but filled with sweat as she swung her greatsword around, clearly frustrated.
huff-huff*
She continued panting out loud in her backyard as Almond watched her from afar, his face dark.
'You bastard, how could you leave her alone on your very birthday? Bitch-' Since morning, the red haired man had been cursing Omen for leaving the two and disappearing to God knows where.
Both Stella and him knew that it had something to do with the inheritance he recieved from their parents but the fact that he hadn't told either of them anything about it only frustrated him more.
Stella continued swinging her great sword, trying to not dwell on the fact that not only was he not with her on his coming of age but also the fact that she had no idea if he was safe or not.
If only Stella knew that the brother she cared for more than anything in the world was no more.
The fact that her loving brother had sold himself to Nihaar, unknown of its real origins or consequences.
On that random Sunday night, no one noticed how the seemingly weak and crippled boy's heart rate became a straight line before going back to normal the next second later.
No one knew that Omen Mortlehyme died that day.
Only the fact that a monster the world could never have imagined would soon be born!
***