I'm stuck. Paralyzed. My legs won't answer. My head screams, but my body refuses to follow.
Too much information. Too fast.
He's still talking, the one with the hood and the dead eyes, but I'm not listening anymore. I've got one objective: run. Get out of here. Escape. Any way I can.
But I can barely move.
— Hey, you two!
My breath stops.
A voice. New. Unknown. Maybe a chance.
I turn my head a little, very slowly. My eyes meet those of a guy even more lost than we are. Skinny, poorly dressed, glasses sliding down his nose, posture off-kilter. Seriously, that's my divine backup? He approaches like someone who still thinks everything can be negotiated in this world.
— I'm looking for a guy named Heyo. That one of you two?
Fuck. Another one. Another mercenary? My heart tightens. I don't even have anything to defend myself with.
The guy barely looks at me. He locks onto the bored kid. And then he grimaces.
— You… you're Kairo, right? The little mercenary at the service of the highest bidder. I've seen you before. Your Word… it's Slow, isn't it?
Kairo doesn't flinch. Barely a blink. He raises his eyes slowly, like this whole scene already bores him. He speaks without pressure, low voice, a dead gaze.
— And you're who, old man?
Not an ounce of emotion. Not even a smirk. Just that jaded tone that says: you don't interest me enough to insult you.
The guy hesitates, readjusts his glasses, straightens up like he's about to announce a revolution. He's got the build of someone inventing a life, not a hunter. But there's a strange spark in his eyes. Not madness. Worse. A kind of dirty confidence.
And me, I'm here. Still slow, slowed down. Witness to my own abduction.
But I listen to them. Because if I get out of this mess… I want to know who to break first.
— Me? I'm a mercenary too. My Word is Kidnapper. And I'm offering you a deal. We team up. I help you capture him. I'll give you… let's say, sixty. No… seventy percent.
He smiles, convinced of his genius. A kid in an adult's body. Pathetic.
Kairo sighs, visibly bored.
— How are you planning to do that, you old wreck?
The guy pulls out an old backpack. Not a magic bag, not a mythical artifact. A bag. Filthy. Worn. And he dares to say this:
— It's my power. The Kidnapper's Bag. I put people in it. They become as light as a pen. Handy for getaways.
Kairo shrugs.
— Make it eighty–twenty. As long as I don't have to carry him.
— Deal! the other one answers, all excited.
I'm dreaming. I'm here, frozen, watching these two lunatics bargain over my head. As if I were already merchandise. Prey already folded, wrapped.
And I can't even talk. Can't even scream. My body is frozen, slowed, like trapped in a nightmare. This damn power… I can't do anything.
The old man comes closer. His hands touch me. Damp fingers, trembling, dirty. He grabs me by the hair like a worn-out doll. A black anger rips through me. A brutal fire. I hate him. I hate him viscerally.
If he lets go of me, I swear I'll smash him.
But he talks, that bastard. With the smile of a happy pervert.
— It's for your own good, kid. You'll see, it's not so bad in the bag.
And then… nothing.
Nothing anymore.
Total black. Dense. Thick. Not a soft black. Not a night black. A suffocating black. As if I'd been swallowed by the void. A bottomless grave. Even my breathing feels false here. Even my consciousness dissolves.
How could a lunatic like that receive a power this terrifying?
And me? I've got nothing. Not even a Word.
I'm just prey, here. Defenseless prey.
But he'd better watch out. Because if I get out of this bag…
I burn him.
I break him.
I erase him.
But if I remember right… that Kairo guy… he mentioned the Guild of Word Hunters. Said I was about to awaken one. A Word that interests them.
So if I manage it…
But how does it work again?
They say a Word awakens when you want something badly enough to die for it. When there's no room left for doubt, for fear, for false fronts. When you've reached the end.
Okay. I am literally in a bag.
In. A. Fucking. Bag.
My name is Heyo. I'm sixteen.
I'm half amnesiac. I have the memory of a garden. My mother. Her hands in the soil. And then? Fog. Silence. Nothing. The void. The rest is emptiness with a crust of regrets.
Seriously… what kind of joke is this? Who am I? A kid without a past, without a Word, without a future? You want something to awaken in there? What I need isn't a Word, it's an instruction manual.
…
Fuck.
I'm sick of it.
Sick of being the guy they drag around like a bag of dirty laundry. Sick of waiting for the world to decide what I'm supposed to become. Sick of staying silent, docile, inert.
I want this to stop.
I want it to explode.
I WANT IT TO STOP.
…
Silence.
No Words.
No divine energy.
No miracle.
Just the smell of leather. The smothering. This sticky black that clings to the skin. And me, curled inside this nothingness.
Is that it? Is this the Awakening I deserve? A cage with a zipper?
…
Or maybe I'm not at the end yet.
Not ready yet.
Maybe I have to dig deeper.
Fine.
I have to get up.
This fucking space won't get the better of me.
The guy who put me here… he can't be infallible.
His power must have weaknesses.
I hit.
Nothing.
I run.
Nothing.
Not even wind. Not even resistance.
Just… nothing.
My bike? Gone.
My headphones? Evaporated.
My body? Slow, blurred. As if it wasn't entirely here anymore.
I think I'm done for.
What are they going to do to me? Tests? Experiments?
Dissect me? Break me into pieces to see what's in my head?
I don't want that. I didn't sign up for this. I didn't ask for this.
I'm afraid.
Yeah, I'm afraid.
And I'm tired of it.
Tired of enduring. Tired of being dragged through stories too big for me.
My heart hammers hard, not because I'm fighting… but because it feels this might be the end.
Even my own life… slips away from me.
Years erased.
Days without color.
A ruined memory.
As if I were condemned to live only in the present. Nothing else.
…
I'm lost. Completely.
I wish they'd leave me alone.
I wish I could live.
I wish I could understand why I'm still here.
I wish to be free.
And there, in this inner chaos, in this overflow, something cracks. A dry fracture, invisible, but real. I feel it give. No noise. No shatter. Just a break. My body doesn't move, yet I feel like I'm falling. Or maybe rising. Impossible to tell. But I feel myself leaving this place. The world flips.
When my eyes open again, I'm not in the same place. Before me stretches an immense sky, empty, a sickly pale blue. Around me, nothing. No wall. No tree. Not a shadow of life. The silence is absolute, heavy, without the slightest vibration.
And in the middle of that nothingness stands a mountain. Colossal, too high to measure, too wide to go around. I'm already at the very top. Planted there, motionless, sitting on a stone chair. No… not a chair. A throne. Hewn from the rock itself, raw, frozen, rigid.
My wrists are bound. My ankles too. Even my torso is strapped. I can't move. Not a gesture. Just breathe. Just remain there, locked on that barren summit.
And in the quiet that imprisons me, I understand. I'm at the top, yes. But this is not victory. It's an illusion.
I am the king of an empty kingdom.
A throne of silence.
Chains of oblivion.
And this breath, here…
This breath I have left…
Maybe it's all I still have of myself.
A voice rises.
Strange.
Inhuman.
Warped like a broken whisper through shards of glass.
— I am the one who took your memory. Your family. Your past. Your life.
It doesn't vibrate, it snaps.
Each word pierces me like a needle heated white-hot.
— You are about to change.
To become a Chosen.
To receive your Word.
My curse is ending.
You will be able to live again.
But… no one will remember you.
From now on, you are free to choose your destiny.
I remain still.
Clinging to that stone throne like an idiot nailed to his cross.
And him… that damned phantom… he spits my truths in my face like it's normal.
Like it's a favor.
I grit my teeth.
Killed in the egg. Erased. Banished before even existing.
Damn it… but why?
What's wrong with this world?
This world crushed me without even knowing me.
And now it gives me the right to choose?
After taking everything?
Fine.
You want me to choose?
You want me to decide my damned destiny?
— Then free me.
I scream. Not with my voice. With everything I am.
I want to be free.
Freed from this throne. From these chains.
From this memory that oozes emptiness.
And then, it explodes.
The chains break.
The world screams.
The sky splits in two.
A violent blue, pure, immense.
A breeze rises.
Not cool. Sharp.
A divine light falls on me.
Not gentle. Not tender.
Burning.
It carries a Word.
Unbound.
The Word enters me.
It does not content itself with engraving.
It pushes in.
It lacerates.
I fall to my knees.
My body screams. My soul burns.
It's as if acid were poured into my veins.
But I do not cry out.
I grit my teeth.
I hold.
I survive.
The pain fades, eventually.
Not really.
It sinks. Becomes silence. Becomes a foundation.
I rise. Slowly.
My breath is short.
My gaze… new.
I step forward.
I look at the horizon.
I defy it.
And before me, a tablet of light appears.
Like a sentence. Like a promise.
Written upon it.
Word: Unbound
Rank: Dormant
Active Ability: The bearer can acquire what he desires.
Passive Ability: Heyo is free to choose his passive ability.