It was raining. Cold water dripped from the broken eaves and turned the cobblestones into rivers. In the narrow shadows of a backalley, a boy, no more than 11, lay crumpled against the wall. His right arm was cut, his face charred by fire, and his body so wasted that his bones pressed against his skin like the ribs of a starved beast.
For a moment he seemed no more than another forgotten corpse in the gutter of the city, one of many claimed by hunger and cruelty.
But his eyes were open. Faint, dim, and clouded with pain—yet alive.
The only thing going through his mind was one question. Why?
Why had it happened? Why was fate so cruel to him?
No answer came. Only the endless patter of rain against stone, only the bitter taste of iron in his mouth. His vision blurred, the world fading into black and silver shapes. Bit by bit the pain grew heavier, unbearable, pressing him down into the dirt.
And then—nothing.
He thought he had died. He welcomed it, even. Yet in that void, where silence reigned and breath had no meaning, something lingered. A presence, cold and vast, like a shadow crouched beside his soul. He was not gone. Not yet.
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In the vast expanse of nothingness, where even time seemed to afraid to breathe, a lone table stretched across eternity. Upon it sat ten beings, each cloaked in an aura that defied definition—some shimmered like galaxies condensed into form, others bled shadows that consumed even the silence around them.
They did not speak with mouths, for words were beneath them. Their voices rippled through existence itself, resonating across countless realms.
"Is this the fragment?" one asked, its tone carrying the weight of a collapsing star.
"Yes," another replied, its form flickering between light and void. "The fragment has awakened."
A pause lingered, as if all of creation held its breath.
"So," a third being leaned forward, eyes burning with infinite script, "you plan to give it…the System?"
The question was not one of doubt, but of confirmation.
"Are the preparations complete?" another voice murmured, sharp and cold like fractured crystal.
Silence pressed down, heavy and absolute, until at last one of the ten answered:
"Yes. The board is set. All pieces have fallen in place."
"Then it is settled," another intoned, their presence bending the void itself. "The river of fate will now flow… and we are not to touch it."
For the first time, the ten were silent together, their immeasurable power bound by agreement.
Finally, the decision was made.
Though each held dominion over powers beyond imagination, even they knew the cost of interference. Fate, once set in motion, devoured even gods who dared oppose it.
One of the beings, cloaked in endless shadow, whispered softly, almost with something like sorrow:
"May the fragment endure."
And then, as if they had never existed at all, the ten vanished, leaving only the table suspended in the vast and empty dark.
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