The slums reeked of mold, ash, and dried blood—always in that order.
I'd lived there long enough to know the rhythm of rot. The iron scent that clung to the alleyways like a stubborn parasite. The cracking walls that groaned when the wind brushed past too hard. The sound of children coughing through wet lungs and mothers humming to keep madness away. We were born in rust, raised in smoke, and taught that daylight never reached below the tenth district bridge.
That day—no, that night—was when the silence changed.
---
I was sitting outside our shed, knees tucked against my chest, staring at the sky that never looked like sky. It was always smeared with black clouds and a distant orange glow, like someone had spilled molten metal over the horizon but let it cool into something cruel. My sister, Lira, was humming again. She always hummed before she went to sleep. Just soft enough to forget the world.
But that night, the humming stopped.
Then came the laughter. Not hers.
And I knew, without seeing, that she was gone.
I found her standing in the middle of our shanty home, her head tilted sideways, hair soaked in blood. Her eyes were wide, unfocused. She was smiling.
The thing in front of me had her face but none of her soul.
Then I felt it—
My blood boiled. Not metaphorically. My skin felt like it was searing from the inside, a blaze crawling through my veins. My vision shattered into colors I didn't know existed. Time slowed.
She lunged.
I didn't run. I didn't scream.
I moved.
Somehow, I was behind her. Somehow, my hands wrapped around the chain hanging near our tools. And somehow—though I can't remember deciding—I swung it.
The first thing I killed was my sister.
---
It took me three days to leave the slums.
People watched me as I walked through the shacks and ruins. Not because they cared, but because no one walked toward the city. Everyone either stayed and starved or turned and raged.
I didn't belong anymore. Not even here.
I wore a hood. My fingers were still stained with blood. My breathing was shallow. I didn't know how far I'd walked, only that my legs kept moving even when the rest of me wanted to stay and die.
I passed the iron checkpoints by luck. Maybe they thought I was a Borrower running errands. Maybe they just didn't care.
But when the city gates came into view—black steel laced with glyphs and watched by towers crowned in white fire—I finally stopped.
This was where the Slayers lived.
This was where I'd find out what the hell I'd become.
---
The Division of Neigher Eradication & Slayer Deployment was a cold marble fortress wrapped in silence. Not grandeur—just weight. The kind of place built to outlast wars, not win them.
The guards at the entrance didn't ask questions. One glance into my eyes and they nodded. They knew.
Inside, it was cleaner than anything I'd ever seen. White walls, white light, no windows. It felt like being inside a corpse too sterile to rot.
"Name," the receptionist said without looking up.
"Sun."
She blinked. Typed. Then looked at me again. This time, her eyes stayed on mine.
"Room 3. Now."
---
Room 3 was glass, steel, and silence. I sat. Waited.
Eventually, two men walked in. One wore a coat that looked older than the building. The other was dressed in military black with glowing red patterns down his sleeves.
The coat guy spoke first.
"You killed a Neigher. Alone. No weapon forged, no aura field, no support."
I nodded.
"It was your sister."
I didn't nod this time.
The soldier spoke next. "Describe what you felt. In your body."
I told them everything. The boiling. The clarity. The way time bent. How my hands moved faster than thought.
They didn't write anything down.
Instead, the coat guy stepped forward and touched a cold metal sigil to my wrist. It burned.
A moment later, a thin white symbol pulsed beneath my skin.
He smiled. It didn't reach his eyes.
"You're awakened. Welcome to the end of your life."
---
They didn't celebrate. There was no talk of 'potential' or 'talent'. Only rules. Only loss.
They sat me down in a training chamber surrounded by empty chairs and flickering wallscreens. A woman with iron-gray eyes stood in front of me.
"You're what we call Gifted. You survived the Curse and claimed power. But that power is not free."
She circled me.
"You've already lost something."
I stayed quiet.
"Tell me."
My mouth opened. My voice didn't shake.
"I don't feel joy anymore."
She nodded. "Then that is the price you've paid. And from now on, it only gets worse."
---
They showed me files. Photos. Names.
Other Gifted. Other Nature-born. Borrowers who lost their minds after too many borrowed kills. Slayers who turned into Neighers. Entire cities drowned in rage.
The war wasn't clean. It wasn't glory.
It was fire, rot, and silence.
And I was a weapon now.
Not a person. A flame they could point at monsters and hope it burned hotter than the hate it was forged from.
---
At night, they gave me a room. It was clean. Soft bed. Running water.
I sat in the dark for hours.
The city outside whispered like a beast chewing through stone.
I looked down at my hand. Flexed my fingers.
The mark on my wrist glowed faintly. Not with power. With loss.
I thought about Lira.
I waited to cry.
But there was nothing left.
Only the echo of laughter that didn't belong to her.
And a fire in my blood that refused to go out.
---
Tomorrow, they'd give me my first assignment.
Tomorrow, I'd become a Slayer.
But tonight, I stared into the dark and whispered the one truth I knew:
"Monsters aren't born. They're carved."
And I was already halfway gone.