The sky hung heavy, bruised steel bleeding into dusk. Clouds sagged low over the city like a warning whispered by the heavens. Percy Swayder walked with his head down, backpack slung over one shoulder, shoes soaked from the puddles that dotted the fractured sidewalk. Each step echoed like a memory he didn't want to relive.
The orphanage loomed ahead.
A crooked building of faded brick and rusted gutters. Its windows stared like blind eyes, watching his approach with the same judgment they always had.
"Back to this dump," Percy thought, jaw clenched. "Back to the place that hunts me."
School wasn't sanctuary. But at least there, he was ignored.
Here?
He was prey.
The iron gate creaked open, greeting him like a sigh from a tired ghost. The yard was empty. They were inside. Waiting. Watching.
His fingers tightened around the strap of his bag.
His right eye — pitch black — caught the dying light of the sun.
His left — turquoise, sharp — saw movement behind the curtains.
They knew he was home.
Owls in the night. Shadows behind glass.
Inside, the air was thick. Mildew. Old wood. The hallway stretched like a tunnel into nowhere, lined with peeling wallpaper and flickering lights that buzzed like broken thoughts.
Percy moved quickly.
But luck never walked with him.
"Hey, hetero freak."
The voice cut through the silence like a blade.
Certis.
Red-haired. Orange-eyed. Leaning against the wall like he owned it. Behind him, Rell and Miko — his shadows, his echo.
Percy turned slowly.
Certis stepped forward, smirk carved into his face. "You get lost in the sewer again? Or did your cursed blood drag you there?"
Percy said nothing.
Silence was safer than defiance.
Certis yanked the backpack off his shoulder. Its contents spilled — books, pencil case, crumpled lunch wrapper. Percy knelt to gather them, but Certis kicked a notebook across the hall.
"Oops," he said. "Guess your freak hands aren't fast enough."
Percy's fingers trembled.
"Every time," he thought. "No matter where I go, they find me."
Certis circled him like a vulture. "I heard the Curse hits tomorrow. Big day, huh? My bet's on Soulless. Would suit a freak like you."
Percy flinched.
Soulless.
The rarest route. The myth.
No trials. No tasks. Just… gone.
Rell laughed. "I hope it's Cursed. You'd probably trip and die before the Entity even showed up."
They laughed.
Percy stood, clutching his bag to his chest.
He didn't cry.
Not anymore.
Back then, he'd cry every time he reached his room. But now? The tears had dried. The routine had rotted.
Then came the broom brigade.
Administrators rushed in, sweeping Certis and his lackeys away like rats. "Get out of here!" one shouted.
They turned to Percy, voices soft. "We're sorry. This time, we'll punish them properly."
They picked up his things. Tried to cheer him up.
It helped.
A little.
The orphanage had rules. Strict ones. But Certis didn't care. Percy hated it here. He wanted to reach eighteen and leave.
But that wasn't happening.
He'd been marked.
The Curse was coming.
The orphanage hadn't always been his home.
Once, there was warmth.
Books. Laughter. Rain on windows and songs in the kitchen.
His mother, Lin Swayder, had been a saint. She danced in storms and treated her family like royalty.
Then came the Fall of Japan.
Nightmare Realms swallowed cities whole.
Lin was there. Helping. Fighting.
She never came back.
His father, Eugine Swayder, was a scientist. One of the few who studied the Curse. He believed it had structure. Meaning.
"A sentient algorithm of sin," he'd called it.
Percy hadn't understood.
His sister, Elira, had been branded Purified. Sent into the First Realm. She wrote one letter.
Then vanished.
Each loss came with a storm.
The night his father died in a lab explosion — thunder cracked the sky.
The day his mother vanished — rain flooded the streets.
The day Elira was taken — lightning split the clouds.
Since then, Percy stopped using his name.
He called himself Rain.
Not just because of the weather.
Because it was the only thing that understood him.
The sky cried when he couldn't.
It roared when he was silent.
It drowned the world when he felt invisible.
Rain reached his room — narrow, quiet, cracked window staring at the sky.
He locked the door.
Collapsed onto the mattress.
His fingers traced the violet ribbon tied around his wrist.
Elira's last gift.
He stared at the ceiling.
Heart pounding.
Tomorrow.
The Curse would come at noon.
He'd seen it once.
A boy named Juno.
At midnight, the Wisp appeared — black smoke curling into his wrist, symbols forming in the air and burning into his skin. Juno hadn't gone to the Entity Hunters Headquarters, and it cost him, with no guidance on the routes due to his fear. He never came back.
The day it happened.
Juno screamed.
Then vanished.
Rain didn't know what his awakening would look like.
But he knew it would hurt.
He couldn't boast about luck.
He closed his eyes.
And slept.
For what felt like the last time.