A few days slipped by, soon turning into months, and Kurian found himself caught in an endless samsara of training, eating, and resting that blurred one day into the next.
Every morning, he trained his endurance by holding a horse stance for as long as he could, performing a dynamic squat whenever he felt his core muscles begin to cramp and twist before transitioning back into position.
It was a torturous routine, necessary to make up for the time he couldn't spend running on open ground. Yet, as the routine settled, Kurian soon realized a fatal flaw in his expectation.
Possessing a petite body, Kurian slowly realized that at his current age of four, his physique wouldn't grow significantly stronger or develop proper muscle mass no matter how much he pushed it.
This physical limitation was a crushing disappointment for him, but deep down, a new realization — or perhaps a discovery — had dawned upon him: he was beginning to familiarize himself with his body.
It wasn't that Kurian lacked memories of performing strenuous activity in his childhood, but rather that he had never possessed the proper instinct or awareness needed to recognize this growing sense of familiarity of; 'what he is', before.
Now, holding the horse stance, the pain wasn't just pain; it was a marker. He was learning to discern the tension in his hip flexors, the burn deep in his core, and the exact tremor that signaled imminent failure.
He wasn't merely moving, he was starting to catalog his body's boundaries and capacities with precision. This intimate awareness was the true gain, a foundation he had never possessed before.
'No wonder babies are often given stretching exercises,' he thought, moving through his morning routine. 'Hmm… my eyes have become slightly better at tracking.'
While he trained his physical capabilities, he was also simultaneously sharpening his ocular abilities. His eyes were now able to meticulously trace the dust motes flying in the air, tracking their erratic movements even on a windy dawn.
'It's a bit chilly today... is winter approaching?' he wondered.
In addition to his morning routines and dynamic ocular training, Kurian worked to heighten all his remaining senses.
His skin, naturally sensitive to temperature changes, became his greatest asset, making the fastest leap toward a heightened state of awareness which was necessary, and invaluable in his pursuit of awakening the Corporeal Eye.
He could feel the warmth of the day pressing against his skin until it slowly gave way to the creeping chill of dusk, at which point the basement became his world. And when he was confined there, he focused on seeking to awaken the Corporeal Eye.
Though most of the time the endeavor to awaken the Corporeal Eye remained unfruitful, he could now begin discern phantom-like faint stirrings, like whispers in the dark.
It was a foreboding sensation where he felt wisps of energy coalescing with static, crawling beneath his skin, which made his body quiver.
'This isn't it,' he thought, gritting his teeth. His efforts hadn't yet yielded the breakthrough he sought. But there were only twenty-four hours in a day… and he had already utilizing them to the best of his abilities.
Even when night fell, Kurian still refused to sleep. He kept his eyes open, training the Static Eye. Though he still wasn't accustomed to it, the nausea was gradually fading... Unfortunately, however, a new problem had surfaced.
"I need more nutrients," he muttered grimly under his breath.
Despite having high energy of a child, his body was beginning to fail him.
Every movement demanded more than he could give, and the meager meals he received were barely enough to sustain a normal child, let alone one training beyond exhaustion.
'If I push too hard, my natural growth will be stunted... do I really have to sacrifice training time for sleep?' Kurian bit his curled index finger.
He felt an ache of longing for his former body which was able to endure months of wakefulness with only minimal rest.
'Since mind and body are interconnected, it's no wonder this problem has started to show,' he analyzed.
It wasn't that Kurian had never rested during the night after possessing this body. But even in sleep, his eyes remained open, tracing the slow drift of dust motes, while his ears stayed alert — catching the faint crawling of roaches and mice in the dark.
'Yeah… I'll have to sacrifice training time for sleep. My body can't take this anymore,' Kurian thought, chewing absentmindedly on whatever his mother had served.
As he sat deep in contemplation, his mother's chiding voice cut through his thoughts. "Kurian, bad manners."
"—!!?"
Startled, he looked at his mother in confusion, unsure what he had done wrong. With a disapproving look, Serena pointed and said, "Stop shaking your knee like that."
Kurian blinked, glancing down at his right leg, which was trembling involuntarily. Controlling it, he muttered, "Sorry," though his face still carried that same weary frailty.
Serena's gaze softened at this sight, her tone turning gently inquisitive. "You haven't been sleeping right, have you?"
Kurian flinched slightly but gave a small nod.
"And why is that, mister?" she pressed, folding her arms.
"It's boring here," Kurian replied quickly. Of course, he couldn't tell her the truth; that he was training his body or that he wasn't quite the same child she believes him to be.
Some truths brought more harm than good, so he chose the safer lie by telling her how boring life feels, "I simply stay at home, and not even go out for a small breather."
"Some people don't even have a home," Serena said in a tone firm.
Kurian gave a small nod, his expression twisting into a half-sulking pout. "There's nothing fun to do," he muttered.
Though he wore the face of a wronged child, the sheer cringe he felt inside while acting that way was almost fascinating in itself.
Yet behind this little drama lay a quiet motive. He wanted to hint, without saying it outright, that it wasn't right to keep him confined here forever. Eventually, he would have to go outside — he needed to.
No caged bird remains trapped forever; they either break free… or perish when the cage becomes their world.
'Is it too much to ask?' Kurian thought.
He knew his mother was perceptive enough to grasp the subtle cues behind his words — his yearning for freedom, his desire to roam beyond the confines of these walls.
And deep down, he sensed she wanted the same. She wasn't keeping him locked away out of cruelty but out of necessity, merely buying time.
Yet even knowing that didn't still the growing unease within him. He could almost hear it — a faint ticking sound echoing in his mind, like a clock wound too tight.
With each passing moment he remained confined, the noise grew sharper, louder, and more insistent, as though counting down to something inevitable.
'Is this what they call seeing a death flag?' Kurian wondered as he finished the last bite on his plate.
Fifteen months later...
A heavy pouch of credits hit the floor with a dull thud.
"Here's your pay, bitch." The man spat the words, his voice coarse with arrogance.
He zipped his trousers, sneered down at Serena's trembling, defiled body, and swaggered out of the dimly lit room — his grin wide, self-satisfied, seeming to have make his fragile ego feel important
The door shut behind him, leaving only silence and the faint metallic scent of blood and abuse in the air.
Serena lay still, her body aching in ways that no words could explain. Her hand weakly moved to her abdomen, yet she wasn't checking for comfort, but for the familiar, painful landscape of the scar that ran across her lower belly.
It was a ridge of raised, angry tissue, a permanent testament to a single, desperate, irreversible choice she made in the past.
She remembered the day she learned she was carrying his child. She had gone to him, naive, perhaps, seeking some meager promise of change.
That day, she had seen the hidden room — the files, the instruments, and the monstrous evidence of what he truly was.
And in that instant, Serena realized a terrible truth: the man who had forced this new life inside her would not hesitate to harm her firstborn son, even if the new child was his own.
To him, a child was never a life — only a possession, a means, a price.
The revelation left her frozen, her thoughts consumed by terror and confusion. In a panic, she tried to undo what had already begun, acting on fear and instinct, her body and mind betraying one another in their shared hysteria.
But life, stubborn and silent, refused to yield. Through the pain and fever, through her fading strength, the fragile existence within her persistently endured.
In that small, unseen defiance, she saw a reflection of herself: a spirit that refused to die, no matter the cruelty of its world.
And in those bleak, desperate weeks, something wordless passed between them — a pact of survival, born from the edge of despair.
Now, when her fingers brushed the faint scar left behind, she could feel the memory of that choice etched beneath the skin.
She had failed to end a life, and in that failure, she had given birth to the only light that would ever redeem her.
Her son was born months later — fragile, miraculous, and impossibly alive. But the cost of her actions were final; the injury had left her body too damaged to ever bear another child.
That scar remained as a lifelong mark of her greatest sin and her greatest love, bound together in the same act of unlikely survival.
After recalling those memories she wished she could forget, Serena rose to collect the bag of coins, a faint glimmer of hope lighting her eyes for the first time in ages. "It's about time… just a few more months of this, and we can be free."
A harsh rule governed the Lawless Zone: "Those who wish to leave must pay up to one million credits. Only then may they go."
Serena had already earned the base million credits required for one person to leave. However, she lacked the extra funds she wanted for their life afterward, so she chose to stay for a few more agonizing months.
'Just wait a bit longer, my baby. Mother will free you from this confined cage,' she vowed solemnly, determined to at least set her son free from this land as she tucked away the coins.
In the basement, where Kurian — now five and a half — was held, a subtle transformation began to take shape.
The phantom-like strands that had teased his senses for months now started to coalesce into a distinct rhythm of flow and stillness — this was the early signs of the Corporeal Eye awakening.
'The speed is too slow,' Kurian thought in frustration. Though training his eye to this level was a great achievement, he felt it was too slow for his current situation.
Time was ticking, and by now, the ticking object had revealed itself in the form of a bloody sword that hummed with energy, mimicking the sound of time running out.
However, Kurian's blindfold was soon loosened as his mother led him upstairs for dinner. "Let's go eat."
The familiar atmosphere greeted him: he emphasized, half-exaggerated, how boring life had become, while Serena merely dismissed his complaints with a calm patience.
'Just a bit more patience, my dear,' she whispered to herself. 'We need to stay here for a few more months.'
But contrary to her measured string of thoughts, a frenzied panic churned in Kurian's mind. 'Mother… we cannot afford to wait much long here.'
To be continued...
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A/N: It would be great if the readers can share some thoughts here on the pacing as I am not sure if this pace is just about right or not.