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magic

A BOY MADE OF SHADOWS

He didn’t grow up with a real name. In the place he was raised, they didn’t bother with names at all. They just burned numbers onto kids, and his number was XI. That’s how people talked to him—like, “Number Eleven, do this,” “Number Eleven, stand there.” It wasn’t a life. It was just… existing. He spent most of his childhood underground. Cold stone floors, dim lamps, the same halls every day. He didn’t know anything about the outside world or why the people there were training him. He only knew that the shadows around him always felt strange, like they were watching him. One night, during some ritual he never understood, something unexpected happened. The shadows that were supposed to kill him didn’t. They moved toward him instead—like they recognized him. Like they’d been waiting for him. After that, he walked out of the fortress. No plan. No idea what to do. He picked the name Kael because he needed something normal to call himself. But the world outside isn’t simple. People stare at him. Some are scared of him. And the shadows that cling to him… he still doesn’t know how to control them, or if they’re even safe. Kael isn’t trying to be special or powerful. He just wants to understand who he is and where he belongs. Maybe he’s just a kid who was treated wrong his whole life. Or maybe he’s something else—something the people in that fortress were afraid to admit. Whatever the truth is, he knows one thing: He’s never going back to being a number again.
Masterisaki · 3.5k Views