Zalam moved through the market alone, shoulders hunched beneath a sun that felt too close, too cruel—like it existed solely to remind him he was still alive. People brushed past without a glance, bodies colliding with his as though he weren't there at all.
Maybe he wasn't.
He had been dead to the world for years, and the world had never let him forget it.
The air was thick with the smell of roasting meat and sweat. Children darted between stalls, laughing freely, their joy unburdened and careless. He had wanted to run with them once. Long ago. Now the thought only hollowed him out.
"Why keep going?" he murmured, rubbing the small cut on his palm—one that never healed. "Why keep going when it only hurts?"
No one noticed the dull glimmer in his grey eyes, faint as ash-covered embers. No one sensed the subtle pulse beneath his skin, the thing that refused to stay dormant. He looked weak, insignificant—but the darkness inside him had already begun to stir. Unseen. Unmeasured. Irregular.
He left the market behind and followed a cracked path toward a forgotten cemetery. Rows of leaning tombstones stretched across the land, untended and swallowed by weeds. Time had abandoned this place, just as it had abandoned him.
Zalam stopped before a grave whose name he no longer bothered to read. After a long silence, he whispered,
"Why can't I just die already?"
…
Twenty years earlier, monsters known as Daybreakers had descended upon the world. They burned cities to ash, slaughtered without distinction, and reduced entire nations to ruins. Every weapon humanity possessed was turned against them—but even armies fell like paper. Nuclear fire only scarred the land and doomed the survivors.
Hope vanished.
Then something changed.
People began awakening a power called the Soul Core—the manifestation of one's very essence, capable of bending reality itself. Through those awakened souls, humanity finally pushed back the Daybreakers and reclaimed fragments of the world.
Zalam was born too late to be saved.
The destruction had already claimed everything by the time he opened his eyes. Born on the December Solstice—a day whispered to invite misfortune—despair clung to him from the start. At ten years old, a Daybreaker tore his family apart.
No one came.
They were Rejects—the forgotten poor, people whose deaths barely registered. Their suffering was background noise in a broken world.
From that moment on, Zalam learned a simple truth: trust was a luxury he could not afford.
He survived eight more years by stealing, hiding, and enduring. By the end of it, survival itself felt meaningless. He no longer had a reason to exist—only the habit of doing so.
…
A sound echoed through the cemetery.
Zalam stiffened. He was certain no one else was here. Slowly, he turned.
A figure emerged from between the graves.
Its eyes burned red, glowing like exposed embers. A jagged grin split its face, teeth sharp enough to shear steel. Its limbs were elongated and skeletal, moving with an unnatural smoothness.
"Wait…" Zalam muttered. "A Daybreaker?"
He forced himself upright, muscles screaming in protest. Pain flared through his ribs—an old injury that never truly healed—but he ignored it. Pain had long since lost its meaning.
The creature lunged.
The impact sent him crashing into a cluster of tombstones. Agony tore through his side. He rolled away just in time as claws shredded the stone where his head had been. Blood ran down his temple, warm and blinding.
"Weak…I'm too weak." he thought.
He had always been weak.
Tragedy was supposed to harden people, but it all it had done was play with him instead. His body failed him as often as the world did—sickness, injuries, beatings for stolen scraps. Weakness felt carved into his bones. It was as if he was the world's plaything.
For a moment, he considered letting it end.
Letting the monster finish what the world had started.
But something inside him resisted—not hope, not anger. Just stubborn refusal. He didn't want redemption. He didn't want revenge.
He just wanted to see it through once more.
The Daybreaker drew back for the killing blow.
Zalam froze.
Something shifted beneath his feet.
His shadow trembled—subtle, wrong—like it was breathing.
Pain. Rage. Hunger.
Reality tore apart.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
An endless black sea stretched in every direction. Above, the sun hung eclipsed, a pale ring of light choked by shadow. A distant star circled it slowly, watching.
Something called to him.
He ran—fearless, reckless—because fear no longer mattered. He was already dead, wasn't he?
When he opened his eyes again, the sea was gone.
He stood inside a massive cavern formed from bones—countless remains of fallen Daybreakers fused into the walls. At the center rose an obsidian throne veined with dull grey light. Power radiated from it, heavy enough to steal his breath.
A presence appeared.
Tall. Cloaked in black. Its face hidden, save for eyes that glowed with ancient authority. A dark crown rested upon its head, and a greatsword lay across its back, emanating pure death.
The pressure forced Zalam to his knees.
The throne trembled.
The pressure in the cavern deepened until Zalam's lungs burned. The figure before him did not move, yet the weight of its presence pressed against reality itself.
"You stand at the edge of heresy," the figure said.
Zalam forced himself to look up.
"What are you?"
The eyes in the shadow burned brighter.
"I was once worshipped," it answered. "I was once feared. I was once necessary."
A pause—heavy with contempt.
"Then the others cast me down."
The cavern darkened. The bones beneath Zalam's feet cracked softly.
"I am the Fallen Night," the figure continued. "Apostle of Death, who was denied his throne."
The words settled like a sentence.
Zalam felt it then—the truth beneath the power, beneath the shadow. This wasn't salvation. It was inheritance.
"Why me?" he asked.
"Because you are already forsaken," the Fallen Night replied. "Because you have learned what the gods refuse to see—that the weak are meant to endure in silence."
The shadow inside Zalam stirred violently.
"To wield my power," the Fallen Night said, stepping closer, "is to declare war."
The air split. Somewhere far above, something listened.
"The gods will feel you the moment you rise. They will brand you a blasphemy. A stain. A mistake to be erased."
Zalam laughed—quiet, bitter.
"They already ignored me," he said. "What's the difference?"
For the first time, something like approval passed through the darkness.
"You will carry my shadow," the Fallen Night said. "And in time, you will stand where I fell."
The throne cracked.
"If you walk this path," the god continued, "you will be hunted. Betrayed. Broken. And when you are strong enough…"
The god's eyes narrowed.
"You will be forced to choose—kneel before them… or finish what I could not."
Silence.
Zalam did not beg.
He did not ask for strength.
He straightened beneath the crushing weight.
"If they want me gone," he said, voice steady, "they can come themselves."
The shadow answered.
Darkness surged. The throne shattered. Power flooded his veins like a funeral bell tolling in his chest.
The Fallen Night smiled.
Warmth spread through his chest—not life, but potential. Hungry. Boundless. The shadows twisted eagerly around him, whispering promises of freedom and release.
"Then rise," the Fallen Night said. "Claim what is yours. But remember—power always demands a price."
The darkness exploded outward.
Zalam's shadow surged like black fire, wrapping around his body as his vision snapped back to the cemetery.
The Daybreaker was still mid-lunge.
It never landed.
Tendrils of shadow pierced its chest, crushed bone, and tore through flesh. The scream cut short as smoke poured from its corpse. When the darkness receded, the monster lay still—broken and lifeless.
Zalam staggered back, gasping.
His shadow curled at his feet, obedient. Alive.
He clenched his fists, feeling power pulse through his veins like a second heartbeat.
"Finally…" he whispered. "I'm awake."
The fog lifted.
The cemetery remained unchanged—but Zalam had not. Hunger gleamed in his eyes now. His shadow stretched behind him, patient and alert.
He knelt by a gravestone, resting his hand against cold stone. The name carved there blurred, meaningless.
Life. Death. It no longer mattered.
Only power remained.
And the world—Daybreakers, hunters, even gods—would learn the name Zalam.
The shadow had awakened.
And so had he.