The lake's waters shimmered faintly, lightless and still, but beneath their surface, time bent like a reed in wind.
Dawn descended through memory.
His eyes beheld what his heart long wished to forget.
---
The past.
The sky was no longer blue, no longer warm. It bled with the colors of ruin. Smoke trailed like serpents through the streets of the small city—his city. Screams still echoed, not yet faded by the mercy of time.
He remembered this.
Too well.
But he had never truly seen it.
Now, he did.
From the shadows, he watched—his younger self, barely ten, bound by chains of thorn and spirit, suspended within the wreckage of the old temple. The cultists surrounded him, chanting with tongues forked by otherworldly blessings. Symbols drawn in blood pulsed faintly beneath the boy, humming with the rhythm of ancient, malignant wills.
They laughed as they drove slivers of bone into his skin—sacred implements, they called them. Offerings to their Celestial patrons.
He didn't cry. Not anymore. The pain had dried him hollow.
He only stared—eyes dead, lips sealed, his small body trembling from the cruelty forced upon it.
"You are a seed," one robed figure whispered. "A vessel. A gift to the blessed above. Your agony shall be their feast."
That was when the air shifted.
A darkness deeper than night seeped into the edges of the broken sanctuary, coiling like smoke, heavy and cold. The cultists froze. One by one, their chants faltered.
And then it appeared.
A figure without form—neither beast nor man, neither shadow nor flame. It whispered, not in sound, but in thought. All heard it. Only one understood it.
"You are suffering," it said. "I can make it stop. Just nod and I will free you from this suffering."
The child raised his eyes. Hollow as they were, they sparked faintly at the voice. The cultists panicked, trying to resume their ritual, but it was already too late.
The figure leaned into his soul.
"I can give you strength. Let me in, and you will have vengeance. You will never suffer again."
He didn't speak. Just nodded. Unaware of the implications of his decision that will make him regret.
And then, all hell broke loose.
---
Pain. Unbearable. Irrevocable.
Dawn's younger body spasmed as the thing entered him—not just into flesh, but deeper—into his blood, his bones, his origin. His very being was rewritten.
His bones stretched, cracked. His skin tore and reknit, becoming something harder, darker, layered in streaks of pulsing crimson. His face elongated, eyes burned gold with slit pupils, and fangs erupted from his jaw like ivory daggers.
He screamed. Not in pain. But in release.
It was monstrous.
Beautiful in its horror.
The boy was gone. In his place stood something no man or beast could claim kinship with.
A monster.
He moved.
The chains broke from sheer pressure. The ground cracked as he landed. The cultists shrieked, fled, some too terrified to run.
The monster lunged.
---
It wasn't a battle.
It was a massacre.
Claws tore through cloth and flesh with equal ease. One cultist exploded into ribbons as he was struck mid-flight. Another had his skull crushed before he could even raise a shield.
They cast spells, summoned wards, called out to their dark Celestials.
None answered.
Not against this.
The beast howled, a sound that shook the walls, shattered glass, and ruptured lungs.
They died quickly.
Or slowly.
It didn't matter to him.
Blood splattered across the temple stones like rain, pooling in symbols once sacred, now silent.
And when the screams stopped… he remained.
Alone.
Amid the bodies of the wicked.
And of the innocent.
---
He looked down at his hands—still clawed, still stained.
He had no joy. No relief.
Just horror.
He fell to his knees, trembling.
Then he howled. A sound that could break hearts.
"Let me die!" he screamed at the heavens, at the void inside him. "Please! Let me die!"
And the shadow returned.
"No," it whispered, now fully embedded in him. "This is your gift. Your fate. You belong to me now. Eternal. Cursed."
He tried.
He impaled himself on broken stone.
Tore at his own throat.
Starved himself for days.
But the monster wouldn't let him.
It healed.
It waited.
It watched.
Always watching.
He cried, but not tears.
Blood fell from his eyes.
Crimson sorrow.
He crawled into the ruins, begging for oblivion.
No one came.
Not until—
---
Light.
Soft and golden, like dawn after storm.
A figure appeared—shining, not bright but clear.
It walked through the blood as if it were air, untouched by the ruin, unfazed by the rot.
The shadow roared, rising like a tower to face it.
But the figure raised a single hand.
And the shadow screamed.
It twisted, burned, vanished.
Not destroyed. Banished.
From Dawn.
And then the figure knelt.
For the first time, someone saw the child. Not the beast. Not the curse. Just him.
Dawn trembled, dared not hope.
The figure placed a hand on his head.
And finally… silence.
For the first time in so long.
Peace.
---
Now, standing once more beneath the Lake of Memory, Dawn felt it all.
The deal.
The transformation.
The slaughter.
The curse.
The arrival.
He remembered.
And then he heard it.
The voice.
Gentle.
Familiar.
Not from the shadow. Not from the monster.
But from them.
"Do you want to be normal again?"
"Do you want to protect those who share your fate?"
Dawn looked up, eyes wide.
Hope flickered.
---
End of Chapter 20