The night tore itself apart. Explosions fractured the southern skies, raining fire across the city, shaking wooden homes like paper in a storm. Smoke coiled through the streets, thick and acrid, the air tasted of salt and blood. Amid the chaos, a lone dwelling groaned under the weight of destruction.
Inside, a midwife knelt over a woman whose body trembled with the final convulsions of life. Sweat and ash streaked her face, a once beautiful face now covered by sooth and age, her breaths sharp and ragged, yet she clung to a fragile threads of consciousness. The midwife's hands were steady, trained, yet her heart thudded as if it might break in her chest.
"Push… harder… you're almost there…" the woman gasped, her voice barely audible above the distant rumbles of imploding buildings, screams and wails
With one final, agonized effort, the child emerged into the midwife's waiting hands. Dark as the rich earth of the southern fields, slick with birth fluids, fists curling instinctively, the newborn's first cry pierced the smoke-choked room—born in blood, into a world already stained by it. The midwife worked quickly, tying and cutting the umbilical cord before gently laying the baby in the mother's trembling hands.
"You have a son, Mrs. Obara," the midwife whispered, her voice thick with awe and fear. "What will you name him?"
The mother's eyes fluttered open, haunted and raw. "We… we were going to call him Mahmoud… but now… now… I have nothing left to be grateful for." Her lips trembled as she fought for the last words her failing body could summon. "…Let his name be Azrael… Azrael Obara… for he is born into a dying world, a dying country, and by a dying mother
Her hand twitched once more over her child's small frame, a fleeting, futile caress. Her fears that he might be born weak or sick eased, he was big and strong, dark-skinned, with a cry and a presence that seemed brighter than any sun. Then the light left her eyes, and her body sagged, emptied of life.
The midwife's chest constricted. This was the second child she had ever delivered for this woman—she had shared her labor, her agony, her hope—and now, there was nothing left but silence. She pressed her face to the child's small head and wept, the weight of a world lost pressing on her, mingling with the acrid smoke outside.
She thought of the war that had consumed everything—the Nightwalkers, once human, now cursed by their own ancestral magic, sought revenge on the very kingdom that caused their fall; the merchant syndicates, greedy bastards whose lust for wealth eclipsed all else; the rebel nobles, power hungry unable to see the bigger picture; and the foreigners—the west and the north, fearful of the kingdom's rising power. All of it had stolen her home. Her family. Her husband. Every man conscripted to fight, including Azrael's father, taken to die for causes he neither chose nor understood.
Then, faint voices, carried over the roar of fire and falling timber, reached her ears. Not clear uncertain if friend or foe, but enough to make her freeze. She clutched Azrael close, the tiny body trembling against her chest, and moved. Shadows crawled along the walls; the cries of the dying drew nearer. "In the corner of the room lay a little girl of seven, her once-healthy body ravaged by the plague. The midwife's heart ached—she could try to take the girl, and perhaps they might survive. But the child was as good as dead; carrying her would only slow them both. With tears stinging her eyes, she made the impossible choice and left her behind. She snatched the boy from his mother's now-limp hands and ran—ran without knowing where, only trusting the single, urgent command in her mind: run. Into the night, she ran."