Vlad stood by the window of a cheap hotel on the outskirts of Sunrain, looking out at the streets that never slept. The light from the streetlambs reflected in puddles mixed with mud and garbage, and the rare passersby hurried about their business, not noticing him. He picked up a pencil and began writing in a notebook, trying to gather the thoughts swirling in his head like scattered shards of glass.
Today he turned seventeen. The number seemed almost random, because a year ago he was a different person—an ordinary teenager with a family that no longer existed. A year in Sunrain had changed everything. He had survived among ruins, among people who seemed to have lost their own humanity, among monsters and those who had learned to hunt the weak for food.
"I am seventeen now. I am still alive, although I no longer know what life is without the emptiness inside. Everything I saw a year ago left a scar that will never heal."
In the first months, he had wandered around dumpsters, looking for food and random trinkets to sell. Sometimes he found canned goods, chunks of bread, old newspapers to use as bedding at night. He looked at people with caution, because he had seen that any stranger could become an enemy. Vlad quickly understood that the world did not forgive weakness, and if you wanted to live another day—you had to be ready for any outcome.
He took on small odd jobs: a loader in an old warehouse, an assistant at food stalls, sometimes cleaning streets for a meager wage. Every coin was worth its weight in gold. He learned to negotiate with people without drawing too much attention to himself. Food, a roof over his head, and minimal safety became his priorities.
His only friend was his notebook. In it, he wrote everything: observations, thoughts, fears, but especially about the power that lived inside him. The Void. It defied description. He had never heard of anything like it. No books, no internet articles, no stories from old-timers in cafes had any analogues to what was happening with his body and mind.
"Sometimes I think it's not a power. It's something… else. But I can't ignore it. It's inside me, it moves with me, whispers, feels, sees. I don't understand how it works. I've never heard anything like it."
Every morning began with a walk around the block. Vlad checked dumpsters, scanned the streets, listened to the footsteps of passersby and rustles in the alleys. He learned to sense danger in advance, though he still couldn't fully control the power. The Void manifested on its own, almost reflexively, when the threat was too close. And every time it burst out, Vlad felt both terror and relief at once.
On one such day, he had to face a gang of teenagers who preyed on others like him. They spotted him by the old warehouse and surrounded him, laughter and threats filling the alley. Vlad held daggers in his hands but didn't have much faith he could win. His heart beat fast, not from fear, but from tension.
"If I don't handle this now… it's all over."
A can clattered under his feet, one of the teens stepped forward to strike. And then, almost reflexively, the Void inside him responded. The air before his hands rippled, and a sudden force threw the boys back, making them fall to the ground. Vlad didn't think about it. He simply backed away, raised his daggers, watching as they fled in panic.
"I can… I can control it, but not fully yet. I don't understand how it works. And if I lose control…"
After such incidents, he increasingly retreated to the library. It was old, with tall shelves, the smell of dust and old paper, and the quiet echo of footsteps. There he spent hours, trying to find something that would explain the Void, its nature, even a hint. He looked through books on magic, the occult, biology, psychology—but not a single source had a word about what was inside him.
He sat down at a table, opened his notebook, and began taking notes: laws of physical reactions, sensations of the power, moments when the Void manifested on its own. He recorded his observations to study them again years later, when he had more experience and knowledge.
"Maybe I can understand it if I observe. If I try. If I go further. I want to learn to control this… someday I will go to the Academy. There, I can study magic, science, everything that might help me understand what is happening to me."
The days in Sunrain passed in the same rhythm. Work, searching for food, training control over his daggers, observing the Void's reactions. Sometimes he just sat on the hotel roof, looking at the city, and tried to remember his family. He still dreamed of the scenes from the day he lost them. But now those memories didn't break him. They had become a tool, a reminder that weakness was no longer permissible.
"I am not that boy anymore. I can't afford to cry. I can't afford to fall. All that remains is me and this… inside me."
Once, in the library, he noticed a strange man. The man sat at a table with a book on ancient magic, holding something that seemed not of this world. Their gazes met, and Vlad felt a strange curiosity. Not a threat, but interest. He didn't know who this was, but he understood that he might find something important here.
"If there's a chance, even one, that someone studied something similar… I must find it."
Vlad started returning to the library more often, recording everything he felt. The Void manifested in different ways: sometimes as pressure in his chest, sometimes a sensation of cold, as if the darkness itself was trying to seep into the world. And each time he tried to understand where it ended and where he began.
A year passed. Vlad was still alone, but he had grown stronger. He could sense the movement of people around him, predict their actions, react faster than ever before. The daggers in his hands no longer felt like a heavy burden, but a part of his body. He could move smoothly, almost effortlessly, yet feel the power that was alien and frightening.
Sometimes, when the city grew quiet, Vlad wrote in his notebook:
"Today I watched people as they walked the streets, thinking about their problems. They don't know that inside me there is something that can change everything. I don't know what it is. But I want to understand. I want to learn to control it. And someday I will go to the Academy to learn. If there's a chance, I will take it."
He closed the notebook, stood up, and looked at the city from the roof. Below, the streetlamp light reflected in puddles, the noise of cars and people mixed with the cries of cats and distant dogs. He knew that tomorrow he would have to search for food again, hide again, fight again, test the boundaries of his power again.
But he was ready.
"A year has passed. I survived. And I intend to keep going. If there is a place where I can learn the truth, where I can learn… I will go there."
Vlad climbed down from the roof, walked through the empty hotel courtyard, picked up his daggers, and entered his room. He sat on the bed, leaning against the wall, closed his eyes, and for the first time in a long while, felt a little stronger. Not in a physical sense, but in knowing that the power inside was his only support. It was cold, alien, frightening, but now it was his.
At that moment, Sunrain slept, but for Vlad, the night was just the beginning. The beginning of what he would call his path, his future, his life among ruins, monsters, and people who did not yet know that soon someone would walk alone, with a power no one understood.
And he knew that when the time came, he would use all of it to change himself, to survive, and perhaps, someday, understand what exactly had happened to him.