The room was silent...
Silence, in itself, was not strange to Valerian. He had learned from childhood how to embrace silence not as an escape, but as a means of contemplation. The walls of the room were a faded gray, carrying no warmth. The dim light from the hanging lamp barely touched the corners, as if shadows had chosen them as their eternal refuge.
Valerian sat at the edge of his bed, hands clasped over his knees, eyes staring into nothingness. No sound but the beat of his heart, and the pulse of thoughts that never ceased.
He was not at ease.
Something had been gnawing at his chest for days, a vague sensation, as if an unseen eye watched him from somewhere hidden, feeding on every movement, every sigh.
Then, as if responding to an unspoken inner call, he whispered:
"System summon."
The blue screen appeared in front of him instantly, as if it had only been waiting for that word, glowing with a cold, repelling brilliance.
[Name: Valerian Lockard]
[Rank: Trainee (Lowest)]
[Talent: Inferior]
[Skills: Fate Theft (Level Two)
The Sense (Allows perception of danger, though not always accurate)]
[Number of thefts available today: 2]
Valerian stared at the screen for a long time.
His face didn't change, his eyes remained still, but inside... it was boiling. Something in those words sparked mockery, as if they were reminding him of his pathetic state, waving his helplessness in his face.
Then he whispered, in a voice barely audible:
"I know... you're watching me."
Nothing happened. The screen remained motionless. Then, slowly, the letters began to change.
[Interesting.]
[How long did it take you to realize?]
Valerian's eyes widened slightly. This wasn't part of the system's usual behavior. It was silent, just a medium. It had never spoken to him like this before.
"What are you?" he asked, but his voice carried no fear just a cold, wary tone.
[I am you. A part of you. Your mirror.]
[Or perhaps... the thing you try to forget.]
The system smiled or so it seemed from the way the words appeared, as if mocking, taunting him with supreme sarcasm.
[Let's not play identity games.]
[Let's talk about what matters... about you, little thief.]
"Thief?" He frowned, his voice growing colder. "I didn't have a choice."
[Ah, that's the fun part...]
[You chose to take that student's life... to survive. You chose to steal his luck, his future, his existence.]
"He was dying," Valerian said, trying to cling to any shred of logic. "I didn't have time. If I hadn't done it, I wouldn't be here."
[Beautiful justification. Truly beautiful.]
[How many lies do you tell yourself daily just to sleep peacefully?]
The tension in his shoulders began to show. He hated it—how the system twisted his words, reshaped them until they sounded like confessions.
"I don't regret it, but don't think I enjoy it."
[No, you don't enjoy it... but you're getting used to it.]
[And getting used to it is the first step to transformation.]
Silence returned again, but the screen did not disappear. It continued to glow in a deeper blue, as if preparing for the next step. Then it wrote:
[I want to show you something...]
An image appeared. The face of the student whose future Valerian had stolen. Pale, innocent, bearing no evil. Then the words:
[Name: Jiran Rue]
[Dream: To become a healer mage]
[Previous Ability: "Seed of Healing"]
[Status: Unexplained disappearance before graduation]
Valerian's heart clenched for a moment... but his face did not change.
"Stop."
[Why? Feeling guilty?]
[Strange, for someone who began his path with a crime.]
"I said stop."
The screen went silent for a second. Then it wrote:
[Very well. If you don't want to see the past, let's move to the future.]
[Just imagine...]
[If you stole more? If you didn't stop at limits?]
[If you became something unstoppable, merciless?]
The screen began flashing quickly, images flooding in: faces stolen, powers stripped, fates altered.
Then a message:
[Why cling to this fragile shell of morality?]
[You know this world shows no mercy.]
[In this world… survival isn't granted, it's taken.]
Valerian remained silent. Then said, in a quiet voice:
"I... am not like them."
[But you're not innocent either.]
[And that's what makes you perfect.]
The screen shut off for a moment. Then it reappeared, with a long message:
[Choose now, Valerian:]
[To stay at the bottom, pretending virtue, and die like any other man in this place...]
[Or to rise, walk over bones if necessary, and rewrite your fate yourself.]
[All I need... is your consent.]
The room could've collapsed from the sheer intensity of the silence.
Valerian stood still, his gaze locked onto the screen still glowing with that mocking blue. His chest rose and fell slowly, but inside, he was boiling. The words the system displayed weren't just sentences... they were daggers.
And with every dagger, he fell more silent.
Until he said, in a voice that wasn't quite his own:
"You think you know me."
His words came out like stone no anger in them, but something older, deeper... something boiling in a place no light could reach.
[I don't think.]
[I was there.]
Another image appeared. This time it was him—Valerian. But younger, weaker, on that night when he did the unforgivable.
[Remember?]
[Your trembling hand, stealing luck like siphoning life's pulse?]
[Remember how you didn't even look at him? He didn't resist... he only asked: "Why?"]
"He was going to die!" he suddenly shouted, and everything in his face changed. "He... was going to die."
But the voice on the screen did not respond immediately. As if it left the sentence to rot in the air. Then the following text appeared, slowly... letter by letter:
[But he only died when you wanted to live.]
Valerian fell to his knees, his hands clenched in his hair, his teeth chattering not from cold, but from pure rage… or disgust with himself.
"I'm not... I'm not a monster..."
[No.]
[You're not a monster. Yet.]
[But monsters are not created all at once.]
[They are refined. Forced into decisions, piling up, and rotting... until they become the decision itself.]
He stood up slowly, his eyes teary not from crying, but from strain. And he spoke in a low yet angry voice:
"You want to push me into becoming something I don't want to be. Why? What do you gain from this?"
[Because I need you.]
[Because I am the thing that gave you power. Desire, greed, selfishness.]
[Everything you abandoned... you gave me.]
[And I grew.]
[I don't want to... I need you to see.]
"See what?"
[That the world does not remember the kind.]
[That the bottom shows no mercy, rewards only wolves.]
[That virtue is buried in the graves of the poor.]
[And that if you don't choose to be the killer, you'll be the next corpse.]
Valerian gasped, as if the air suddenly became heavy, as if the room was spinning and the ceiling was descending like a coffin. But he held firm. Then he shouted:
"Enough! I won't listen to you anymore! You're just... a system! A program! A sick hallucination!"
[But I'm speaking now, aren't I?]
[I'm addressing you, hurting you, awakening you.]
[And that's not something a system can do.]
[This... is my name.]
Silence.
Valerian's eyes fell on the screen, which began to tremble, as if it were about to crack. The blue hue turned into a blinding light, and the next message didn't appear in text but as a feeling, a vibration, a tremor inside his mind.
[I am the name you do not dare to speak.]
The air choked.
As if something in the name linked to the root of his soul.
[Say me.]
[If you're not afraid.]
"No..." he whispered, stepping back, his heart pounding like war drums.
[Say me, and I will show you your true strength.]
"You..." he muttered, trying to mentally retreat, to flee from the temptation, from the strange warmth in that poisoned offer.
[If you don't say me, I will remain here. In every decision. Every weakness. Every moment of hesitation.]
"I don't need you!"
[But you call me every time you despair.]
"Enough!!"
He screamed. And something on the screen exploded in black, shredding the blue, as if shadow devoured light. Then... silence.
Valerian stood in place, breathing heavily, his body soaked in sweat, his hands trembling, and his heart... as if it had been struck a thousand times in a minute.
Then... the final message appeared.
[Very well, Valerian...]
[The day will come when you need to say me.]
[And only then... will you understand that you were me all along.]
[The name that cannot be spoke]
The screen vanished.
And the room plunged into darkness again—but the darkness wasn't in the room... it was inside him.
He sat on the floor, his hands on his face, and it seemed as if his soul was bleeding.
"I..." he whispered, but didn't continue.
What could have been said... would not be said today.
Because the name that cannot be spoken had been carved within him... and was waiting.
Suddenly... the screen trembled, then began to crack.
No, it wasn't cracking... it was opening.
As if a window were being thrown wide into another dimension a dimension that was never meant to intersect with this world.
And from behind it... "he" began to appear.
At first, he had no form just a moving shadow, thick smoke coiling and folding and expanding, then features began to form... but never fully. Every time Valerian tried to focus, the shape changed, as if the eyes shifted, the mouth tore and sewed itself shut, and the skin disappeared and was created again.
[I am more than a nightmare.]
[I am the idea that takes root in minds when they break.]
[I am not your inner voice. I am the crack within.]
"What... are you?" Valerian muttered, unable to look directly.
[I am the one who heard your screams when no one else did.]
[I am the one who was in the room when you cried in the dark.]
[I am the one you stabbed unknowingly... every time you doubted the world.]
[And I am hungry.]
Something appeared like an eye but it wasn't an eye. A black void in the center of the shadow, pulsing and breathing, and when you looked into it, you saw nothing but your own face... distorted.
[You were seeking power, and you found me.]
"I wasn't seeking you."
[But your mind did.]
[Every moment of despair, every time you pretended not to care, every wound you never treated... was a door for me.]
Valerian raised his hand in front of him, his heart beating madly. He wanted to scream, to resist, to fight but he didn't move.
Then it continued.
[Do you know what's funny?]
[That the system never existed.]
"Liar."
[I don't lie. I was just a small part of its code. I slipped through when you were about to die.]
[I became its voice. Then I decided I didn't just want to observe you... I wanted to reshape you.]
[Every decision since that moment... you thought it was yours? No, I helped you make it.]
[But now, I don't want to hide anymore.]
[I want you to choose me consciously.]
Here, the shadow seemed to extend a hand or something resembling a hand from the shattered screen, toward Valerian's heart.
[Choose me, and I will give you what you never even dreamed of.]
[To crush the strongest before you.]
[To make your enemies kneel.]
[To break the laws of the world for your sake.]
[But in return...]
"What?"
[You will say my name.]
Valerian stepped back, his face pale as stone.
"Your name... is a curse. I know."
[I know you know.]
[And that's why, I won't ask again.]
[Instead, I'll whisper it to you, slowly... until you find it slipping out of you unconsciously.]
The shadow came closer, until the voice was in Valerian's ear a whisper, soft as feathers, yet foul as rot:
"Siiiii..."
"Raaath..."
Ziii..."
"T...." Valerian muttered, then bit his tongue. Blood dripped from his mouth, but he smiled... A small pain for the price of freedom.
"I will not speak you."
"I will not be your tool."
"I will not be a slave to what has no face."
The creature laughed. A laugh that wasn't sound, but a tremor in the mind as if his brain cells themselves started to shiver from the inside.
[That's what the one before you said.]
[Then he spoke me.]
[And never returned.]
And the screen went dark.
And the creature... disappeared.
But it didn't leave.
It was still there.
Waiting in a corner of Valerian's mind, where no light reached.