Azit had not realized how famished he was until the initial mouthful made contact with his tongue. The broth was thick and seasoned, thick with soft vegetables and melting, tender chunks of meat. The bread was coarse and warm, perfect for sopping the last remnants from the bowl. The tea, earthy with a hint of honey, took away the last remnants of soreness from his throat.
He did not say much as he ate. No one prompted him. The quiet cadence of the family Mr. Mahmoud cutting another slice of bread, Emi humming softly as she refilled cups, Lina watching with quiet tranquility filled the space between them like a balm.
Azit did not know how long it had been since he'd known this kind of stillness.
Not just silence.
Stillness.
When he was with his real mother, she was always glued to her phone, even at dinner, yelling into the mouthpiece about deadlines and demands, her job taking up every moment, with hardly any room for anything or anyone else.
The kind that doesn't demand anything of you. That simply lets you be.
He finished every single bite. Cleaned the bowl. Even asked for seconds, and they served it without hesitation.
By the time he was settled back in his chair, the pain in his arm had muted to a steady throbbing. Bearable. The searing behind his eyes had died away as well, and he was left with nothing but a soft hum of awareness in his chest the area beneath the bandages still throbbing, but distant now weaker than it had been.
Mr. Mahmoud stood, brushing crumbs from his hands. "You'll sleep upstairs. It's not much, but it's warm. And the mattress won't bite."
Azit pushed himself up with a grunt. His legs wobbled, but he found his balance. "Sounds perfect."
They climbed the narrow staircase again. Each creak of the wooden boards felt quieter now, less like groaning pain and more like the house simply breathing with them.
At the end of the hall, Mr. Mahmoud shoved a door open.
The room was small. A bed under the window, a faded rug, a bookshelf filled with books. A lantern flickered softly on the nightstand.
Azit entered. The sheets smelled vaguely of pine.
"You need anything," Mr. Mahmoud said from the doorway, "just knock."
Azit nodded. "Thank you… for all this."
Mahmoud nodded silently. "Sleep, Azit. Tomorrow comes, but tonight is for healing."
And he left, closing the door behind him with a soft click.
Azit sat down on the edge of the bed, his chest weighted down by his thoughts. He stared at his hand for some time, the bandage material rough under his fingers. Absent-mindedly, he pulled it loose, unraveling the cloth with slowness.
The mark.
It should have still been there, throbbing, burning through his skin. But when the bandage fell off, the skin beneath was smooth. Clean. Unmarked.
His breath caught in his throat.
No burn. No scar. Not even a faint impression of the dark, jagged shape that had been burned into him like a brand.
It was… gone.
He ran his fingers across the skin, half anticipating it would reappear—a pulse, a thrum, some indication of the power that had run through him. But nothing. Only skin. Normal. Human.
Azit stared at the clear skin for some time, as if waiting for the mark to return, to claim him again. But it didn't. The silence in the room grew stronger, pressing down on his brain, and slowly—almost reluctantly he let the bandage fall to the floor.
His eyelids fluttered.
His body was heavier now, his mind beginning to unravel in a slow, drifting way, like a leaf on the surface of a stream. The bed was too soft, too inviting. It had been too long since he'd allowed himself to relax. To breathe without fear or blood or something else inside him.
He pulled the blanket over him, tucking it under his shoulders, and let the warmth seep into his bones. His lips opened in a sigh, gentle and nearly reluctant. It had been days since he'd rested well.
As the room darkened, the pull of sleep grew stronger.
The world fell away, and Azit was left as nothing more than weightlessness.
The wind ripped at his flesh, a shriek of movement. He was falling again, the sky above him rent like a gash, stars flung in every direction.
But there was no ground. No earth to break his fall.
Only falling. Falling through infinite space.
Then—
The ground.
It crashed into him with bone-jarring impact, the force of the blow jolting pain through his frame.
But before he could even feel the pain, his eyes blinked once, twice and the scene shifted.
This time, he was falling into a different world.
A forest of red trees. Leaves of blood color drifted lazily down, swirling in the air like dying sparks. The earth rushed towards him again, but just as his body steeled itself for the collision
Another blink.
Azit blinked, his mind struggling to grasp the fluid, ethereal world around him. The edges of reality warped as though the firm ground beneath his feet was made of liquid, and the skies above pulsed with unnatural, red-tinged clouds.
And then he stood before it.
A black castle.
It loomed as a nightmare against the darkening heavens, its spires jagged and cruel and towering, thrusting up into the skies with the sharpness of splintered teeth. The stone walls seemed to suck in what little light managed to penetrate the thick clouds overhead. It was old and blackened and cold a menacing monolith that had stood centuries, inviolate to time, inviolate to life.
Azit's heart raced in his chest, not from fear, but from something far darker something that awoke in him, clawing, gnawing, drawing him closer. The wind carried on its breath a cold so deep, it was as if it had been born in the earth's very core, wrapping itself around his skin, creeping into his bones.
He moved involuntarily, his body drawn to the castle, yet every step was as if it took him deeper into the quicksand of his own mind, his own guilt. As if the ground beneath his feet was heavy with it.
And then. it stopped.
Azit's legs gave out beneath him, his knees cracking against the damp earth with a nauseating crunch.
There was a strange sound echoing in his ears. Wet. Heavy. The sound of something dripping. He raised his head, his eyes unfocused, blurry, and there beneath his trembling hands was the reality of what he had become.
Blood. So much blood.
His hands were damp, leaking red onto the parched ground. It was everywhere, pooling beneath him, seeping into the earth. His fingers were stiff, trembling beneath the weight of it, smeared in the heavy, dark red of death.
Azit tried to sit up, but his body did not obey. He felt weak, as though a force was keeping him pinned down, forcing him to look at what had been wrought. His head reeled, his chest constricting with the suffocating awareness of what surrounded him.
The bodies.
So many bodies.
Women and men, some unable to be identified, others still bearing expressions of agony on their lifeless faces, lay scattered around him like tossed ragdolls, their blood tinting the earth in heavy, sickening pools. Some were torn open, arms and legs twisted into impossible shapes, while others simply slumped, eyes wide with the horror of their final moments.
The world tightened around him, the blood rising higher, spreading like a wave, engulfing him in its crushing, suffocating embrace. His eyes blurred again, and he felt the weight of it all the weight of what he had done, the weight of the power that had flowed through him, claiming him, consuming him.
he truth could not be denied.
He had done this.
The rage. He had invoked it. Called it forth. And now he had to pay the cost of that power.
The blood on his hands was not the sole burden that weighed upon him. It was the responsibility, the shame, the ever-present knowledge that he was the one who had loosed this terror on the world.
A voice spoke to him then, low and rumbling, as though it had originated from the ground itself beneath him. It hummed through the air, resonating deep in his chest, filling the emptiness with something heavy, something ancient.
"Its all your fault. Azit."
The voice was low, a growl, a force that appeared to be coming from the very foundations of the castle. He could feel it shredding his soul, tearing its way through him. There was no concealment from it, no avoidance of the truth of those words.
The voice was low, almost a growl, a force that seemed to be coming from the roots of the castle itself. He could feel it ripping at his soul, clawing its way through him. There was no escaping it, no avoiding the truth of those words.
Azit's stomach roiled with nausea. He opened his mouth to attempt to speak to protest but the words died on his lips. The truth was too much, too overwhelming. He could not escape it. He could not run from it.
He was the one who had wielded the power. He was the one who had delivered the first strike, who had brought the massacre. And now—now, the weight of it was killing him.
"You called down the storm, Azit," the voice continued, higher in pitch, echoing off the cold stone walls of the castle, "and you will suffer its effects. These deaths are your doing. These lives are yours."
Azit's breath came in shallow, erratic gasps. His hands, still stained with blood, shook terribly. The air itself appeared to close in around him, thick with the stench of death. The oppressive weight of the past.
"You selected this course," the voice continued. "Now, you will follow it."
The blood began to rise, crawling up his shape, boiling like some dark tide that would engulf him whole. Azit felt it, dense and suffocating, pouring into his veins, flowing into his own flesh, pulling him down. He felt the screams of the dead, their cries resounding in his head, the echoes of the lives he had slain.
He closed his eyes.
And when he opened them again, he was still kneeling in the same spot, the blood still on his hands, the bodies still scattered around him. The castle stood in front of him,
Azit's chest heaved as he crouched in the frozen, blood-soaked earth, the truth of what surrounded him weighing upon him like a load he could not sustain. His heart raced unevenly, the rhythm shattered by the violent turmoil of guilt and fear that raged inside him. The castle loomed above him, a steady, suffocating reminder of his fate. Yet it was not the castle that held him captive.
It was the voices.
They began softly at first—whispers that inserted themselves through the cracks in his consciousness. Low, steady, like rats chewing, scraping at the back of his mind.
"Why did you do this?"
"You're a devil."
"You should die. You deserve to die."
"This is all your fault. All of it."
"Everyone died because of you"
"Die, you devil."
Each word was a punch to his chest, each accusation resounding in his skull, digging deeper, until there was nothing but the crushing pressure of those voices voices that screamed from all sides, from the bodies around him, from the castle walls, from his own mind.
The words intensified, faster, drowning him, suffocating him. Azit shielded his clenched fists, the blood still seeping from his fingertips, marking his flesh, his soul. His flesh trembled at the strength of it, the sheer volume of their hatred.
"Die, you devil."
The phrase sliced through what was left of the sound, crystalline, the poison pouring from it.
Azit's mind shattered. The anger, the pain, the suffocating guilt, all of it combined into a single, burning flash of emotion. His chest bubbled with anger, with fear, with a sensation of drowning he could no longer keep at bay. The voices assaulted him on every side, relentless and cruel.
He could not think. He could not breathe.
The world around him was a black and red blur, blood settling deeper, climbing higher. His vision started to tunnel. The weight of it all was too much. Too much.
A scream tore itself from his throat, raw and savage, fueled by every accusation, every insult, every ounce of guilt that clung to his bones.
"SHUT UP!"
His shriek echoed through the dreamworld, bouncing off the castle walls, distorting the world around him. The bodies, the blood, the castle all blurred and distorted as his voice tore through the mist.
And then, as suddenly as the storm had broken, there was silence. The world was still. The voices were stilled.
Azit's body shook, his chest rising and falling with each pained breath. The quiet in his mind was deafening, a silence that clung to the air, suffocating and barren. He knew his hands, slick with blood and trembling, hung uselessly at his sides. The weight of the nightmare had been lifted, replaced by an awful, gnawing emptiness that devoured at his core.
A moment's peace, but fleeting.
The dream dissolved, and Azit's eyes flew open.
He was back.
Not in the blood-drenched castle. Not on the killing floor.
His breath caught in his throat as his senses returned to him. The warmth of the blankets, the faint smell of herbs and wood, the quiet of the cabin. The light of the new day filtered softly through the curtains, casting long, soft shadows around the room. It was a jarring difference from the nightmare he had just endured.
Azit gasped for air, his lungs still tight, as if the weight of the dream was pushing down on him, trying to pull him back into its suffocating fold. His heart was still racing. The scream had been lodged in his throat, and he had barely felt the tears that had streamed down his face while he was dreaming.
He was sweating the cold sweat of a nightmare not yet dissipated, lingering in the air.
He sat up, his frame quivering, the remnants of the vision seething in his mind. His hands shook as he reached out, his fingers brushing the edge of the blanket, then the smooth wood of the bedside table.
The chirping of the birds outside snapped the silence, the morning sun already heating the room. But it did not change his mood.
What had he become?
A shiver crept down his spine, as if the nightmare had leaked into the real world. He rubbed his face, wiping away the tears, forcing himself to breathe, remember where he was.
The voices had been too loud. Too accusatory. He wanted to forget them. Wanted to forget the blood, the bodies, the weight of it all.
Azit tossed his legs over the side of the bed and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. The blood was still wet in his mind. He could still feel it, flowing from his fingertips.
"Die, you devil."
The words rang in his head. He couldn't escape them.
Then a soft sound sliced through his spiraling thoughts. The creak of the door opening. Footsteps. Azit slowly lifted his head, his mind still in the grip of the dream, his eyes unfocused.
Someone was standing in the doorway.
Mr. Mahmoud.
"You're awake," the man said, his voice warm and steady, undisturbed by the storm of nightmares Azit had just endured.
Azit stared at him for a moment, his heart still pounding, and then, without saying a word, he nodded.
Mr. Mahmoud gave him a knowing, quiet smile and stepped into the room.
"You've been through something," he said softly, placing a hand on the chair beside the bed. "You're safe now. You're here."
Azit swallowed, his throat so constricted he couldn't get any words out. But the tranquility of the man, the steady self-assurance in his voice, began to pull him from the suffocating grip of his dream. Slowly, his heart began to decelerate, his shaking ceasing.
He could not explain the nightmare. Could not explain what had happened. But there was one thing he knew.
He couldn't stay here forever. Not under the shadow of that dream.
Azit knew he needed to grow stronger. The power in him, whatever it was, wasn't something he could just ignore. The dream, the blood, the castle it was a part of him now, and he couldn't get away from it.
He needed answers. Training. Knowledge.
The world outside was full of danger, and he couldn't face it unarmed.
There was something more. Something he needed to do.
Something calling to him.
And it wasn't from his heart.
It was from the darkness that had surged up inside him.