"Hey!"
"Hey, come on, Father, wake up!"
Malik pushed his father, Marcus, who was lying before him, for what felt like the thousandth time, until finally a groan came from the middle-aged man.
Slowly, he opened his eyes.
Marcus groaned a second time, fumbling for his glasses on the nightstand. "What is it this time, Malik? Can't sleep?"
"No, no, you need to see this!" Malik shook his head enthusiastically, almost twitching with excitement.
"See what?" Marcus asked, his voice still heavy with hidden annoyance and sleepiness.
Malik sighed, tugging at Marcus's arm and pointing toward the window hidden behind thick curtains. Marcus adjusted his glasses, squinting as he noticed a faint shimmer of light coming through the holes in the old wall of curtains.
Slowly, he rose from the bed, stumbling toward the window, the wooden floor creaking beneath his feet while Malik still clung to his arm. With a single sweep, he pushed the curtains aside.
His eyes widened in absolute shock. Instinctively, he raised his arm, shielding himself from the enormously bright light shining through their window. He tilted his head slightly, still adapting to the brightness while looking at his son.
Malik's eyes were wide open as well. A starry sky reflected in his bright blue irises. And in the middle of it, almost overlapping his pupil, a massive purple light shone.
Finally, Marcus managed to adapt to the brightness and looked outside himself.
An enormous meteor lit up the horizon, its scale almost impossible to comprehend. Although it was far away, it somehow felt incredibly close.
"Just how..." Marcus whispered under his breath.
"It's beautiful, don't you think so, Dad?" Malik asked in a childish voice, completely captivated by the phenomenon.
Marcus continued staring into the distance, his eyes still narrowed.
"That it is..." he whispered.
Then he turned toward his son and knelt down until they stood at the same height.
"That it is. And now you have to sleep. We will have to work the fields tomorrow."
Marcus smiled lightly at Malik, who nodded after a few moments of reluctant deliberation.
The two remained like this for a while. Father kneeling, son standing, both at the same height while the starry sky shone above them like a silent blessing.
Ten years later
"Turns out it wasn't."
A young man knelt on the cold grass. Perhaps one could call him a young man, perhaps not.
The tips of the grass were still covered in a thin layer of frost. Moisture soaked into the thin fabric of his worn pants as his head hung low toward the ground.
Before him stood a stone.
Not just any stone, but a roughly carved gravestone with a single name engraved into it.
Finally, the young man raised his head, revealing his pristine blue eyes.
This time, nothing shone within them.
"It was no blessing at all."
"It was a curse. One that even took you by the throat. These monsters..."
Malik clenched his fists, his jaw tightening to the limit.
"It's no use. It's simply no use," Malik muttered bitterly as he slowly rose from the ground.
He picked up the white rose lying beside him and leaned it gently against the cold gravestone before turning away.
As he walked, a faint wind rose, making his short black hair flutter slightly. The breeze caught one of the petals of the rose, lifting it briefly into the air before it drifted down again.
Suddenly, a shadow appeared.
The petal was crushed beneath a boot.
Footsteps echoed behind Malik.
He turned once more, already a dozen meters away from his father's grave.
"Little Malik Thorne."
The voice was rough and hoarse at the same time. It came from the foremost of three men walking toward him. They looked at him like predators eyeing wounded prey.
"What do you want, Denrar?" Malik asked, a sense of unease spreading through his body. No, perhaps it was something else.
"What do I want?" Denrar laughed suddenly, only to stop just as quickly.
"Payment."
Malik closed his eyes for a moment.
Finally, he understood the emotion that had been simmering inside him all along.
Ever since he had lost his father in a struggle between two monstrous beings. Ever since he had been forced to survive alone in this broken world. Ever since people like the men before him had toyed with him.
It was anger.
"Again?" Malik roared. "I have nothing left, Denrar! I have no way to earn anything. The fields are dry. What else do you want from me?"
"Nothing to give?" Denrar asked as he stepped closer, forcing Malik to instinctively step back.
"Then who paid for that little stone over there?" Denrar asked mockingly, lazily pointing his thumb toward the grave behind them.
Malik clenched his teeth and took another step back.
Denrar sighed before glancing toward his men.
They nodded and advanced.
The first man, tall and thin, reached forward, trying to grab Malik's hand which was hidden inside his pocket.
Suddenly, Malik raised his head and lunged forward.
A knife flashed into view.
With a desperate motion, he slashed through the air.
And it hit.
A deep gash opened across the man's throat.
The tall man stared at Malik in stunned disbelief. Before anyone could react, blood burst from the wound. He collapsed to the ground, clutching his throat as crimson poured through his fingers.
"You!" the second man shouted.
"You little brat!"
He charged forward while Malik had already turned to run.
Malik sprinted toward the forest surrounding the graveyard. He glanced back once, noticing that the distance between him and his pursuer was slowly increasing.
A faint smile appeared on his lips, though his body still trembled.
He had just killed someone.
He had murdered a man.
And he felt no regret.
Only relief.
Malik turned his head forward again when suddenly something entered the corner of his vision.
The silhouette of a man.
Denrar? Malik thought in disbelief.
A violent force slammed him into the ground.
Darkness.
A shocking wave of pain tore through Malik's body, forcing a scream from his throat.
"AHH!"
He tried to lift himself, but he could not move. The pain was unbearable. It felt as if his nerves themselves were burning, a hot pressure pinning him against the frozen earth. Every breath only made the agony worse.
"Tsk. Tsk. Little Malik."
Denrar's voice reached his ringing ears.
Slowly, Malik managed to tilt his head.
Denrar knelt beside him and with a brutal tug, pulled something from Malik's back.
A long, bloody knife.
It radiated a strange aura that felt just as unnatural as Denrar himself.
To Malik, the man no longer seemed human.
He seemed like a predator from another realm.
"You... you have become one of them. You have been accepted...One of the monsters..."
Malik whispered, blood pooling in his mouth and staining his lips.
Denrar did not deny it.
He raised the blade and watched the faint shimmer of some kind of energy flowing along the steel as it drank the blood.
"Accepted?" Denrar chuckled.
"I was chosen, boy. My talent was found by a master that passed the village on his travels. Fate wanted it."
"Then why do you need the money?" Malik whispered weakly. The warmth was already leaving his body along with the blood slowly flowing from his wound.
Denrar looked down at him.
A twisted smile formed on his lips.
"Because I like the feeling."
He slowly licked his lips.
Malik inhaled deeply. The anger rose again.
Why was fate so unfair?
Why choose Denrar and not him?
Why choose people like him?
It had nothing to do with skill. Nothing to do with dedication or hard work.
It was simply luck.
They were chosen through talent and granted power.
Others like him were nothing more than prey in a world ruled by monsters.
"What kind of world is this!" Malik roared.
Energy suddenly surged inside him.
He lunged at Denrar.
For a brief moment, the man looked surprised.
Then his expression turned bored.
"Slow."
That was the last word Malik heard before he was slammed into the frozen forest ground once again.
No.
No.
No.
The word echoed through Malik's mind again and again.
Malik roared, throwing his broken body toward Denrar once more, blood pouring from his mouth.
"Time to end this, little Malik," Denrar said calmly."My master needs more supplies."
A blade of green energy appeared in his hand.
Chomp.
------------------------
Long before Malik's birth and even before his death, in the endless dark drifted a shard of ruin.
A devourer of worlds.
A calamity, cast out from creation itself, it wandered in silence for ten thousand years, its soul bound within burning stone.
Ten years ago, as the heavens caught flame, that ancient terror stirred within the heart of the meteor, awakening from its eternal slumber to gaze again upon the living.
And now, at last, it moved again.
"Hm..."
"Your hunger draws me. Your anger draws me. Your fury..."
"Beautiful."
Somewhere in the darkness, soaked in crimson, three gruesome remains lay scattered among the countless others.
A severed leg.
A severed arm.
And the rest of the mangled corpse.
Yet something began to form above the remains, something transparent, yet visible at the same time.
It curled slowly through the air, winding itself around the scattered pieces of the body.
"Oh, child..."
"May you awaken once again."
"Eyes filled with light."
"Yet darkness."
"With life."
"Yet death."
-------------------------------------
First chapter of my new book. Let's go! If you like it, consider adding it to your library