"AAGHHHHHHH!"
The scream tore through the night like a blade ripping through flesh.
It wasn't the first scream.
It wouldn't be the last.
The sky above the village burned with shades of crimson and coal, smoke rising like tendrils from the mouth of a dying god. Flames erupted from rooftops. Walls cracked and crumbled. Steel met flesh in the alleys. Souls were swallowed by the fire.
And in the corner of it all… there was a boy still sleeping.
His name was Caelen Duskgrave.
Wrapped in a threadbare blanket on the wooden floor of a leaning shack, he slept curled against the cold. A child shaped by poverty and silence. The world could've ended around him and he might've never noticed—until the smoke found him.
It crawled through the gaps in the warped roof, snaking beneath his blanket like a whisper, like a warning. Then it filled his lungs.
He jolted upright, coughing violently, eyes stinging from the bitter sting of ash. The air reeked of pitch, blood, and burnt grain. Panic clawed into his gut as he staggered to his feet, kicked open the warped door, and stepped into—
Hell.
The village was burning.
Homes he knew were nothing more than skeletons of flame. Shadows ran between collapsing walls. Screams pierced the night in sharp bursts—then were cut off. Across the open field, black-armored figures marched, faceless behind bone-carved helms, blades glowing with cruel symbols.
The Hollow Guard.
Caelen froze.
He knew those masks.
Every child did.
They were the enforcers of the "Divine Peace"—a lie wrapped in myth. When they arrived, it meant one thing: not cleansing, not salvation. Erasure. Villages vanished under their blades. Not one soul lived to tell how or why.
His mother's voice came to him in fragments:
> "If the Hollow Guard ever comes—don't fight. Don't talk. Don't scream. Hide."
But hide where?
Their shack was just kindling.
The forest? No time. No light. No mercy.
He stood shaking, legs numb with cold and fear, until a flaming corpse crashed down nearby—an old man he once traded berries with. His eyes were open. Empty.
Caelen ran.
But not away.
Up.
Beyond the village's edge stood a cliff of black stone, and carved into its face was a structure half-swallowed by time and moss—the Shrine of the First Ember. Forbidden. Feared. Left untouched since the old gods fell. No one ever went there.
But it was stone.
Flame couldn't eat stone.
He scrambled up the hill, boots slipping on ash and root. The screams below blurred. The sky wept fire. And still he climbed, lungs burning, legs screaming, heart pounding like war drums.
When he reached the shrine's gate, he didn't hesitate.
He threw the doors open and disappeared into the dark.
The air inside was freezing.
No smoke, no screams—just silence and shadow.
Pillars lined the walls like ancient sentinels. The floor was covered in dust thick as snow. At the far end sat an altar of black stone, cracked down the middle. Above it, the remnants of a mural told a story in fragments: divine shapes, burning skies, and a single figure kneeling as chains erupted from his back.
Caelen collapsed in a corner, chest heaving, lungs raw.
He didn't cry.
He didn't speak.
He just stared at the far wall, eyes wide and blank.
And the fire below kept rising.
Hours passed. Maybe days.
He lost track.
He didn't eat. Didn't sleep. Just shivered in the dark.
But the silence of the shrine wasn't just silence.
It was… watching him.
Then came the dream.
Not a dream. A vision.
He stood alone in a field of gray ash. The sky above was cracked like broken glass, pulsing with red veins. In the distance, colossal corpses of long-dead gods loomed—some armored in golden plate, others with wings made of bone. All were impaled by black chains that reached into the heavens.
He walked.
Each step left prints that filled with blood.
A voice drifted down from the sky:
"You are empty."
He turned—but there was no one.
"Good."
The ash split open.
Black tendrils wrapped around his legs. Dragged him downward. The sky shattered—
He awoke.
Caelen jolted upright, gasping.
The shrine was no longer dark.
Red light pulsed from the mural behind the altar. Symbols—none he'd ever seen—glowed across the stone. Not letters. Truths. They didn't need translation. They burned straight into his soul.
The altar cracked.
From it rose a crystal the size of a human heart—jet black, laced with glowing red veins. It hovered in the air, humming softly.
His legs moved without thinking.
He stepped forward.
Closer.
The air thickened.
Each heartbeat louder than the last.
This wasn't a normal Soulwake crystal.
He'd seen villagers awaken before—fire bursting from their hands, eyes turning silver, some growing wings or claws.
This crystal was different.
Wrong.
Empty.
And yet…
"Feed."
The voice again.
Colder now.
"Grow."
The crystal pulsed once.
"Survive."
Then it surged toward him.
Caelen had no time to scream.
It hit his chest like a punch from within.
But there was no pain.
Only silence.
Not the kind he heard in the shrine. The kind that devoured.
A hole opened inside him, bottomless, hungry. It swallowed everything: thought, fear, memory. Even his breath. He felt his soul being…rewritten.
Visions came—fast and merciless.
A crownless god screaming at the void.
Chains ripping through starlight.
A child born without fate.
A name erased from time itself.
Then silence returned.
And he fell.
When Caelen woke again, the shrine was dark.
No light.
No voices.
The crystal was gone.
But something remained.
Inside him.
A second heartbeat.
A pulse that didn't match his own.
He staggered to his feet, unsure what he was now. Not stronger. Not glowing. Not blessed.
Just… different.
He stepped outside.
The cliff winds were sharp and cold. Below, the village had become a grave of smoke and ember. Nothing left. Not his home. Not the people. Not the life he knew.
Everyone was dead.
Except him.
Again.
He clenched his fists.
Why always him?
I was spared once before.
Now again.
There has to be a reason.
A whisper stirred behind his ribs.
Not a thought.
Not his.
"You will never be empty again."
And so began the story of the boy with no fate—only hunger.