One month. Exactly thirty days since his birthday. The world had moved on, and Anthony had been left behind.
The orphanage was quiet tonight. Most of the other kids had been adopted or moved to special facilities after their awakenings. Anthony was one of the few remaining. He lay on his thin mattress, staring at the ceiling, listening to the rain hammer against the glass.
He couldn't sleep. The feeling of inadequacy was like a physical weight crushing his chest. He closed his eyes, and instead of fighting it, he let the emptiness take over. He embraced the darkness.
I am empty. I am nothing.
Suddenly, the darkness in his mind didn't feel empty anymore. It felt vast. Endless.
Who dares claim to be nothing?
A voice echoed inside his head. It wasn't loud, but it was omnipresent, vibrating through his very bones. It sounded like grinding tectonic plates, like stars being born, like the deep hum of the universe itself.
Anthony sat up abruptly, gasping for air. "Who's there?" he whispered, looking around the dark room.
Within you. Without you. I am the silence between the words. I am the one you have been waiting for, though you knew not what you sought.
"Are you... my soul?" Anthony asked, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
Soul? The voice chuckled, a sound that felt like ancient stone shifting. A crude word for a fleeting concept. Those others? They awaken fragments. Echoes. Soldiers, scholars, kings. They are but candles flickering in the wind.
"And you?" Anthony trembled.
I am the flame that burns the candle. I am the Millennium Soul.
Suddenly, pain erupted. It wasn't sharp, but it was overwhelming. It felt as if his entire being was being flooded with information, memories, and power that was far too great for his thirteen-year-old body to contain.
Images flashed before his eyes. Towers reaching beyond the clouds, cities made of starlight, spells that could reshape continents. He saw wars fought not with swords, but with laws of physics and reality itself. He saw formulas written in light, and geometries that defied logic.
Knowledge poured into him.
Alchemy. Runes. Void Magic. Divine Physiology. Cosmic Laws.
It didn't feel like he was learning it. It felt like he was remembering everything he had ever forgotten.
His body began to change. The scrawny muscles firmed up, not into bulky mass, but into dense, flexible lines of power. His eyes, usually a dull brown, turned into deep pools of midnight blue, containing what looked like swirling galaxies.
He looked at his hand. He didn't see just flesh and bone. He saw the flow of energy. He saw the cells, the atoms, the strings of reality vibrating.
You are small now, the voice said calmly. But you contain the infinite. Sleep now, young one. The world will not know what has awoken.
The pain receded, and the knowledge settled into the back of his mind, organized and accessible. Anthony fell back onto the bed, his mind clear for the first time in his life.
He wasn't empty. He was full. He was overflowing. But as he looked at his reflection in the dark window, he saw only a normal boy.
Low key, he thought, instinctively understanding. If they know what I have, they will fear me. Or try to control me. I am weak now. I must grow. I must hide.
A small smile touched his lips. The mocking, the pain, the uselessness... it was all over. But nobody needed to know that yet.