The night had descended once more, thick and suffocating. Iren lay still, his eyes clamped shut, yet sleep was a stranger. He knew that the moment he opened his eyes, he would feel it—the thing inside him, shifting like a restless predator in a cage too small. He counted his breaths to steady the rising tide in his chest. One… two…
A muffled thud vibrated through the floorboards. Footsteps. His mother. She stopped just outside his door. She didn't enter; she didn't even turn the handle. For the first time, she stood there paralyzed by a chilling uncertainty, unable to tell if the boy behind that door was truly her son anymore.
"Iren?" her voice was a fragile thread.
Silence was his only answer. As she finally walked away, her hands trembled uncontrollably. She knew—even if her son was physically in that room, he was no longer there.
At the military outpost, the air was sharp with the hum of electronics and the smell of stale coffee. The room was blindingly bright but lacked any warmth. Red ink bled across the maps on the table, marking routes and timestamps.
"Someone was out there again," an officer reported, his voice tight. "Past 11 PM. Past the curfew."
The General listened, his gaze fixed on a flickering monitor.
"The strength displayed is... abnormal," another officer added, sliding a folder forward. "For a child, it's a physical impossibility."
"Impossibility is exactly what breeds terror," the General murmured. He tapped his finger on a specific coordinate on the map. "He isn't just a boy anymore. He's becoming a symbol."
"Does he have a name?" someone asked.
The silence that followed was cold enough to frost the glass. Then, the General spoke two words that changed the air in the room forever:
"Child of Devil."
Iren turned onto his side, the darkness pressing against his retinas. This wasn't a dream; it was an intrusion. Deep within his marrow, something was walking. It made no sound, yet it left jagged scars on his psyche.
"Stop..." Iren croaked, his voice cracking.
His hand clenched into a fist against his will. A visceral memory flooded his mind—the heat of a body, the intrusive touch, a moment of primal violence he never wanted. And then... the warmth. The sickening fullness. The terrifying peace that followed the kill.
That peace was what scared him the most.
The city outside was unnaturally hushed. It was a silence that didn't belong to nature. Iren stepped out into the alleyways, his movements fluid but heavy. He hadn't 'fed' in five days. His body felt hollow, light as a husk, but his head throbbed with a rhythmic pressure. It felt as if someone was leaning into his ear, whispering secrets in a language he almost understood.
Streetlights flickered and died in a sequence as he passed. He didn't stop. To stop was to think. To think was to feel the agony.
At the mouth of a narrow alley, he froze. There was no sound, yet the silence had a weight—a density that warned him he wasn't alone. Iren pressed his palm against the damp brick wall. His hand didn't shake, but inside, his resolve was crumbling like dry earth.
Suddenly, the black screen flickered into existence within his mind.
[Soul Collect?]
Iren squeezed his eyes shut. He loathed that question. He loathed the necessity of it.
"No..." the word shattered in his throat.
The screen glitched. Red light bled into the edges. Broken characters danced across his vision.
[Error.]
And then, the sound began. Not a whisper, not a scream, but a singular, monotonous pulse echoing through his veins: soul... soul... soul...
Iren collapsed to his knees, clutching his head. The voice wasn't coming from the outside; it was erupting from his own soul. He knew he was losing control. His body was no longer taking orders from his mind. It was hunting on instinct.
A shadow moved at the end of the alley. A man.
Iren didn't hesitate. There was no thought, no moral weighing of souls. His eyes were vacant, stripped of humanity, leaving only the target. The man turned, his mouth opening to speak, but the air was stolen from his lungs before he could make a sound.
Iren lunged.
The collision was violent. The man was slammed against the wall with a sickening thud. Iren's small frame possessed an iron grip, a terrifying, unnatural strength. The man tried to scream, but Iren's voice tore through the air—distorted, primal, devoid of language.
"SOUL!"
It wasn't a request. It was a harvest.
The man struggled, his fists raining blows down on Iren, but the boy didn't flinch. He sank his teeth into flesh, the copper taste of blood activing the final trigger.
"SOUL!"
Something tore deep inside the man's chest. A physical wrenching of the essence. A muffled, hollow gasp as if the very air was being vacuumed out of his lungs.
Iren stepped back. He stood panting in the dark, his eyes wide and empty. The hunger was gone. His body was quiet. The 'thing' was satisfied.
The next morning, a single line was added to the military intelligence report, typed in cold, black ink:
"Child of Devil — Confirmed."