The walls were white.The floors were white.The robes they wore were white.
But for a place so pure in color, it reeked of something rotten.
Xesre sat in a small stone cell with no windows. A thin bed made of straw. A bowl of water in the corner. Heavy chains around his wrists and ankles clinked softly when he moved.
His body ached. His vision swam.The bandages on his arms were already soaked through—golden blood leaking from fresh wounds.
"...Why…?""Why are they doing this…?"
He was seven years old now.But before this world, before the golden blood, before the Saints—He was just a boy in a dark, cold hospital room.
Thirteen Years Old — Earth
The rope hung from the ceiling beam like a quiet whisper.It swayed slightly in the draft of the cracked window.
His bare feet stood on a rickety chair. His fingers trembled as he tightened the noose around his neck.
The hospital was silent.It was late. No one checked on him anymore.
"It doesn't hurt anymore," he whispered to himself."Because I'm already gone inside."
He had tried to be kind. He had tried to smile. But kindness didn't save him.The years of abuse, the loneliness, the endless nights in this place—they stripped away everything he had left.
There was no hope here.No miracles.Just pain.
He looked at the rope, then at the cracked ceiling.
"If gods exist…""Please don't bring me back."
The chair creaked as he kicked it away.The world went silent.And then—darkness.
Seven Years Old — The New World
The next time he opened his eyes, he was lying in a forest of glowing trees.His body was small. His blood shimmered gold. His ears were pointed.
And he remembered the rope.He remembered dying.He remembered everything.
"Why… am I still here?"
No answer came. Only the wind.
The Saints found him weeks later.They smiled sweetly as they wrapped him in vines and carried him away, calling him "a divine miracle."
But he was no miracle.He was just a broken soul trapped in a child's body.
Every day after that was pain.The Saints drained his golden blood to create elixirs of eternal youth.They called it holy.He called it torture.
"Be grateful," they would say. "Your blood is a gift from the heavens."
He wasn't grateful.He was terrified.
His chains rattled as he curled up on the straw bed, black tears streaming down his cheeks.When they hit the floor, visions of tragic lives flooded his mind, overwhelming him until he screamed for it to stop.
And in that storm of agony—Time froze.
Torches halted mid-flicker.The dripping of blood froze in the air.Even the sound of his heartbeat faded.
For the first time, the world listened to his pain.
The Saints eventually noticed his silence. He no longer cried during the blood rituals. He just stared with empty eyes.
"He's changing…" they whispered."Look at his eyes."
They didn't know what was growing inside him.Neither did he.
But something had shifted forever.A seed of power—born not from destiny, but from despair.
And the boy who ended his life with a rope,would one day bend time itself.