It was dark.
Tight.
The air was thick with smoke and fear.
Wood pressed against my back. I was cradled in arms too thin, too desperate. A woman's chest rose and fell, trembling, breath shallow, rapid. I could feel her heartbeat hammering against my cheek.
'Mother…?'
I was too small. My body was new. Fragile. Barely formed. But my mind—some part of me—was awake. Awake and watching.
A hole in the cupboard door let in a sliver of firelight. Outside, the world burned.
Screams.
Steel against flesh.
The distant collapse of a hut.
Footsteps crunched over ash and bone. Heavy. Measured. Getting closer.
My mother froze.
So did I.
The boots stopped just in front of us. Silence.
Then—
A voice.
Rust-coated, low and hungry. Like rot given breath.
"Where are you…?"
Another step. Then none.
Quiet.
Dead quiet.
My mother clamped her hand over my mouth, her fingers trembling. I felt her breath catch. Her eyes wide, staring at the sliver of light in the cupboard door.
Then—
An eye.
It blinked into view.
Round. Crimson. Unnatural.
But not just red. A complex spiral of hues—twisted maroon and coiling black veins, moving like something alive. The gaze wasn't just looking. It was peeling. Peering through flesh. Through bone.
"There you are," the voice rasped, softer now. Certain.
My mother didn't scream.
She only sobbed—quietly. A single tear struck my cheek. And then another.
> "I'm sorry," she whispered. "For bringing you into this curse-stained world."
---
The eye vanished.
But the man remained.
Wood creaked. Something was drawn.
Steel scraped against the cupboard's lock. A sword—wicked and old, its edge humming with low, forbidden pulses. It wasn't just forged. It was fed.
He jammed it into the latch.
It didn't give.
A low growl rose from him.
And then—he changed.
Veins bulged across his forearms, dark red and grotesque. His shoulders widened. His muscles swelled with something unnatural. From his spine, faint crimson tendrils pulsed, briefly blooming like veins beneath skin.
His irises shrank.
The red in his eyes darkened—sickening into something inhuman.
He raised his arm.
And in the blink of a breath—
The cupboard door exploded inward.
Shards of wood and flame.
My mother shielded me with her body.
He stood in the ruin.
A towering silhouette.
Not fully beast.
Not fully man.
His skin held a reddish tint, cracked with dark lines as if scorched from the inside. His white hair burned faintly at the ends—like embers never dying. His crimson eyes stared through us. But… they were not my mother's eyes.
Different.
Darker.
Colder.
And yet, when he saw me—
He froze.
His gaze flickered.
Confusion.
Pain.
Recognition?
His sword lowered slightly. His breath hitched. Something deep in his memories stirred.
"It can't be…" he muttered. "The witch… had a child?"
He stepped closer, slowly. My mother backed away on her knees, shielding me. Her lips trembled. Her fingers tightened.
The man dropped to one knee. His face twisted in something that wasn't anger.
It was grief.
"She… she looks just like her…" he whispered, staring at me.
No.
Staring through me.
The hair.
The skin tone.
Some memory burned behind his eyes—of someone long lost.
Then—
Agony.
He clutched his head with one hand, gasping, staggering backward as if struck. Veins in his temple pulsed. Blood leaked from his nose.
"Damn this… cursed blood…"
His voice cracked.
But before he could rise—
My mother moved.
A flash of silver from behind her back.
A knife.
She screamed—not in fear, but in fury—and lunged at him.
The intruder lifted his sword.
Their blades met mid-air.
---
And then—
Time stopped.
Literally.
Everything froze.
The fire from the hut paused mid-flicker. Ash halted in the air. Even the blood dripping from his temple hovered, suspended like rubies in glass.
But I moved.
Or rather—my soul did.
Weightless. Formless. Floating.
I looked down at my tiny body, still in the cupboard. My mother mid-lunge. Her expression caught between terror and vengeance.
I tried to scream—but there was no mouth.
Only thought.
Only awareness.
And in that awareness, a presence stirred.
Watching.
From above.
From beyond.
Not the Warden.
Something else.
Something curious.
It clicked something—unseen. Like turning a page backward in a book that wasn't written yet.
The world rewound.
Light spiraled.
And I was pulled—
Into the past.
And as my soul was swallowed by memory—
A voice echoed.
"Let us see… which sins are worth stitching back into time."
---