The rain had stopped, but the world was still gray and cold.
Cedric sat in the mud for a long time, his arms still cradling the small, limp body. The warmth had left it. It was just a cold, wet thing now.
'It's my fault.'
The thought was clear, cold, and sharp. It wasn't a sob. It was a conclusion.
'Mom loved me. She died.'
'I loved Milo. He died.'
He looked at his own hands, covered in mud and the faint trace of Milo's blood.
'I am the problem. Anything I touch, anything I care about, it breaks. It dies. I am the cause.'
He had no more tears. The place inside him where tears came from had been burned away, then flooded, and now, it was frozen solid.
He stood up, his movements stiff but steady. He found a sharp piece of scrap metal and began to dig, his hands clumsy but methodical, under the concrete arch. The ground was hard and wet. He didn't feel the blisters forming on his palms. He just dug.
When the hole was deep enough, he gently placed Milo, wrapped in the remains of his old jacket, into the earth. He pushed the cold mud back over the top, patting it down until it was flat. He didn't say any words. There was nothing to say.
He stood up, a ghost covered in mud, and began the long, empty walk back to The Pines.
His feet moved one in front of the other. Left. Right. He didn't feel the cold mud caking his legs. He just moved.
He reached the front door of the orphanage as the other children were finishing dinner. The smell of boiled potatoes wafted out, but he felt no hunger.
The door opened, and Ms. Albright stood there. She wasn't furious, she just looked... profoundly tired. Her eyes drifted from his muddy shoes up to his bruised face with a deep, weary sigh.
"Look at the state of you." she said. Her voice wasn't a shriek; it was a low, cold monotone. "You missed dinner. You're tracking filth all over my clean floor. And fighting again?"
She grabbed his arm, her fingers digging in with a cold, wiry strength.
He didn't flinch. He didn't cry. He didn't look down in shame.
He looked through her. His purple eyes were flat, dull, and completely empty.
Ms. Albright's cold lecture faltered. Her grip tightened, as if she wanted to shake a reaction out of him, but then it loosened.
She looked at his face, at the deadness in his eyes, and a shiver of unease ran down her spine. This wasn't the sad, scared boy she was used to. This was... something else.
"Hah~ fine." She let go of his arm as if he were something diseased. "Go clean yourself up."
"Yes, ma'am." he replied. His voice was flat, a monotone.
He walked past her, his muddy shoes leaving prints on the floor. He went to the bathroom. He turned on the shower. The water was cold. He registered the cold, but he didn't shiver. He scrubbed the mud and blood off his skin with a dull, repetitive motion. He put on his thin pajamas. He went to his cot in the dark dorm. He lay down. He did not cry. He did not sleep.
He just... was.
The next morning, Dax found him in the hallway.
Dax was smiling, that familiar, cruel smile. He cracked his knuckles, ready for the usual morning 'fun'.
"Well, well, look who it is." Dax sneered, blocking his path. Mace and Carver fanned out beside him. "How's your little... pet, skeleton? Did he enjoy the rain last night? Did you two 'hope' for a nice day?"
Cedric stopped. He turned his head and looked at Dax. His eyes were flat. Dead.
"He's dead." he stated, simply. It was a fact. Like 'the sky is gray' or 'the floor is linoleum'.
Dax's smile vanished, replaced by confusion, then rage. He was expecting tears. He was expecting begging. He was not expecting... this. This nothing.
"What did you say to me?" Dax snarled, his voice rising.
He drew back his hand and slapped Cedric across the face, hard.
SLAP.
Cedric's head snapped to the side. There was a moment of silence. Then, slowly, methodically, he turned his head back to face Dax, the red print of a hand already blooming on his pale cheek. He didn't rub it. He didn't even blink. He just stared.
Dax actually took a step back, a flash of genuine fear in his eyes. This... this wasn't right.
"Freak." Dax spat, trying to regain his composure. He shoved Cedric hard against the lockers. "Whatever."
He and his crew walked away, glancing back nervously.
The bullying continued, of course. It was a routine. They pushed him. They stole his food. They hit him. But it was different now. It was like hitting a block of wood. Cedric never fought back, but he never flinched, either. He just... took it. He felt the dull impact of a fist connecting with his ribs. He knew it should hurt. He simply waited for it to be over, got up, and kept walking.
At school, nothing changed. And yet, everything had.
He was walking to class, his steps measured, his eyes fixed on the door at the end of the hall. Mark, the same boy who used to trip him, stuck his foot out from the aisle, a familiar, sneering grin on his face.
In the past, Cedric would have flinched, stumbled, or tried to walk around him, his heart pounding.
This time, Cedric didn't stumble. He didn't even flinch. He just... stopped. He looked down at the foot, then up at Mark's sneering face. There was no fear. No sadness. No anger. His eyes were flat, gray, and completely empty.
'An obstacle.' he thought, his voice flat even in his own head.
He calmly, deliberately, stepped over the outstretched foot and continued walking.
Mark, bewildered and furious at the lack of reaction, yelled after him. "Hey! I was trying to trip you!"
Cedric paused for one second, but he didn't turn around. "Then you failed." he said, his voice quiet and monotone, before continuing down the hall, his steps never faltering.
The laughter in the hallway died. The other bullies who had gathered to watch looked confused.
The taunts—'Orphan', 'Skeleton'—became just sounds. They no longer registered as insults. They were just... noise.
He did his work. He read his books. He was a perfect, silent, invisible presence.
***
Eight years passed like this.
A long, gray, silent film of hollow existence.
Cedric grew taller. His body, though still thin from years of institutional food, filled out. He was strong, but he never used his strength. He was smart, but he never used his intelligence for anything other than the task in front of him.
He learned to speak when spoken to. He learned to answer questions with perfect, concise, flat responses. He learned to make his face a perfect, blank mask that revealed nothing.
He did his chores at The Pines. He did his homework.
He got perfect grades, not out of ambition, but because it was something quiet to do that required no feeling. It was a way to pass the time until he died.
He never made a friend. He never spoke to anyone unless he was required to.
At eighteen, the System was done with him. Ms. Albright signed his release papers with a look of profound relief.
He was given a final check for a hundred dollars and a black garbage bag containing his few donated clothes.
"Good luck." she said automatically, not looking at him.
"Thank you." Cedric replied, his voice automatic.
He walked out the front gate of The Pines and never looked back.
…
…
…
He was twenty-two.
Life was a predictable, monotonous loop.
He lived in a tiny, one-room apartment with gray, peeling wallpaper and a single window that looked out onto a brick wall. It was all he could afford.
He worked. His job was as gray as his apartment. He was a data-entry clerk for a failing shipping company. He sat in a beige cubicle for nine hours a day, his fingers flying across the keyboard, transferring numbers from one spreadsheet to another. He was good at it. He was fast, and he never made mistakes.
His boss, a perpetually angry, grumpy man named Mr. Kind, hated him for it.
"Cedric!" Kind's voice boomed across the office.
Cedric stood up from his cubicle. 'He's calling,' he thought simply.
"Yes, Mr. Kind?"
Kind threw a stack of papers onto his desk. They scattered onto the floor. "This is garbage! All of it! I asked for the quarterly projections, not... this! Are you stupid or just lazy?"
Cedric bent down, methodically picking up the papers. He did not point out that these were the exact projections Mr. Kind had personally approved yesterday. That would cause a confrontation. It was easier to just do them again.
He simply straightened the stack and stood up, his face a perfect, polite, blank mask.
"I will do it again, sir." he said, his voice a calm monotone.
"You're damn right you will!" Kind spat, his face red. "And I want it by five, or you're fired! You hear me? Fired!"
"Yes, Mr. Kind. It will be on your desk by five."
Kind stared at him for a moment, waiting for a flinch, for an argument, for anything. But he got nothing. Frustrated, Kìnd stormed back to his office, slamming the door.
Cedric sat down. He looked at the clock. 3:17 PM. He had one hour and forty-three minutes to complete the task.
He put his hands on the keyboard and began to type.
***
At 5:00 PM, precisely, Cedric attached the revised projection file to an email and sent it. At 5:01 PM, he logged off his terminal. The screen went black, reflecting his own blank face. He stood, pushed in his chair, and retrieved his thin jacket from the hook.
He walked out of the office, his footsteps silent on the industrial carpet. He didn't say goodbye to anyone and no one said goodbye to him.
His routine was simple: walk twenty-four blocks, buy bread, return to apartment 7B, eat, sleep.
He moved through the 5:00 PM crowd on the sidewalk like a stone in a river. People flowed around him, chattering, laughing, complaining about their day. He registered them only as obstacles to be avoided, his mind flat and empty.
He turned the corner onto his street, the gray, familiar smell of exhaust and damp pavement filling his nose.
Then, something new.
Flashing lights. Red and blue, chaotic and bright. Shouting. Smoke.
A car was on its side, wedged horribly against a concrete traffic light pole. The front end was crushed, and small, greedy flames were licking up from the engine block. The sharp, suffocating smell of gasoline cut through the evening air.
A crowd had gathered, a half-circle of horrified, helpless onlookers, all holding up their phones.
"Get the kid! Get the kid!" a man yelled.
As Cedric watched, another man in a construction vest pulled a small, screaming child—a girl, maybe five or six from the shattered back window and ran her to safety.
The crowd surged, then fell back.
"Ma'am! Stay with us! We're going to get you out!"
"The mother is still in there! She's pinned!"
"The dashboard's on her legs!"
"It's leaking! I can smell it! It's gonna blow!"
Cedric stopped, his feet planted on the pavement. He observed the scene. A car accident. Fire. An imminent explosion. A trapped individual.
He watched the people yelling, doing nothing. He watched the fire grow, the flames turning from orange to a hungry yellow.
'They are unlucky, but it's none of my business' he thought, his face a perfect mask of indifference.
He was supposed to go home. His apartment was two blocks away. He began to walk around the crowd.
A single, high-pitched, desperate shriek cut through the sirens and the shouting. It wasn't just a scream. It was a word.
"MOMMY! DON'T LEAVE ME! MOMMY!"
...
...
...
"Hey! Get back here! Kid, stop!" a bystander yelled.
Cedric was running.
He shoved the man aside, his movements fast and fluid, driven by an impulse he didn't understand. He didn't feel the heat until he was right beside the car.
The mother was conscious, her leg pinned by the buckled dashboard. Her eyes were wide with the same terror he had seen once before, long ago, through another shattered window.
"My... my baby..." the woman gasped, looking at him. "Is she..."
"She's safe." his voice came out, strained and rough. It didn't sound like his own.
He grabbed the edge of the door, the metal hot enough to sting his palms. He pulled. It was jammed. The fire was louder now, a hungry, roaring sound.
'There's no time.'
He planted his feet. He gripped the top of the door frame with both hands. He didn't feel the blisters forming. He just pulled.
A sound of screaming, groaning metal filled the air as the hinges tore. His muscles burned with an agonizing fire of their own. But they didn't stop. Adrenaline… or something else, something buried for twenty years—flooded him with an inhuman, impossible strength.
He tore the door frame away from the chassis to creating just enough space.
He reached in, his hands finding her seatbelt buckle. He released it. He hooked his arms under hers and pulled, dragging her bodily from the crushed interior.
He half-carried, half-dragged her away from the burning wreck. One step. Two steps. Three steps.
He heard it. A sudden, deafening WHOOSH as the pooled gasoline vapor finally ignited.
He didn't have time to think. There was only one, primal, buried instinct that screamed louder than his apathy.
He grabbed the woman and hauled her against his chest, arms locking around her in a tight, instinctive hold— and then he leapt.
With every ounce of strength he had, Cedric pushed off the pavement and hurled them both away from the burning wreck.
KABOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!
The world turned white and orange.
The shockwave caught them like a giant's hand, slamming into his back and flinging them even farther. Cedric twisted mid-fall, forcing his body beneath hers as they hit the ground. He absorbed the impact with his shoulders and spine, keeping her shielded in the cage of his arms.
A thunderous explosion shook the very ground. The force of the shockwave was a physical, crushing blow. It lifted them both and threw them like ragdolls.
Cedric felt a brief, agonizing, blinding impact as the back of his head slammed into the concrete curb.
Then... silence.
He was on his back, on the pavement. The rain was starting to fall again, cold drops on his face, hissing on the hot metal debris. He could hear shouting. He could hear the sirens. But he couldn't feel his legs, he couldn't feel... anything.
He turned his head, just an inch.
He saw the little girl running. "Mommy! Mommy!"
He saw the woman he had saved, bruised and terrified but alive, struggling upright just long enough to pull her child into her arms.
He saw the flashing red and blue lights... and for a second, just a second, he saw his own mother's face, smiling at him from inside a burning car, her lips moving.
'Mom love you, boy.'
He blinked. The image of his mother was gone. He was just... cold.
He tried to make sense of it. Why had he moved? Why had he run? He was supposed to go home. He was supposed to be quiet. He was supposed to... do nothing.
He didn't understand. None of it made sense.
A single, final, purely human thought surfaced through the pain and the cold, a question that held all the confusion of his entire broken life.
'Today… is such a bad day.'
His eyes closed.