A child of two worlds will walk between flame,
Bearing a shadow that whispers his name.
Friendship will falter, a promise will bend,
When crowns of betrayal bring blood to an end.
The king long forgotten will rise in his place,
Madness and ruin carved deep in his face.
Through night without dawn, the war shall ignite,
Till chains forged of darkness are shattered by light.
…
The morning sun filtered weakly through dirt-stained windows, casting pale shadows across the cluttered bedroom where a boy lay sprawled across his unmade bed. Ryan Chambers slumbered deeply, his breathing heavy and rhythmic, punctuated by occasional snores. His bedsheets, once neatly tucked, had gradually worked their way loose during the night, sliding inch by inch toward the hardwood floor below like a slow-motion avalanche of cotton and comfort.
His black hair, naturally thick and unruly even on the best of days, now resembled something that might nest small birds. Cowlicks jutted in every conceivable direction, creating a chaotic crown of tangles and knots.
The digital alarm clock on his nightstand, its red numbers glowing like angry eyes in the dim morning light, suddenly erupted into its daily assault on the silence. Beepbeepbeep - the sharp, electronic sound cut through the quiet room, designed specifically to jar even the deepest sleeper into unwilling consciousness.
But Ryan, lost somewhere in the depths of whatever dreams still visited him, remained motionless. His body had grown accustomed to ignoring the world's demands for his attention. The alarm continued its relentless chorus, each beep seemingly louder than the last, echoing off the walls of his small bedroom.
Minutes passed. The alarm showed no mercy, its programming as stubborn as its owner was resistant. Finally, as if his subconscious had reached some internal limit, Ryan's body responded with the bare minimum of effort required. He rolled over onto his side with a grunt, presenting his back to the offending device as if this simple act of defiance might somehow make it cease its electronic tantrum.
The beeping continued, now slightly muffled by his position but no less insistent. One minute stretched into two, and still the sound persisted. It was a sound that spoke of schedules and responsibilities, of a world that continued spinning regardless of whether its inhabitants felt ready to participate.
Then, cutting through the alarm's digital protest came a voice from somewhere beyond his bedroom door. It was his mother's voice, carrying the particular tone that mothers worldwide have perfected - equal parts exasperation, authority, and barely contained frustration.
"Ryan!" The word cracked through the air like a whip, stern and uncompromising.
At last, a reaction. Ryan's eyes snapped open, though they remained unfocused and heavy with the weight of sleep. A low moan escaped his lips, the sound of someone being dragged unwillingly back to the land of the living. He groaned deeply, the sound rumbling up from his chest like distant thunder, and with movements that suggested every muscle in his body was protesting the very concept of vertical existence, he swung his legs over the side of the bed.
The hardwood floor felt cold against his bare feet as he stood, swaying slightly like a tree in a gentle breeze. His hand, guided more by muscle memory than conscious thought, shot out toward the alarm clock with considerably more force than the situation truly warranted. His palm connected with the off button in what could generously be called an aggressive tap, though it was more accurately described as a frustrated slam that made the entire nightstand shudder.
Blessed silence fell over the room like a soft blanket, broken only by the distant sounds of morning life filtering in from the street outside - cars passing, dogs barking.
Ryan stood there in the sudden quiet, his bare feet planted on the cold floor, staring down at nothing in particular. The silence that had seemed so welcome moments before now felt heavy and oppressive, filled with all the things he didn't want to think about, all the responsibilities he didn't want to face, all the questions about his future that he had no desire to answer.
A full minute passed in this strange, suspended state before something - perhaps the persistent chill in the air, or maybe just the inevitable pull of routine - caused him to slowly turn his head to the right. There, mounted on the wall beside his closet, hung a tall mirror that had witnessed this same morning ritual countless times before.
The reflection that greeted him was not kind. Ryan found himself face to face with a boy who looked older than his seventeen years, worn down by experiences that should never have touched someone so young. His hair was an absolute disaster, sticking up at angles that defied both gravity and good sense. Dark circles hung beneath his eyes like purple bruises.
His skin, once clear and youthful, now bore the light but persistent evidence of stress and poor care - small patches of acne scattered across his forehead and cheeks. His frame, which should have been filling out with the natural development of late adolescence, instead carried the soft weight of someone who had given up on taking care of himself, someone who found comfort in food when comfort was scarce elsewhere.
For another long minute, he simply stared at this reflection with an expression that could only be described as pure disgust. Not the dramatic, performative kind of self-criticism that teenagers sometimes indulged in, but something deeper and more genuine - a fundamental disappointment with the person looking back at him from the glass.
By all objective measures, he knew he was not pleasant to look at. More troubling still was the knowledge that this appearance was entirely within his power to change, yet somehow, that power felt as distant and unreachable as the stars. He had no strength for self-improvement, no energy for the kind of sustained effort that change required. In truth, Ryan had discovered over the past seven years that he had very little strength for anything at all.
Seventeen years old, soon to turn eighteen and graduate from high school - these should have been milestones filled with excitement and possibility. Instead, they felt like arbitrary markers on a path he wasn't sure he wanted to walk. Seven years ago, when he was just ten years old, his father had died in a car accident. The official reports said it was no one's fault, just one of those terrible coincidences that sometimes shatter lives without warning or reason.
But Ryan knew better. Ryan knew the truth that ate at him every single day: it was all his fault. Every detail of that terrible day remained burned into his memory with cruel clarity, and no amount of therapy or medication had ever been able to convince him otherwise. The guilt sat in his chest like a stone, heavy and cold and impossible to dislodge.
Ever since that day, nothing had felt real. It was as if someone had placed a thin sheet of glass between him and the rest of the world, making everything seem slightly distant, slightly muffled, slightly off. He moved through his days on autopilot, going through the motions of being alive without ever feeling truly present in his own life.
Everything felt fuzzy around the edges, like a television slightly out of tune. He couldn't bring himself to care about anything - not school, not his future, not the concerned looks his mother gave him when she thought he wasn't watching. It was as if he had become less of a living, breathing boy in a real world and more like an avatar in some video game he wasn't fully engaged in playing.
The past seven years had been a blur of therapy sessions, medication adjustments, failed attempts at making friends, and grades that barely scraped by. He did just enough to get through each day, and only then because he couldn't bear to add his academic failure to the list of things his mother had to worry about. Their relationship, once warm and easy, had become strained and distant - not through any fault of hers, but because he had simply stopped talking to her after his father's death, stopped sharing his thoughts and feelings, stopped being the son she remembered.
Standing there in front of the mirror, that familiar question rose unbidden in his mind: 'Why am I still alive?' It wasn't asked with self-pity or dramatic flair, but with genuine curiosity. He truly didn't understand why he continued to exist when he felt so little connection to life itself, why people like his father - good people who loved life and lived it fully - had to die while he, someone who could barely summon the energy to care about his own existence, kept going day after day.
The question hung in the silence of his room for a moment, as it had so many mornings before, before he finally shook his head and turned away from his reflection. There was no answer to be found there, just as there had been no answer any of the other times he'd asked it.
With movements of routine rather than enthusiasm, Ryan began the familiar process of getting ready for another day at school.
A/N: Hello! my name is Abtho if this is your first time reading one of my books I hope you enjoy! This book is something special to me, it was my first novel over a year ago before I decided I wasn't happy with it and decided to rewrite it. This book means a lot to me and in my opinion is the best thing I've done to date so I do hope you all enjoy!