In an unknown world, in an unknown time and place…
A place that seemed to be bathed in blood in every possible way. The Sky was bleeding, and blood was raining in heavy drops. If one were to look around, they would see countless bodies of many species lying around everywhere, so many that it was hard to count.
There was a large crack in the blood-red sky, which seemed extremely out of place. One could only imagine what sort of catastrophic event had happened in this world and what sort of monstrous slaughter had taken place for trillions of living beings to have been killed just like that.
A quavering, small boy was looking at all of this from a small wooden house on a mountain. Seeing so much brutality, the boy was shivering uncontrollably in fear, and he was holding his mouth in fear as if someone would hear him.
After an unknown amount of time, the sound of a door creaking could be heard, and the small boy immediately hid behind a furniture in panic and terror. He was so afraid that he did not even realize that he was grinding his teeth and his sobs escaped his mouth.
A being opened the door and stood there for a few minutes, blood covered the entire place she was standing on, eventually it said softly, "Come out...."
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" "WHY DID YOU DO THAT? YOU…..YOU KILLED THEM, YOU KILLED THEM ALL…..SO MANY LIVES GONE JUST LIKE THAT….." the boy shouted with a mix of fear and fury.
She opened her mouth to say something but ended up closing it. A few moments passed in silence, but she eventually said the truth, "Yes, yes I did."
The boy came out from hiding, but this time, there was fury in his eyes. He stared at the beautiful woman in silver armor, The woman was covered in the blood of the countless living beings she had slaughtered without the slightest hesitation.
"WHY?WHY?WHY?WHY?WHY? Tell…..me?" "There must be a reason. Explain it to me…..Pleas.e….." The boy started speaking in a furious voice, but his voice choked at the end as tears started flowing from his eyes.
"And father, where is...…"
But before the boy could speak any further, the woman dashed forward at an unimaginable speed, She stabbed the sword straight through the heart of the little boy. The little boy let out a gut-wrenching scream while hugging the woman. The sword pierced his heart.
An unimaginable sadness and a sense of betrayal swept through his entire being. Blood started coming out of his mouth as he said the last words in a choked voice, "Wh..y…..mother???"
He closed his eyes as life left his body. The woman held the boy tightly as tears of blood started coming out of her, but her face was already a mess, so it did not make a difference. She said her last words barely in a choking whisper, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, my son. This is…." "This is, the only way.....to...…"
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THWACK! SMACK! BAM! CRACK! THUD!
In a narrow corner of a school, 5 boys were beating up an unconscious boy. After 2-3 minutes had passed, the boy woke up, bruised and battered. But the state of his body wasn't too bad.
He saw the same 5 boys who always bullied him, and he had lost count how many times this had happened. He sighed internally and punched the boy who was punching him in the face. The boy was caught off guard and stumbled back.
At this point, the leader of the bullies who was in the back ordered the other four, "Go and beat him up. This bastard never learns when I say to stay away from her."
However, Tyler replied in a mocking tone, "Make me."
What happened afterwards was just as expected. Tyler naturally wasn't a match for 5 boys all alone. He was in a slightly bad state. But the bullies weren't unharmed either, he wasn't someone who would let them beat him up without fighting back. His body even got used to the beating, and the more times he got beat up, the better he could fight them back next time.
At first, there were only 2 of them, but as time passed, 2 weren't his match, then came 3, and the numbers eventually increased to 5. But Tyler didn't care, he would always fight back. If they just insulted him, he wouldn't say anything. But he wouldn't stay still if they came to beat him up.
The 5 bullies stopped beating him when he was finally unable to fight back. The one in the middle spat, "Next time, I'll bring more people and beat you up again if you don't cut off connections with her."
Tyler snickered, "And that's never gonna happen."
The bully became furious again but held himself back, he could only do so much because the bastard in front of him was a loner without any friends except for her, the girl he had a crush on. The bully also came from a very rich family, and for that reason, the teachers couldn't casually complain against him. After all, no one would be willing to offend a powerful family just for a normal student.
But just because of that, he couldn't do anything without limits. He couldn't beat the bastard up too badly and cause any major injuries; if he did that, news would reach his father, and his father wouldn't spare him. So, he unwillingly left.
Tyler got up, he wasn't as injured as he made it out to be. He went to the infirmary and cleaned himself up as much as possible. He went back to the class and sat in his usual place.
Everyone looked at him for a moment; they all knew what happened. But his gaze was firm and his posture relaxed, it didn't seem like he was someone who was beaten up by 5 people at once. He could sense the tense gaze of his childhood friend. She was one of the most beautiful girls in the school. The bully had a great crush on her and proposed to her many times, in fact many boys did. But she did not accept any of those proposals.
So, for that reason, he wasn't liked much by most of the boys in the school. But the two of them were only good friends and nothing more. They're houses were next to each other, so they grew up together since they were little kids. Both of them stated many times to others that they were only friends, but no one believed them since they always walked home together.
Her not accepting any other boy's proposals and never having any other boyfriend also made the situation worse, and Tyler, despite being bullied, never backed down or tried to maintain distance from his friend which only made everyone belief that they were a couple but did not want to say it out loud.
His mind suddenly went to the moment before waking up. He thought it long and hard, but he couldn't remember what happened. This always happened to him; he would see things in his dream but couldn't remember a single detail of what happened. Only a lingering feeling of sadness would permeate his being every time he woke up from such a dream, he did not know why, no matter how many times he thought about it.
When the break time was over, a teacher came into the class, and all the students focused their attention on the teacher. He was one of the interesting teachers who always talked about something outside of the strict curricular topics while interacting with the students in life's philosophy that never failed to get the attention of the students. For those reasons, most of the students loved his lectures, including Tyler himself.
The teacher as always began the with a weird analogy, "Let's suppose, one day you captured a crow, a white crow. Yes, I know crows aren't white, but for the sake of the analogy, let's say there is a white crow that you somehow captured."
He paused to let the words sink into the minds of the students and continued, "Now, we all know that crows love shiny things. So, to forever keep the crow in your grasp, you decided to create a cage made of shining gold. But eventually and inevitably, the grow grew bored of the shining cage made of pure gold. It now desired freedom, it understood the value of the freedom."
"But as the White Crow, it is the rarest of its kind, anyone would be unwilling to let it go."
He pointed his finger at the brightest student of the class, Sophia. The childhood friend of Tyler.
"What would you do? Will you let it go and let it obtain its freedom? Or keep it and give it more shiny things?" asked the teacher to Sophia.
Sophia thought for a while. Silence permeated the class; no one hurried her to answer the question. They also began to think of their own answers in the meantime.
"I think I will keep it, I will slowly tame it or simply keep it. If it struggles too much, I'll put it in a bigger environment, but still I will keep it." Stated Sophia in a calm tone.
"Even if it means it might die?" with some surprise apparent in his voice.
Sophia stated with some hesitation, "Yes."
This time, the teacher directed the same question to Tyler. "I'll try to keep it and tame it maybe, but I think I will eventually let it go, out of my own accord," stated Tyler in a certain tone.
"Even if it means never seeing it again?" asked the teacher with an amused smile. "Yes," said Tyler, but there was a subtle hesitation in his voice.
This time, the teacher turned the question around and asked both of them, "Then what would you do if you were the crow itself? The Golden Cage was the shiniest thing that the crow could ever come in contact with, and it would be fed without needing to put in an effort inside the cage. It would also be protected from any dangers may befall on it because of its uniqueness which may isolate it from its own group?"
The teacher added in a slightly melodious tone, "Why would you desire the unknown if it means leaving behind the greatest luxury you could ever get?"
Sophia answered, "I think I will stay in the cage. If it has everything I need."
Tyler said the opposite, "I will desire to be free."
After school was over, Sophia and Tyler were going back to home together as usual. Jealous glances were shot towards the duo as they kept walking together while bickering in a low voice about various things. But neither of the two cared about those peculiar glances.
Sophia said to him in an angry voice, "Why do you let those bastards come after you again and again? You don't even let me do anything about it? What the heck is wrong with you?"
She added, "I know, if you really wanted, you could stop them using some trick or we could pretend not to talk for a while. My friends even wanted to help with this many times, but you bastard just let yourself be beaten up by them every time."
She sighed exasperatedly, "You know, I always found that something was wrong with you, ever since we were kids. Almost nothing ever interests you? Getting beaten up by bullies, do you find it as something that breaks your eternal monotony of life?"
Tyler smiled when he heard her last lines, he always found everything uninteresting to a large extent. He was only close with Sophia as they grew up together. It was easier to make bonds with people when they were kids, after all. This becomes only harder and harder as you grow up.
When they were close enough to their house, he put his hand on her shoulder and said casually, "I'm not a masochist you moron, if that's what your asking. Just think of it me trying to learn how to fight, that's all."
She snorted disdainfully in response. "You've been reading too much of those manhwa and web novels. Stop daydreaming."
Just as Tyler was about to give a scornful reply, he felt something was wrong. A loud metallic sound was heard from above. There was a new building being built on the left side of the road on the side they both were walking. When he looked upwards, he saw countless metal spikes falling from the fifth floor directly towards them. His eyes widened; there wasn't even a second left for him to think.
His body acted automatically in that fraction of a moment. He threw Sophia away with all his might, and countless spiked rods fell directly on him from that height. Some of them pierced directly his heart and brain. It all happened so fast that he did not even get to cherish his last moments or see if his friend was safe or not.