"They say I was never born. Yet I live, and every breath I take is proof that their curses have no meaning. Still, I cannot escape the whispers that follow me, even when I close my eyes."
That was my truth. From the moment I was found, I was different. The villagers told the story often, but never in front of me. I was told by accident, overhearing their hushed voices at night.
A farmer had discovered me at the edge of the Blackwood Forest. I was wrapped in filthy cloth, abandoned as if I were an unwanted scrap. My chest did not rise. My heart did not beat. The farmer swore I was a corpse. Yet when his wife reached down, touched my cheek, and whispered a prayer, my eyes opened.
Those eyes were not the eyes of a child, they said. They were dark, darker than midnight, yet laced with faint violet light that shimmered as though I carried a star inside me. That was the moment fear was born in their hearts.
I was given a name—Lirce Void. To the farmer and his wife, I was a son. To the rest of the village, I was a curse.
Growing up was a lesson in contradiction. My parents' small hut smelled of earth and firewood, and there was comfort in that smell. My mother hummed when she ground grain, my father's calloused hands carried me when I was tired, and I knew love in their actions. But outside those walls, the air turned colder.
Neighbors fell silent when I approached. Children who once played ball in the fields pulled away the moment I joined. Priests muttered words of protection when I entered the temple. To their eyes, I was not a boy. I was a shadow in human shape.
At first, I told myself it didn't matter. What did I care for whispers when I had a roof over my head and food on the table? But the shadows disagreed.
They came to me in dreams.
When I closed my eyes, I did not see the village. I saw burning skies and seas of flame where titans walked, their footsteps shaking creation itself. I saw mountains collapsing into black oceans, stars splitting apart, and always, always, I saw him. A man cloaked in endless darkness, standing beyond the horizon of the multiverse. I never saw his face, yet I felt his gaze pierce into me.
I woke from those dreams with trembling hands. Sometimes faint violet threads of light curled across my fingers like smoke. Once, the bed beneath me cracked without touch.
I hid it from my parents. They already bore the weight of raising a cursed child. I could not add more fear to their hearts.
But the truth could not stay hidden forever.
The year I turned sixteen, the Festival of Solarys came. It was the day when young heirs stood before the sacred flame to awaken their bloodline. I was not of Solarys, not by birth, yet my adoptive father urged me to step forward.
The villagers mocked the decision. "The cursed boy?" they laughed. "What flame would answer him? Let the fire burn him and free us all!"
I clenched my fists, their words sharp enough to pierce skin. But I obeyed my father. For the first time, I stood upon the golden sigil at the center of the hall.
The flame surged.
Warmth turned to heat. Heat turned to pain. My vision blurred. Then, in an instant, the golden light twisted, snapping apart like shattered glass. Darkness rushed upward, violet threads writhing like living serpents.
Gasps erupted. Screams followed.
"This is not the Solarys flame!" Elder Verath's staff slipped from his hand as he stumbled backward.
The ceremonial plow, once heavy with iron, rose into the air. Shadows wrapped around it like chains, freezing its blade inches from the chest of a boy who had mocked me since childhood. The boy's face turned pale as he stared at the weapon held by invisible hands.
"What are you?" he whispered.
I stared at my glowing hands, trembling, alive with power that did not belong to this world. The whispers from my dreams roared, no longer distant but burning in my ears. He lives. The seed awakens. The void breathes again.
The hall erupted.
"Demon!" someone shouted.
"Exile him!" cried another.
Elder Verath's voice cut through the chaos. "By the will of Solarys, Lirce Void is stripped of recognition. For the safety of all, he is cast out!"
Shouts rose like fire. "Burn him!" "Cursed child!" "Monster!"
And then I saw him.
Kaelen Solarys, the man I had called father, the man who raised me. He did not move. He did not shout. He only watched, his eyes calm yet filled with a weight I could not name. Not pride. Not hatred. Something colder. Something sharper.
He spoke a single word.
"Leave."
That word cut deeper than exile. Deeper than any blade.
I ran.
Through the broken hall, past the torches, into the fields where shadows swallowed me whole. My breath came ragged, my heart thundered, and the violet light still burned in my veins.
And then he appeared.
A figure cloaked in black fire, crowned with fractured horns. His eyes were voids that swallowed stars. His voice rolled like thunder yet whispered like silk.
"Lirce Void," he said, "you were never born. You were made."
I could not move. The weight of his presence pressed me to my knees. The air bent, space itself shuddered. For a heartbeat, I saw his vision: stars collapsing, worlds burning, multiverses crumbling like paper. And above it all, one flame remained. Violet. Eternal.
"Remember this," he said, lifting a hand. "The multiverse will bend or break before you awaken. When the Eternal Dark rises, nothing will remain the same."
Shouts broke the silence. Three disciples of Solarys had followed, silver blades glinting under moonlight. Their voices cracked with fear but burned with hatred.
"Well, well," one sneered, "the cursed child thinks he can run."
I rose slowly, my breath heavy. My hands glowed brighter, violet threads curling and hissing like serpents ready to strike. The grass beneath my feet shriveled into ash.
The disciples charged, their footsteps shaking the soil.
The void answered.
And in that moment, I understood. To the villagers, I was a curse. To my parents, I was a burden. To myself, I was nothing.
But to the multiverse, I was the spark of something greater.
The Eternal Dark had begun