The darkness was incomplete. The deep blue canopy was covered with thousands of pinpricks of cold light. The celestial fabric was splattered with silver.
A youth sat at the edge of a short pier. The air was slightly musky and had a metallic smell. Around him, a colony of starlight bugs pulsated with rhythm, their sound like a drum and their luster illuminated the surrounding area.
Occasionally, slight ripples would surface in the pond, interrupting a reflection of the youth's face.
Blight was thin, and his frame looked frail. His skin was sickly pale, a trait common amongst the inhabitants here, a place that lacked sunlight for many parts of the year.
He had jet black hair that hung around his face in tangled strands. It was unkempt and glossy, appearing as if it had not been washed in days.
His eyes were depthless, like an abyss that swallowed light without reflection. A bottomless pool of black. If you could peer into them, you would feel an endless silent pull into an unseen chasm of depth which refused to be understood.
Though his face still had its childish characteristics, like his small unassuming nose and lips, and a plumpiness around his cheekbones. There was an eerie disconnect between his youthful appearance and the void in his gaze.
He exhaled deeply, and his breath crystallised in the air in front of him. Transient in a testament to its brief existence.
Autumn had just passed, and it was now winter. At this time, the clan members would be seeking warmth in their homes. Perhaps with their friends and families and gather around a large bonfire, enjoying each other's company to share stories and laughter.
This was the essence of the human. Their need for connection. No matter how far they attempted to transcend their humanity, a silent inescapable longing remained.
This was their desire to be understood and accepted, a hand to hold in a moment of doubt, a voice to confide in when burdens grew heavy. To be heard, to be known, to be comforted, to be admired, respected, and above all else to be loved.
Human obsessed with their identity in relation to others. Human is a social animal, but Blight is a solitary one.
He sighed and leaned back, gazing into the night sky. On Nameless peak, at the very beginning of the Forsaken Chain mountain range, they were very far away from the nearest human settlement, and therefore, there was no light pollution. Tonight's view was particularly clear.
He would often spend his nights like this. When he was younger, he would wander on the outskirts, play in the forests and meadows, and sleep under the trees. For as long as he could remember, he had always been wandering around alone.
It was not for any reason like he was a strange lover of the earth, but rather that he was estranged and outcasted from this clan since young.
His parents were outsiders who were granted indemnity by the clan leader when they sought refuge here many years ago. They, and he did not share the bloodline of the clan.
When Blight thought of his parents, he felt a blatant indifference and emptiness; he did not feel a sadness, and his heart did not hold love. Maybe he had long become incapable.
His home was near the western boundary of the clan settlement. When his parents arrived here all those years ago, the clan leader had seemingly taken pity on them and gave them this old building on the western edge of their settlement. Beyond it was an endless spire that was impossible to scale.
While it was nothing special and akin to tossing a bone to a dog, it had set a precedent in this clan, breaking all known tradition to, for the very first time, offer refuge to outsiders.
In this world, lineage was everything, and he was not of their lineage.
It was getting late, and the temperature was dropping. It would be one of the last days before the surface of the pond froze over.
When he arrived home, he found a crate containing raw fruits, vegetables, meat, and a bucket of fresh water under his front deck's miniature verandah.
His front door was a worn and flaking slab of wood, barely holding onto its hinges. As it creaked open, the subtly sweet and spicy smell of damp wood and mildew reached his nose.
Blight quickly lit his only lamp and sat down on his bed. It was cold. His home lacked any insulation, but its solid wooden frame would retain the heat well.
He quickly got up and started a fire in the firebox underneath his chimney. Once the kindling began to crackle, he surrounded it with small sticks and twigs, and above them logs, before he returned to the bed, snuggling for warmth underneath his blanket.
Tonight was the night before the awakening ceremony. In this world, a boy becomes a man at twelve. The higher man transcends his mortality to unlock the powers of his lineage, along with his unique boon and flaw.
Tomorrow morning, all the of-age children of the clan, including himself, would gather at the southern foothill in front of the barracks and begin their journey of awakening to become higher beings.
He took out a book from the adjacent shelf. It was part of the large collection left behind by his parents. The book was inconspicuous. Its cover was a black kind of hide. There were no words or etchings to indicate what was within it, but once opened, the first page title read 'Defenders of humanity.'
In the ancient era, human was pitifully weak and could not survive in the world dominated by horrors. Compared to the natural born advantages held by the horrors, humans had it many times more difficult.
Their settlements and territories were few, and they were outnumbered and overpowered more than thousands of times over.
Every era would give birth to bright stars of change, but they would all fade into oblivion. Eternal Venerable Bastion was the first human to reach the Eternal realm.
He was the changing star that would unite all the human settlements and lead humanity to carve a path against the horrors.
It wrote of the Forsaken Chain, a mountain range extending thousands of kilometres situated at the northern end of the human settlements.
Venerable Bastion entrusted his friend and the clan of Riven to defend this range. Beyond the fortress, the vast expanse of the mountain range was filled with horrors, growing unimaginable the further away you ventured. It was a dead zone outside the influence of humanity and no place for a mortal like himself.
It wrote of the other clans, which also guarded the northern regions. It was a mostly mountainous region that was thousands of kilometres long and many dozen kilometres high.
It was not possible to trek or scale, and it acted as a natural barrier to the human zones of influence. But like the forsaken chain that had a possible entry route, there were many others which needed to be guarded.
While flying horrors could still advance, they were few and far in between, and they had their own disadvantages.
The human fortress he currently resided in was called The Great Wall of Riven, named after their Celestial being ancestor. Their clan name was Red Legion, a famed clan of great warriors. History was painted with their blood.
Blight had grown interested in the previous clan leader. The book wrote that Riven was once the revered leader of the Red Legion. He was personally tasked by Bastion with guarding the Forsaken Chain, one of the most dangerous regions situated on the northern boundary of the human settlements.
Riven helped forge the early stages of humanity's survival in the ancient era. This ancient army's efforts were to carve out a zone of human influence in a world dominated by horrors.
The bloody campaign spanned generations, and countless lives were lost in establishing this zone. After Bastion's death, Riven continued to defend the wall diligently until he was eventually taken by time. He was a Celestial warrior and famed throughout the ages.
Blight was born here and lived amongst them, and tomorrow, he would undergo his awakening ceremony with them. This would also be the first time an outsider was given this privilege. He had come to know that the current clan leader was behind all the benefits he was provided.
Blight could imagine that despite facing much pushback from the clan, he was allowed to live amongst them, given lodging, food, water, and all his necessities were given to him every day.
He didn't know why the clan leader was being so accommodating of him, but at the very least, he thought that he should hold some feeling of gratitude and not forget it easily.
He put the book away. At this point, some of the burning logs had turned to hot coals, so he placed a pot and began to make a stew with the food items that he found left outside his home earlier.
'Haah, but so tasty' he thought, opening his mouth to breathe in cold air, trying his best not to burn his mouth while savouring the hot food. He was not good at many things, but growing up alone and having to cook for himself every day, he quickly became skillful with this at least.
While he ate, Blight thought of the upcoming changes that would come with the awakening ceremony. He was going with the natural development of events, but he had no real desire to awaken or desire for anything, for that matter.
When Blight thought of what he wanted in life, he couldn't come up with anything. He felt a great emptiness and a lack of identity. His thoughts and desires were shallow and fleeting.
Did he even desire to be alive? He didn't know, it didn't feel like it. When he tried to come up with things he disliked about his life, he only felt a great apathy. When he thought about the things he liked, well, he liked the taste of food and satiating his hunger.
He liked to rest when he felt tired, to absorb knowledge when he felt boredom. These days, he would also feel a strange desire when he looked at or thought of girls in the clan, but he didn't yet know what he had to do to satiate this desire.
Maybe it would be right to say he disliked not being able to satiate his basic needs.
Blight felt that he must be incredibly stupid and that he was ignorant and lacked great knowledge, but he was young, lacked great experience, and didn't know any better yet.
Beyond his basic instinctual behaviors, he felt compelled to let things develop as they were heading.
While he didn't care to awaken and perhaps also felt some apprehension to the possible inconveniences this would bring to him, he would still go ahead with this turn of events.