Veythar was born into a world that never cared about him—a silent, uncaring place where warmth was a foreign concept. He entered life without the gentle embrace of a mother, without any pictures or memories to remind him of love. Instead, his existence was defined by the cold indifference of his father, a man whose eyes grew hard and distant whenever the subject of his lost love was mentioned. From a very early age, Veythar learned that some questions were too dangerous to ask, and even the simplest curiosity about his past was met with silence or the threat of punishment.
In those early years, pain quickly became the language of his world. At the age of three, every day was marked by sudden, harsh lessons: a quick, stinging slap for speaking out of turn or a hard kick for being too slow, along with long, empty periods when no food was given as retribution for mistakes he couldn't even understand. His father delivered punishment with a calculated coldness rather than loud anger, leaving Veythar to internalize the lesson that expressing his hurt—or even his confusion—would only lead to more suffering. The small boy soon discovered that tears were a luxury he could not afford in a home where vulnerability was met with cruelty.
By the time he was five, any spark of hope had long since been smothered. While other children laughed freely and played in the light of warm birthdays and gentle celebrations, Veythar's days were overshadowed by lonely nights spent in a small room with cold, locked doors and the bitter smell of spilled whiskey lingering in the corners. There were no joyful voices to comfort him—only the quiet, unchanging presence of the room and the shifting shadows on its walls, which became his only companions in a life filled with isolation. In this bleak existence, even the simplest human warmth was a memory from a dream he was never allowed to have.
Then came a moment that should have been trivial—a spilled cup of water on a scarred floor—but it marked another turning point in his young life. As the water seeped across the surface, his father's towering figure darkened the space, and without a word, the punishment began anew. One blow after another struck him until he could no longer count the pain, his small body wracked with a deep, bone-breaking ache. By the time the first light of morning crept in through a grimy window, every part of him throbbed in protest, leaving him curled in the corner as if waiting for the pain to finally fade away. It was in those silent, broken moments that Veythar learned the hard truth: obedience was his only way to survive.
But then, one night, everything changed in a way that would mark the beginning of a new chapter in his life. His father returned home in a fog of alcohol and discontent, his every step heavy with impending violence. Without warning, the fury that had built up over countless days was unleashed in a storm of brutal, unyielding blows. Veythar lay on the floor, tasting the metallic tang of blood as his bones throbbed from the relentless strikes, until he found himself no longer fighting, no longer struggling—instead, he simply endured the pain silently. It was in that moment, when his small body and broken spirit seemed destined to be crushed entirely, that a choice quietly formed within him. His father, too far gone in his drunken stupor, finally collapsed onto their battered couch, offering Veythar a fleeting chance to end the cycle of abuse once and for all. Yet, standing over the inert figure of the man who had stolen his hope and his childhood, Veythar made the difficult decision not to exact final revenge. Instead, he turned away from the only home he had ever known and stepped out into the cold, dark night. In choosing to leave behind a past filled with blood and silence, he dared to embrace the possibility of a future that might finally be his own. After that fateful night of escape, Veythar stepped into a world stripped of the familiar boundaries of his former life—a world that was as vast as it was indifferent. The streets opened before him like an endless maze, a chaotic sprawl of concrete and neon where every step was a test of endurance. Wandering past towering buildings and dim-lit alleys, he felt the sharp bite of wind and cold seep into his very bones, each gust a reminder that the freedom he had longed for came with its own harsh price. With nothing more than tattered clothes and a heavy hunger clawing at his stomach, he moved silently through crowded sidewalks and shadowed corners, searching for a safe harbor in a city that seemed to have no place for a lost boy.
In the deep hours of the night, when the relentless pace of urban life softened to a murmur, Veythar found temporary refuge wherever he could—beneath narrow archways where graffiti spoke of forgotten dreams, in neglected doorways echoing with the memories of better days, or under the scant shelter of an overpass while the distant hum of traffic became a lullaby of survival. Each night brought with it a struggle against exhaustion and the ever-present dread of isolation. Desperation led him to steal small morsels of nourishment—a bruised apple pilfered from a vendor's cart, a discarded piece of bread from an overflowing trash bin—each stolen bite a bittersweet reminder of the cost of living on the edge of society.
Amid the unyielding hardship of urban existence, moments of unexpected companionship broke through the darkness. In a deserted stretch of the city, beneath the weak glow of a flickering streetlamp, Veythar once encountered a stray dog shivering in the cold. In the animal's sad eyes, he saw a reflection of his own solitude—a shared, unspoken understanding between two souls forsaken by the world. For a brief while, the dog's silent company tempered the loneliness that had long settled over him, offering a fragile hope that amid the indifference of the concrete jungle, he was not utterly alone.
Yet as the days bled quietly into nights, Veythar began to notice something unsettling within himself. There were rare, unbidden moments when an impulse—whether born of anger, fear, or despair—seemed to distort the very air around him. In those instances, he felt a strange, inexplicable surge of power ripple through his veins, as if his inner turmoil could momentarily shake the world itself. Though fleeting, these incidents left him shaken and confused, forcing him to question the nature of the very force that had lain dormant within him all his life. Was it a curse or a gift? In the silence of sleepless nights, as the city whispered its secrets to the lonely, he began to wonder if this mysterious power might one day be the key to a future he had scarcely dared to imagine.
Navigating the sprawling city was more than just a physical struggle—it became a relentless test of resilience and spirit. Every day was marked by the dual battle of evading the hazards of an unforgiving urban wilderness and grappling with the internal storm that threatened to consume him. With each passing hour, the realization grew that his journey was not simply about surviving on the streets, but about forging an identity from the pain and the fleeting moments of unexpected solace. In the silent spaces between the city's chaotic beats, Veythar's destiny began to take shape, hinting at the vast, uncharted power that lay hidden within him and promising that his battle for survival was only just beginning.The city had grown dangerous for Veythar. He avoided people, kept to the shadows, always watching, always afraid of what might happen if someone pushed him too far. He could feel it—whatever lurked inside him was growing.
One night, hidden beneath a bridge, he pressed his palms against the cold concrete. The structure groaned beneath his touch. Thin cracks spiderwebbed across its surface, spreading outward like some unseen force was reaching for the world beyond his fingertips. Panic flooded through him, and he tore his hands away, stumbling back. His breath came in ragged gasps.
It wasn't just power.
It was hunger.
And he wasn't sure he could stop it.
The night everything changed was just like any other—cold, empty, silent. He was curled up in an alley, hugging his arms around his knees, trying to stay warm. Then, a figure lurched into the narrow space. A man—drunk, muttering, hands shaking with anger. Veythar knew better than to move, knew better than to draw attention to himself.
But the man saw him.
"You think you can just hide here?" His voice was slurred, but the threat in it was unmistakable. He grabbed Veythar by the collar, yanking him to his feet. "Worthless little—"
Something inside Veythar snapped.
It wasn't the man's grip that broke him. It was everything—the years of suffering, the endless hunger, the fear that had ruled his life. It all surged forward, swallowing him whole. And his power—wild, uncontrolled—answered.
The air crackled.
The man's body twisted, his face contorting in horror. His skin rippled, like something beneath it was writhing, tearing. His fingers clawed at his own throat, his chest convulsing. Then—stillness.
No breath.
No sound.
Nothing.
Gone.
Veythar's breath hitched, his hands trembling as he stumbled away from the lifeless body. He hadn't touched him. He hadn't done anything.
But he had.
It was him.
It was always him.
His stomach turned, panic clawing at his chest. He had killed someone. The word wrapped itself around his thoughts, drowning him. *Killed.*
Monster.
Curse.
Veythar ran.
Not to escape.
Not to hide.
But because no matter how far he went, the truth would always follow him.
He was broken.
And there was no fixing what had been shattered.
He ran. Through streets slick with rain, through alleys swallowed by darkness. But the weight of what he had done clung to him like chains, dragging behind him, unshakable.
For days, he wandered, never staying in one place too long. He barely ate, barely slept, afraid that his body—his power—might betray him again. Every quiet moment was filled with echoes of that accidental horror—the scream still rang in his ears, the man's terrified face burned into his memory, a constant reminder that he wasn't just surviving anymore.
He was dangerous.
And someone had noticed.
The night they came for him, he had been resting in the doorway of a crumbling building, staring at a fractured mirror. In its shattered reflection, he saw the ghost of the boy he once hoped to be. A boy untouched by cruelty. A boy who had dreams. But the mirror only showed what was left of him—something cracked, something unrecognizable.
Then the shadows shifted.
Before he could react, hands grabbed him, yanking him backward. He kicked and struggled, but they were stronger—trained, waiting for him to fight. Something cold wrapped around his wrists, clamping tight. The last thing he saw was the dim glow of streetlights before everything turned black.
When he woke, he was bound.
His wrists. His neck.
Heavy ropes dug into his skin, and a dull hum surrounded him. The air smelled sterile, metallic.
A machine pulsed nearby.
A voice—sharp, commanding—echoed through the room.
"Let's begin."
Pain shot through him.
His power—his own body—was no longer his own.
And for the first time, he realized.
He wasn't just a prisoner.
He was an experiment.
facility's walls were as cold as the men who ruled it. The dim hum of machinery thrummed through the air, blending into the sharp commands of overseers who had long stopped seeing Veythar as human. To them, he was a resource—something to be used, tested, and twisted into whatever shape they needed. The heavy restraints on his wrists and throat had become more than just physical barriers. They were reminders of control, of ownership, of a freedom long stripped away.
He had tried to fight in the beginning—tried to hold on to some shred of defiance—but they had ways of breaking that. Forced to direct his power at whatever they demanded, he learned quickly that refusing wasn't an option. He had obliterated objects, torn through steel and concrete, shattered glass with nothing but a thought. But the worst were the moments they forced him to hurt *people*. That was when something inside him crumbled, piece by piece. With every burst of energy summoned at their command, another part of him vanished—the remnants of a child who once dreamed of the world beyond his father's cruelty, the parts of himself that had clung to hope even in the darkest nights.
His galaxy-colored eyes, once full of curiosity and wonder, now reflected only sorrow—an abyss carved by abuse, by coercion, by the unbearable knowledge that he had become exactly what they wanted. A tool. A weapon. A force meant to bear the weight of their ambition, no matter how much it destroyed him.
The tasks were designed to wear him down brick by brick, breaking his spirit as much as they did his body. In one particularly brutal assignment, the overseers watched as they commanded him to erase an entire section of a storage facility—his power unleashed in a controlled wave, leaving behind nothing but fractured walls and splintered metal. He wasn't sure what had been there before. He wasn't sure *who* had been there before. And maybe that was the point.
They didn't just want obedience.
They wanted numbness.
They wanted him to stop caring.
But he did.
Even as the destruction piled up, even as the echoes of his own power rang through empty corridors like a silent scream, he still cared. And that was almost worse than being numb.
The long hours bled together, each command a fresh wound on his soul. The overseers spoke in clipped tones, writing down numbers, measurements, reactions. They didn't see the way his body convulsed when they demanded too much. They didn't hear the screams he swallowed down every time his power touched something it shouldn't have.
They didn't care.
And slowly, that realization began to plant something else inside him—something buried beneath all the terror and exhaustion and unbearable grief.
A flicker of defiance.
It was fragile. Faint. Dangerous. But it was there.
In the quiet spaces between forced tasks, when the machinery powered down and the captors gathered to decide what next to break, Veythar would sit in the shadow of his restraints, thoughts twisting toward escape. There had to be a way out. There had to be a way to reclaim something of himself before it was too late.
If they had shaped him into something powerful, into something monstrous—then maybe, just maybe, that meant he wasn't helpless anymore.
Maybe, just maybe, their greatest mistake was thinking they could control him forever.