The night was cold.
Siraoshi slept soundly in his cradle, wrapped in soft wool, the faint glimmer of moonlight gently caressing his cheeks through the shuttered window. The house was quiet. Even the spirits, who sometimes whispered lullabies from the wind and wood, had gone still.
Then—the bells rang.
Not the soft, musical tone that marked gatherings or festivals. No, these were urgent, thunderous, clashing sounds that cracked the silence like lightning through still water. They roared across the village like a scream.
Danger.
Siraoshi's eyes flew open. His small body tensed, his heart thudding as if trying to match the rhythm of the bells. His magic-sensitive gem pulsed softly, flickering like a nervous candle.
Before he could cry out, his mother was already there.
She rushed into the room, her hair undone, her robes hastily thrown over a nightgown, eyes sharp and wild with fear. Without a word, she scooped him from the cradle and held him tightly against her chest.
He could feel it — her heart was racing faster than his own.
From outside came the distant sounds of shouting. Not the disciplined calls of training warriors, but real fear. Screams. The clashing of weapons. Something was happening, something terrible.
His mother carried him across the small home, the wooden floorboards creaking under her hurried steps. She passed by the dining table, the hearth, and then stopped in front of an old wooden closet, tucked into the corner near the pantry.
With shaking hands, she opened it.
The closet was narrow, lined with extra blankets, bundles of herbs, and an old bow that hadn't been used in seasons. She moved the blankets aside, made a small space, and then gently, but urgently, placed Siraoshi inside.
His little hands reached up to her, confused. Why was she hiding him? Why was she afraid?
She knelt before him, brushing a strand of silver hair from his forehead.
"Shh... don't make a sound, little light. No matter what you hear. Don't cry. Don't move."
She kissed his forehead, her voice cracking as she whispered ancient elven words — not for comfort, but for protection.
A faint shimmer glowed in her fingers, trailing through the air like smoke before circling the closet door. A thin line of magic sealed it. He felt a soft pop in his ears — the sound around him muted, like he'd been plunged underwater.
It was a barrier — weak, hurried, but enough to block sound. Enough to hide him.
She stared at him for a long moment. Her hands hovered, trembling, as if she didn't want to let go.
Then, from outside—
A loud bang.The door to their home shuddered.
Her head snapped toward the sound. Then she looked back at him, eyes wide, lips trembling. She whispered a final word—
"Forgive me."
And then—she closed the closet doors.
Darkness swallowed him.
Inside the Silence
Siraoshi blinked, eyes wide in the pitch black. The only light came from the soft pulsing of the gem on his forehead, barely enough to see his own hands.
He couldn't hear anything. Not the bells. Not his mother. Not even the world beyond the walls.
Just silence.
He reached out once—tiny fingers pressed against the inside of the closet door. It was warm from her touch. And he waited. And waited.
Minutes felt like hours.
Though he didn't understand the language or the situation, something primal—something ancient—whispered to him: this was not a dream.
He huddled into the blankets, his body shivering, eyes wide. His breath came in soft gasps, his heart pounding. The gem on his forehead flickered erratically, responding to his fear.
And though he didn't have the words for it yet...he knew something terrible had begun.
Siraoshi sat still inside the closet. The scent of dried herbs and old wool surrounded him, but it did little to comfort the mounting fear curling in his small chest.
Though the magical barrier dulled all sound, something else replaced it.
At first, he thought it was in his head — the pounding of his heart, the small noises a frightened baby might imagine when shrouded in dark. But then he felt it. Not heard — felt.
A tremble in the earth beneath the floorboards.A pressure in the air, thick and smothering.
And then the whispers.
Not the kind he heard from the trees or wind on calm days, playful and warm — these were distorted, strained, as if the forest spirits themselves were in pain.
"Ash... fire...""Pain, fleeing, lost...""Run, hide, too late..."
The voices were frantic, unnatural. Siraoshi curled tighter into himself, his tiny hands gripping the edge of the blanket. He had no words for what he was sensing, only instinct.
He was not safe.No one was.
And though the closet was meant to protect him, it also became his prison. He couldn't see — only imagine what was happening outside.
His gem began to glow softly again, reacting to his surging emotions. And for the first time, his budding connection to magic did something new:It tuned him in.
The barrier his mother cast was meant to block sound — but it could not block magic. And Siraoshi, barely one year old, was starting to feel the world not with ears or eyes, but with something deeper.
The sounds crept into his mind like ghostly echoes.The crackle of fire devouring wood and leaves.The shrieks of elves — men and women alike — fighting or fleeing.A loud, rumbling roar in the distance, not of any beast he'd heard before.
Something was burning.Something terrible had come.
There were heavy footsteps, too many to count. Screams were abruptly silenced — not faded, but cut off.
His gem pulsed again, as if warning him. Fear rolled through him like a wave, and though he couldn't cry or call out — the instinct was there. To wail. To reach for his mother. To be anywhere but here, in this dark box, surrounded by danger he couldn't understand.
He wanted to scream.But no sound left his lips.And none could reach him.
Then—a thud.A sound close. Too close.Something struck the wall of the house.
Dust rained down from above. The wood groaned.
Siraoshi's tiny body trembled, but still, he didn't move. He remembered her words, the look in her eyes: "Don't cry. Don't move."
Outside the closet, more sounds came. Voices now — not elven. Not kind.
Rough, guttural. In a language he couldn't understand.
But their tone was clear: violence. Command. Cruel joy.
Siraoshi couldn't tell how long he sat there — minutes, hours? Time twisted in the dark. The glowing gem dimmed, then flared, reacting to his panic, then exhaustion. He began to drift in and out of awareness, held upright by fear.
And then...
Silence.
Not safety — not calm.But a terrible hush — like the world outside had stopped breathing.
He listened, strained his senses again, but the magical echoes faded. The fire's warmth was distant now. The voices had gone.
Only the darkness remained, and the feeling that something had changed forever.
The night had grown colder.
The wind howled through the cracks of the home, whistling like a warning — one ignored by fate. Dust drifted through the air, disturbed by tremors of distant destruction. The barrier inside the closet still held, muffling most noise, but it couldn't hold back everything.
Something broke through the front door.
It wasn't just shattered — it was obliterated. The sound of splintering wood boomed through the walls like a thunderclap. Siraoshi flinched, his entire body stiff with fear, as the very walls of his shelter trembled.
The sharp clang of metal being flung aside followed. His mother's hurried breaths echoed faintly — frantic, panicked, desperate.
Then came the scream.
It wasn't a normal cry of pain. It was something else. Something primal.A scream of a mother about to die.
Siraoshi froze, his tiny fingers digging into the fabric of the blanket he was wrapped in. His mind, young as it was, couldn't fully understand the horrors unfolding — but his soul, ancient and reborn, knew dread.
His mother's voice echoed through the room beyond, a shriek carved from anguish and love. She wasn't just afraid.She was protecting him with her last breath.
He heard a growl — low, reverberating like an animal, but deeper… too large, too wrong. The sound of something massive dragging across the floor followed, claws scraping wood, something heavy and wet sliding behind it.
Through the tiny cracks in the closet, he saw it.
The beast.
It loomed in the center of the room, crouched and feral. Its fur was matted, soaked with blood not its own. Its limbs were long, grotesque, twisted like a nightmare given flesh. And its eyes — glowing, yellow, cruel — searched the room with hunger.
And then it pounced.
His mother screamed again, but not in fear — in agony. She fought, he could hear it — fists striking flesh, the snap of something sharp slicing the air. But the monster was too strong. Too fast. It overpowered her instantly.
Siraoshi watched, helpless, as the creature sank its fangs into her shoulder, ripping flesh with terrifying ease. Her body writhed, jerking, blood pooling fast around her. She gasped, choked on her own cries. Still alive.
Still protecting him.
She looked toward the closet once — eyes wide, filled with terror and love and sorrow all at once. As if to say Don't come out. Don't make a sound.
Her lips moved, silently — words he couldn't hear, couldn't understand. A prayer? A goodbye?
The creature tore into her again. Her screams grew weaker. A wet, choking sound took their place.
Gurgling.
Her voice was gone. Stolen by pain and blood. Her body twitched. The light in her eyes began to fade. The monster feasted — not quickly, not with hunger — but slowly. Like it wanted her to suffer.
And Siraoshi — barely one year old — could only watch.
He couldn't scream.Couldn't crawl.Couldn't die with her.
The gem on his forehead glowed faintly, as if his soul cried in ways his body couldn't. But the barrier his mother cast held. No sound escaped.
Eventually, the beast rose from her. Its face was soaked in red. It stared toward the closet — for one terrifying moment, Siraoshi thought it knew. That it could see him. Feel his fear.
But then, the monster turned away.
It didn't touch the goats or chickens. Didn't wreck the house. It simply walked out, heavy steps creaking across the blood-soaked floor.
Gone.
Silence again. But now it was the silence of death.
Siraoshi sat in the dark.His tiny fingers trembling.His eyes fixed on the motionless body of his mother through the crack.
He didn't understand it all.But some part of him broke that night.
Not like a child's broken toy — but something deeper.Something sacred.
He didn't cry. He couldn't.But his soul etched the moment into memory — forever.
The bells had long since stopped ringing.
The fires had burned down to embers. The screams were no more. And still, Siraoshi sat in the darkness, unmoving.
Hours bled into days.
The inside of the closet remained as it was — cold, still, sealed by the faint shimmer of his mother's protective barrier. A thin layer of mana flickered quietly across the inside like a soft mist, silencing all sound, shielding him from being heard — but not from what he saw.
Through the thin slats in the wooden door, Siraoshi's vision never strayed. His tiny, undeveloped muscles had locked in place from strain and fear, and even if he'd wanted to, he couldn't look away from the nightmare before him.
His mother's body lay sprawled across the floor.
Unmoving. Pale.Wrong.
The dark pool beneath her had dried to a thick, rust-colored crust. Her once-soft hair, which had always carried the scent of wildflowers and rain, now clung to her face in clotted strands. Her eyes were still open, clouded now, staring at the ceiling. The same look she'd given him moments before death. A final plea. A final farewell.
Siraoshi wanted to cry.But his throat was dry.His stomach was hollow.His soul was fractured.
He didn't move. Didn't whimper. He simply endured.
The smell began to creep in by the second day — faint at first, then rancid. The scent of death. He knew it now. He would never forget it. It clung to the walls, to the floor, to the air inside his mouth. Sweet and bitter and foul, like the breath of something ancient and cruel.
Still, the monster hadn't returned.
No one had.
And that—that was the strangest thing of all.
Because Siraoshi knew, deep in his bones, that the beast had sensed him.Its eyes had flicked to the closet. Its ears, sharp and animal, had surely heard the shallow whimper of breath. Its nose — soaked in blood — had absolutely smelled him.
And yet…
It spared him.
Why?
Was it mercy? No. There had been no mercy in its claws.Was it pity? No. Creatures like that didn't understand pity.Then why?
"Why am I still alive?""Why did it leave me here… to rot beside her?"
That question festered in his mind like a wound.
He could feel it now. The slow unraveling of something in his chest. A thread of emotion he didn't yet understand but would never forget — not in this life, not in the next.
The scent. The silence. The stare of death. All of it engraved into him like a scar made not on skin, but on soul.
Maybe it had been a message.
A warning.
A curse.
Or maybe the monster had left him alive because… it wanted him to live with this.
To suffer.
To grow.
To change.
To become something.
He didn't know.He was too small. Too weak.But he would remember.
Every second.Every sound.Every crack in his mother's voice.Every flicker of yellow light in the beast's eyes.Every whisper of his name as she bled out for him.
He didn't even know what revenge meant.
Not yet.
But something inside him began to burn.
The days dragged on in silence.
No footsteps.No voices.No rescue.
Just the endless, suffocating stillness… and her.
His mother.
What was left of her.
Siraoshi remained inside the closet, his knees curled up against his small chest, his forehead resting against the wood, slick with condensation and the faint shimmer of fading magical protection. His body was trembling. It hadn't stopped since the night the monster came. Not once.
The barrier was still working — just barely — humming so faintly it sounded more like a heartbeat now. It kept his breathing silent, his presence masked. His screams, muffled.
And scream he did.
Silent, hoarse, and hopeless.
Mouth open. Soundless.A gaping cry into the void.
He tried to claw at the door once. His tiny hands scraped the wood, nails bending and tearing, but the strength wasn't there. There was no food. No water. No light but the pale glow that trickled through the cracks and bathed the room in a sickly haze.
His lips were dry, cracked, bleeding.
His throat burned.
His belly twisted in on itself, a hollow ache that grew sharper with every hour. He had long since wet himself, the shame of it lost to the larger horror. The smell mixed with the reek of rot, which now clung to everything. It was unbearable. It was everything.
"Mommy?""Mommy please wake up…"
His baby mind couldn't make sense of it — but something deeper, something older, knew. Knew what death was. Knew what silence meant. Knew what the flies and maggots crawling in the edge of his vision meant.
And it was that realization, not the pain, that broke him.
Something inside began to shatter.
He'd stopped blinking. His eyes had glazed. He no longer winced at the smell or the sight of the decaying flesh. He just stared. His tiny body still, as if frozen in the nightmare.
"I'm still here… why am I still here?""Why did you leave me?"
There were voices now.
Not from outside. Not from the dead village. Not from his mother's mouth.
From the walls. The shadows. The air.
They whispered.
Mocking. Crying. Laughing. Singing lullabies with broken melodies.
"Alone… alone… why are you alone?""A gift… a curse… a child left for the dark.""She screamed for you… and you did nothing."
He wanted to scream at them — to scream until his throat tore apart.
But nothing came out.
He began to giggle instead.
A soft, wet, broken sound. A child's giggle turned wrong — like glass cracking under pressure.
He pressed his forehead harder against the door, the wood imprinting on his skin. His breath fogged the surface faintly, the only proof that life still flickered inside his tiny frame.
"Someone… please…"
"Let me die."
And then — a sound.
Real.
Distant.Muffled.But unmistakably real.
Boots stepping onto wood. The clatter of something falling. A low voice — elven — gasping. Then a scream.
The door slammed open with a burst of light, and someone — a woman — sobbed in horror.
But Siraoshi didn't blink.
He simply smiled.
His mind already frayed.