The morning broke in gold.
Sunlight spilled across the river, its surface shimmering like fractured glass, alive with ripples that caught the light and scattered it in every direction. The air was gentle, warm but crisp, carrying with it the scent of damp earth and fresh grass. Birds flitted across the trees at the river's edge, their chirping soft and distant, as if respectful of the silence that sat over the water. The breeze stirred the tall blades of grass, brushing against Stone's legs where he sat at the riverbank.
His clothes were plain—nothing extravagant, nothing heavy. A simple shirt of pale grey, sleeves loose and unbuttoned at the wrists. Dark trousers rolled slightly at the ankles where the grass brushed against bare skin. No armor, no weight, no scars to show. He looked almost like a wanderer, almost like nothing at all.
But his face was unreadable.
Expression flat, eyes fixed on the moving current without truly seeing it. He sat still, as if carved out of the same stone his name carried.
This place once meant something.
A memory hidden inside the quiet hum of water and the stretch of open sky. This was where his family used to gather. His mother, her smile lighting the air; Ben, laughing beside him, flicking water toward the shore just to annoy him; baskets of food laid on blankets. The memory existed—but he felt nothing. No warmth, no ache, no bitterness. Just the awareness that once, long ago, this had been joy.
And sometimes… when the river caught the sunlight at just the right angle, he swore he could see her there.
His mother.
Her reflection surfaced in the trembling water—smiling. That same smile, radiant, alive. She may have been a demon by birth, but her beauty was nothing short of angelic. That smile had softened the sharpness of her features, had given her a presence that was more light than shadow. Her laughter, sudden and wild, filled his ears again as though the air itself carried echoes of her. The curl of her long, dark brown hair caught the wind, green eyes glimmering like emerald flame. He remembered her. Clearly. Perfectly.
And yet—he felt nothing.
The image washed over him like a ripple and was gone.
His thoughts slipped.
Back. To the void.
To the place where he had made his choice. Where the voice had whispered one last time—low, amused, certain.
"Hope you don't regret what you'll become."
The words clawed through his mind. They echoed, unshakable. Louder now against the quiet birdsong, louder than the breath of the wind, louder even than the memory of his mother's laughter.
Stone lowered his gaze to his hand. He studied it, palm first. The lines that traced through it like cracks on a blade. Then he turned it over, staring at the back. Slowly, deliberately, his fingers curled in. His grip tightened until his hand shook, knuckles white, flesh straining as though he could crush bone against bone. He clenched until his skin burned with pain. And then—he opened it again. Relaxed. The skin of his palm flushed red where he had pressed too hard.
His voice was nothing but a murmur.
"So that was my price for power… my emotions."
The words fell into the breeze like stones into water. No weight. No echo. Just gone.
For a long while, he remained still. The sun climbed higher, the river moving on as though none of this had happened, as though it didn't matter. As though he didn't matter.
Then, finally, he rose.
His hands slipped into his pockets, shoulders squared but heavy, his shadow long and thin in the golden light. No farewell to the place, no glance back at the water, no acknowledgment of what once was.
And then—he vanished.
His form unraveled, body dissolving into tendrils of darkness that bled into the air. Shadows clung to him like old companions, but this time they were streaked with something else—red, faint but alive, pulsing like veins through the black. It was as if his very soul bled into the shadows, the aura seeping outward in a silent storm.
The birds scattered. The grass bent low as though pressed by unseen weight. The river rippled harder against its own current. And then he was gone, the silence folding over the space where he had been.
Only the river remained, carrying away the last reflections of the only person that he once called his everything....