The boy looked fragile enough to break with a shove.
And that was exactly why they hit him.
Eros lay sprawled against the cold concrete of the detention yard, ribs screaming, mouth coppery with blood. His pale skin was already blotched with bruises, green eyes dazed behind strands of black hair matted with sweat. He was small compared to the other boys, the kind who kept to himself, the kind predators sniffed out instantly.
The tallest of the trio leaned down, voice thick with mockery.
"Still think you're tough, freak?"
The second blow came without warning. A fist slammed into Eros' stomach, folding him in half. Air tore from his lungs, leaving him choking like a fish on dry ground. Laughter echoed around him. The other inmates always loved a show.
But beneath the fragile surface, something coiled tight.
Eros' hand slipped into his pocket. His fingers closed around the shard of glass he'd stolen days ago, hidden like a secret. His breathing grew ragged. Fear and anger mixed until they felt the same.
When the next kick came, he didn't flinch away. He snapped like a cornered animal.
The shard carved across a forearm in a sudden blur. Hot blood sprayed the ground. The bully's scream tore through the yard as he stumbled back clutching the wound.
For a heartbeat, silence. Then chaos.
Guards surged forward, whistles shrieking. The other boys scattered like rats. Eros stayed on the ground, chest heaving, knuckles white around the glass. He looked less like prey now, more like a feral creature daring anyone to come closer.
***
They dragged him into the psychologist's office an hour later. The man across the desk wore a calm smile that didn't reach his eyes. The shelves behind him were stacked with binders.. A computer screen glowed faintly in the dim room.
"Eros," the man began, folding his hands. "We've talked about this before. Your anger. It eats at you. If you don't control it, it will control you."
Eros sat hunched, head lowered, the picture of docility. His green eyes flicked up briefly, then away.
"Yes, sir."
Inside, his thoughts seethed.
«Control? They beat me bloody and I'm the one chained to this chair. They break the weak, and the weak get blamed for breaking.»
The psychologist droned on about breathing exercises, choices, patience. Eros let the words wash over him. He'd learned long ago that silence was safer than truth.
But then, a flicker on the screen behind the man's shoulder caught his eye. A headline. A photograph.
His breath froze.
A girl's face, familiar enough to shatter him. Long hair, sharp eyes that matched his own. Amanda. His sister.
The headline: "One Year Since Disappearance: Case Still Unsolved."
Eros' fingers clenched so tight the cuffs bit into his wrists. The world narrowed to that glow of pixels. She'd been gone a year. No wonder she hadn't come to visit him.
The psychologist turned slightly, blocking the view. "Do you understand, Eros? Anger isn't the answer."
"Yes, sir," he whispered again. But his pulse thundered. Anger wasn't the answer… Amanda was.
***
Back in his "room" (a cell with a bed and barred window), Eros couldn't sit still. His ribs ached, his lip was split, and the phantom taste of blood lingered. But none of it mattered.
Amanda. Missing. For a year.
He lay awake, staring at the ceiling, thoughts spinning faster and faster. The guards thought he was broken. They were wrong. He was planning. By tomorrow, he'd be gone.
***
The next day in the yard, the bullies returned for revenge. Eros didn't fight back as hard this time. He let their fists land, even as pain blossomed in his side. He shielded his head just enough to stay conscious. He needed injuries, bad enough to get him moved.
When a boot caught his ribs and something cracked, he almost screamed.
«Too deep. Too far.»
But it worked. Guards hauled him off the ground, cursing about "idiot kids" and "hospital wing."
***
The hospital smelled of antiseptic and sweat. White sheets, white walls. A nurse stitched his side while he bit his tongue to keep from groaning.
Later that night, when the room quieted and the guard at the door nodded off, Eros pushed himself upright. Pain stabbed his ribs, but he ignored it. The window latch was loose.
Blood seeped fresh through his bandages as he forced it open. Cold night air rushed in. For the first time in months, he tasted freedom.
He dropped to the ground outside, teeth clenched against the agony. Every step was fire, but he kept moving.
***
He reached his old neighborhood near dawn. Streets he hadn't seen in a year felt ghostly now, as though time had stopped without him.
When he turned the corner, his chest tightened. A house. Or what was left of it.
Police tape fluttered across the doorway, faded but still intact. A sign declared the property sealed.
Amanda's house had been abandoned.
Eros' jaw set. He limped around back, climbed the drainpipe with trembling arms, and pulled himself through the second-floor window.
Dust coated everything inside. Furniture shrouded in neglect. It smelled like a place where laughter had died.
His sister's room was almost untouched, as if she'd stepped out yesterday. Posters curled on the walls, a lamp still crooked on the desk. But it was lifeless, a shrine of absence.
He searched frantically, pulling open drawers, rifling through the closet. Nothing. No notes. No clues. His breath grew ragged, vision swimming.
Then a creak.
The floorboard beneath the bed shifted under his weight, more than it should have.
Heart hammering, Eros shoved the bed aside and pried at the board. It came up with a groan of old nails.
Inside, wrapped in cloth, lay a book.
He froze.
Books didn't exist anymore. They'd been burned, banned or erased, whatever the government did to them. The first real book he'd ever seen was in his hands.
The cover was cracked leather, title etched faintly across it: "Mythology of Civilizations."
Eros' fingers trembled as he opened it.
The paper smelled of dust and rot. Letters crawled like insects across the margins, shifting as if alive. Is this how books are supposed to work? Other letters began to appear, handwritten in green ink: "Please, if this is in your hands, drop it immediately and leave the room. For the love of everything… DO NOT KEEP READING!"
Weird. But of course, nothing works better than that to make him do the exact opposite… and he read the text of the book:
"The tales of gods and monsters are not stories, but warnings.
Zeus who devoured his kin, Odin who gave his eye for power, Izanami who drags the living into the dark, Anubis who weighs the heart against the void... These are not myths, but memories.
This book does not retell them. It reshapes them.
To read is to step into their world, where legend is twisted into nightmare.
Choose carefully, Reader… for every choice writes your fate."
When he turned the page, a question gleamed in bold black ink.
Question 1:
"The world has cast you aside. What do you cling to when no one stands with you?"
If you choose Pride, turn to page 14.
If you choose Pain, turn to page 37.
If you choose Silence, turn to page 66.
Eros' lips parted. He felt the answer pulse inside him like a wound.
Pain. He'd carried it all his life. It was the only thing that never left. He moved to page 37.
The letters began to dance before his eyes in a strange rhythm, shaping the second question. Meanwhile, handwritten notes appeared in the margins: "Stop Reading!", "Do not read." But he ignored them, completely absorbed by the book.
Question 2:
"Every path leads to loss. How will you walk yours?"
To endure it, even if it breaks you, page 12.
To defy it, even if you fall again and again, page 59.
To accept it and let it crush you, page 101.
His green eyes burned. Defy it. He would spit blood before bowing.
Eros searched for page 59, the questions pulled him deeper. When he reached this one, the handwritten notes multiplied, urging him to stop reading.
"STOP READING!"
"ESCAPE!!!"
"DO NOT READ"
"RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN"
He thought he heard whispers from different voices, pleading with him not to go on. Yet something pulled him inexorably deeper into the text; he even stopped feeling the pain of his wound, though his shirt was dripping blood onto the wooden floor.
Question 3:
"If you could steal fire from the gods, knowing it will chain you in eternal punishment… would you still take it?"
Yes. If the world wants me to suffer, I'll burn with it, page 44.
Yes. If it means saving the one I lost, page 73.
No. I'd rather remain in the dark, page 88.
His hand trembled. Amanda's face filled his mind.
Yes. If it means saving the one I lost.
He turned to page 73.
The page was almost illegible. Not with print, but with frantic handwriting scrawled across every inch.
"Stop Reading!"
"Do not read!"
"Run away!!"
Some words looked scratched in blood. Others were gouged deep into the page. His heart pounded. The room seemed colder, the shadows longer.
But the book held him. He couldn't look away.
He swore he heard her voice… Amanda's voice shouting behind him.
"Eros! Stop! Put it down!"
He twisted around, but the room was empty.
Shaking, he turned back. Buried amid the warnings, one line stood out, printed clean in black ink.
"Congratulations! Your character is Prometheus. Welcome, Reader. Survive… or die."
The words burned into his skull.
A sudden weight crushed his chest. Breath tore from his lungs as if invisible hands squeezed tight. The book glowed faintly, shadows spiraling up from its pages.
Eros clawed at the floor as his body went limp. His vision tilted: he was looking down at himself, pale and broken, sprawled on the dust-stained carpet. His own green eyes stared lifelessly back.
The shadows surged. They wrapped around his soul like chains and yanked him downward.
The last thing he saw was the book, blazing with unholy light, before the world shattered.
Eros screamed as the abyss swallowed him whole.