The fire spits embers into the night, a frail glow against the mountain's jagged teeth. Children giggle, their voices sharp as flint, while adults huddle closer, faces lit as if praying to a god that might listen. The villagers gather again in the high crags, moths drawn to a flame they pretend is the sun. At the center, wrapped in white cloth and unearned reverence, stands the Elder.
They say he was the first to wake when the villagers stumbled into this world. The first to walk the ash-strewn slopes, the first to speak in tongues now called law, the first to dream of gods and chains. They worship him as if he were carved from starlight. Yu doesn't. At ten, he's old enough to smell the something wrong in the Elder's words, young enough to hate their weight.
"Before war, there was orbit," the Elder intones, his voice curling like smoke. "Before life, there was the Primordial Light, clear, endless, still. Eight worlds spun around it, each a realm, each a prison, bound by gods and their rules." His hands sweep the air, and the fire paints shadows on the crowd's faces, none darker than the one clawing inside Yu's chest. He's heard this tale before. Too many times.
"Then, in the third orbit," the Elder continues, "the silence broke. A new world was born. Forbidden. Neither Heaven nor Hell, just… a stage. Earth. And from its ashes, we rose."
The children's eyes glow, wide as moons. The adults nod, some whispering prayers to the Light. It's beautiful. It's theater. Yu leans back against a cold stone, arms crossed, the wind biting his knuckles. Quietly, he breaks the spell. "If he was the first to wake… who woke him?"
A spark pops in the fire. A girl, no older than six, frowns at him. His mother's sigh is heavy, her eyes fixed on the dirt. She knows where this leads. "Why do we trust him?" Yu presses, louder now. "Why does he decide everything?"
Her voice is soft, frayed. "Because he guided us when we had nothing, Yu. He saw the stars when we saw only darkness. He taught us to speak, to write… to survive."
Yu stares at his mother, but all he hears is fear dressed as faith. The Elder? He just smiles, his eyes glinting as if he's heard this rebellion before, as if he's waiting for it to burn out.
Later, under a sky bruised with clouds, the Elder stands again, a scroll clutched in his bony hands. "These are the laws of the Light," he declares. "Not mine, but the stars' will. No one enters the caves without my blessing. No child sleeps without praying to the Light. Those who dream too much lose reason. Pain seals the divine on the impure."
The crowd nods, Yu's mother, the children, everyone. But Yu whispers, "It's not a blessing. It's a prison perfumed with faith." Deep down, he knows they'll hate him for saying it. Deeper still, he knows he'll hate himself more if he doesn't.
A low hum stirs the air, not from the fire, not from the forest. The sky itself groans. Then screams, sharp, unnatural, split the night. Five shadows plunge from the clouds, not gods, not men. Beasts. Their forms twist in the firelight, all claws and eyes that gleam like oil.
The village erupts. A child wails. Yu's mother grabs his arm, but he's already running, heart hammering, the Elder's scroll fluttering to the ground like a dead leaf. He doesn't look back. He can't. That night, he doesn't even have time to cry for her.
The village burns behind him, a smear of orange and screams against the night. His legs pump, boots slipping on ash-slick stones as he runs through the narrow forest paths, huts collapsing like paper in the wind. Everyone else follows the Elder, his white robes flapping like a flag. Those too slow, too weak, too stubborn, they're gone. Yu sees their shadows fall, swallowed by the snarls of beasts, their claws glinting like sickles under the moon.
He's running, but he doesn't know where. His chest heaves, his eyes sting with smoke. Then a roar splits the sky, not like the beasts, but deeper, like the earth itself is tearing open. Ahead, where the Elder leads, something crashes from the heavens. Not a beast, not a man, a figure, cloaked in shadow, gripping a sword that hums with unnatural light. The impact throws the world into chaos: dirt and stone erupt, a shockwave hurls bodies back, and Yu is flung to the ground, ears ringing, vision blurring. The last thing he sees is that sword, glowing like a wound in the night.
Yu wakes, choking on ash, his body swaying in someone's arms. The Elder's arms. His grip is iron, his breath ragged as he runs, the survivors stumbling behind him. The children wail, their voices a jagged chorus. Yu twists, searching for his mother. "Mama!" he screams, his voice cracking, raw. The Elder's hand clamps over his mouth. "Quiet, boy," he hisses, eyes wild but cold, as if he's running from something he's always known was coming.
Fury burns through Yu. He thrashes, kicking against the Elder's chest, clawing at his robes. "Let me go! I want my mama!" he snarls, his voice muffled but alive with rage. The Elder stumbles, and Yu slips free, tumbling to the ground, knees scraping rock. He scrambles up, turning back toward the village, and that's when he sees her.
His mother, limping, her leg bent wrong, dragging through the dirt. Her face is a mask of pain and desperation, but her eyes, her eyes are on him. Behind her, the beasts close in, their forms twisting, eyes like oil slicks. She screams his name, her lips shaping "Yu!" though the sound drowns in the chaos. Yu takes a step toward her, heart pounding, but then, a flash of claws, a sick Mertens sickening tear. She falls, split in two, her body crumpling like a broken doll.
"No!" The word rips from him, but before he can run to her, to the beasts, to anything, the Elder's arms snatch him up again, tighter this time, bruising. "Stop it, Yu!" the Elder growls, running faster, the others a blur around them. Yu kicks, he screams, but the Elder is too strong, and the world is too cruel. Tears stream down his face, mixing with ash, as the village shrinks behind them, swallowed by fire and shadows.
His mother was everything, his anchor[1], his defiance, his home. And now she's gone, torn apart while he was listening to Elder's stories, his laws, his Light. The monsters took her, and he didn't even get to say goodbye. Why? Why did he doubt her faith in him? Why did he run? Why does the Elder's grip feel like the only thing keeping him from falling apart?
why me? why
[1] Yes, his mother was his anchor, she was the only thing that kept Yu from doubting even more... now things are going to get ugly for everyone... the title, The First Awakened, mentions the elder as the first to wake up according to the stories and Yu as the first to doubt