Our shack was a small wooden box straining to withstand the fury of the Cyberian storm. Inside, the air was heavy with hot steam carrying the scent of fish broth, seal fat, and pine wood burning in the hearth. To others, this was the smell of "home." To them, this was comfort.
To me, this scent felt like a damp shroud. Suffocating.
I sat on a wooden chair, its surface worn smooth by years of use. The kitchen was deathly quiet, with only my mother and me. Usually, Dasca, Anton, and Anya—my younger siblings—would be bickering between us, but the blizzard outside seemed to be the most effective sedative.
My mother moved through the small kitchen with a rhythm she knew by heart. A wooden spoon clattered against the rim of the iron pot—ting, ting, ting—and every chime echoed in my ears like a hammer striking an anvil. In the Abyss, even the slightest sound could mean death. Here, it only meant dinner. Yet, the muscles in my neck remained taut, ready to react to a threat that wasn't there.
"Sit properly, Leon. The soup is almost ready," my mother said without turning around.
Her voice was soft, like fresh snow, but I could hear a faint tremor at the end of her sentence. She was afraid. She hadn't dared to meet my eyes for too long since I crawled out of the forest months ago. She saw her son's face, but she didn't recognize the soul inhabiting it.
My father entered shortly after, bringing with him a gust of polar wind that made the fire in the hearth dance wildly. He shed his heavy mantle, hanging it on a wall peg with listless movements. He sat across from me, the cracked wooden table the only barrier between us.
"The storm outside is getting crazier," my father muttered, his rough hands trying to warm themselves by a flickering candle. "The neighbors say they heard unusual howls coming from the mountains. Not wolves, and not your typical bear."
I stared at my own hands, resting still on the table. My fingers were long and pale, appearing fragile under the dim light. But I knew what these hands were capable of. I remembered what it felt like to crush the throat of a Shadow-Wolf in the depths of the Abyss, feeling its cartilage crumble beneath my grip while cold purple blood drenched my arms.
"This world is dangerous, Father," I said flatly. My voice broke the silence of the room like ice cracking on a lake. "But the dangers you fear... they are merely shadows of what truly exists down there."
My father stopped moving. His tired eyes searched mine, looking for any trace of the boy who used to beg for a new fishing rod. "What did you see there, son? In that hole? You never truly told us."
I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell him about a sky that never knew the sun, about the ruins of ancient cities where gravity was inverted, about Malphas teaching me how to breathe in a lethal vacuum. I wanted to say that this fish soup tasted like dust in my mouth compared to the pure adrenaline of hunting monsters that had no names.
But I remained silent. The truth is a poison to people like them. They live in a bubble of comfort created by ignorance.
My mother placed a bowl of soup in front of me. The liquid was a murky white with chunks of potato and tender fish meat. On the surface, the oil formed strange patterns. I stared at my reflection there. My eyes... they looked dead. No spark of life remained, only a dark and bottomless blue depth.
"Eat, Leon. Your body needs nourishment," my mother whispered, stroking my shoulder.
Her hand was warm. So warm it felt like it was burning my skin. I flinched slightly, an instinctive reaction that made her pull her hand back quickly, her face turning pale.
"Sorry," I muttered, though I didn't truly feel guilty. "I was just... surprised."
"You need rest," my father chimed in, his voice firmer now, trying to reclaim his authority as head of the household. "Tomorrow, don't go to the pier again. Stay inside. The hunters said they saw tracks of a Great Snowbear near the village borders. That beast can smash a wooden house to splinters."
I took a spoonful of soup. Its heat flowed down my throat, but my heart remained as cold as the ice outside. The Great Snowbear. A grand name for a creature that, by my standards, was nothing more than sluggish prey.
"Why are you so afraid?" I asked, this time with a slightly defiant tone. "We have walls, we have spears, we have protection from the Directorates in the city across. Why is it that every time something larger than a hound appears, you all tremble as if the apocalypse has arrived?"
My father slammed the table, making the spoons clatter loudly. "Because we are human, Leon! We are weak creatures! We aren't heroes with Fusaka who can summon storms. We are just ordinary people trying to survive in a land that wants to kill us every day. Without the blessing of Her Majesty Ereshkigal, we are nothing!"
I stared at him without blinking. My father's anger felt so small. So fragile. He shouted because he was aware of his weakness. He worshipped a god because he was too afraid to hold his own destiny.
"Power doesn't come only from a glass gem, Father," I said, putting down my spoon. I stood up, taller than him now, my shadow stretching across the shack's wall in the firelight. "Power comes from the moment you stop fearing death, and start becoming death itself."
I turned and walked toward my small room in the corner of the shack without waiting for a reply. I could feel their gazes on me. A mixture of grief, fear, and denial. They wanted their son back. They wanted the old Leon.
But the old Leon had rotted at the bottom of a chasm. And in the silence of the frozen Cyberian night, I could feel that vibration again. Something large, something hungry, was crawling toward Nordvik through the blizzard.
And for the first time since I returned, I felt a little excited.