Deep within the forest, the silver-haired boy stood over a fallen brute, chest heaving, blood spattered across his face like war paint. The axe was dull, heavy, brutal—remained buried in the man's shoulder, its handle jutting from the corpse like a gravestone marker.
Blood soaked into the soil beneath them, dark and thick, turning the forest floor into a quiet altar of violence.
The brute's body twitched once. Then silence. Lifeless eyes stared upward, blank and glassy—still open, still confused.
Ezra stared back.
His fingers trembled at his sides. Not from weakness, not exactly. But from something deeper—something colder. The weight of the kill. The finality of it. No checkpoint. No "game over" screen. No edit-undo. He had killed someone.
And this time, it wasn't just a line in one of his drafts.
His breath hitched. Then steadied. The panic didn't win.
He crouched down beside the body and tore a strip from the brute's tunic, wiping the warm blood from his cheeks. The stink of iron clung to him now, sharp and metallic, as if it had marked him.
As if the forest itself had seen.
"Tsk… I need to move," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. "That scream probably dragged half the damn forest this way."
The axe groaned in protest as he pried it free. It was heavier now—or maybe he was. The adrenaline from the fight had begun to ebb, leaving only fatigue and a dull ache in his ribs.
He didn't dwell.
Ezra turned and moved through the underbrush, stepping lightly, ears sharp. The woods whispered around him—branches creaked, insects hummed, and the scent of pine and blood clung to the air.
As he neared the clearing, voices rose ahead. Rough. Impatient. Angry.
"Where the hell is Gorin?! He went to scout and now he's just gone?!"
"I told you that scream wasn't some bird. Go check it out—now!"
Ezra dropped to a knee behind a fallen tree, peering between tall grass. There were three of them left. One thug kicked at a motionless guard's body, another crouched above a struggling maid, pinning her down by the wrists. The third stood watch, arms crossed, distracted.
The second maid lay nearby, completely still. Her clothes were torn, chest exposed—humiliation painted across her skin. But as far as Ezra could tell, it hadn't gone further than that. Not yet.
His jaw clenched. He'd seen this kind of scene before—but in fiction. He'd written them, even. The helpless maid. The thugs. The desperate hope for someone to intervene.
Only now… he was the one writing it in real time. With a weapon in hand.
And no plot armor to hide behind.
He tightened his grip on the axe.
Would his eyes help him again?
That flicker of awareness? That perfect moment when he could read every line in the scene—the weight of a foot, the slack in a grip, the breath between movements.
Then, like a spark behind his pupils, the world pulsed.
There it is…
Ezra's breath slowed.
He saw their flaws. Their blind spots. Their openings.
Their overconfidence.
Everything aligned like a dance he'd practiced his whole life without knowing it.
There was no time for second guesses. He reached for a stone by his foot, palmed it, then flung it hard into the opposite edge of the clearing.
Clack!
All three bandits jolted. The one on guard turned sharply and moved toward the sound, sword half-drawn.
Ezra exhaled.
Two left.
He moved.
Bursting from the foliage like a shadow with teeth, he sprinted low and fast. The thug crouched over the maid never saw it coming. The axe tore through his side with a sickening crunch. He screamed, toppling to the ground in a heap of twitching limbs.
The last one turned, startled, drawing his blade—but Ezra was already there. He drove his foot into the man's chest, knocking him backward. They crashed to the ground together.
The axe slipped from Ezra's grip—but his body moved on instinct.
He rolled over the man, dodging a wild punch, and brought his elbow crashing down into the thug's jaw. Once. Twice. Three times. Bone cracked beneath skin. The man went limp, his head lolling to the side.
Panting, Ezra pushed himself up, wiping blood and dirt from his lips with the back of his hand.
The clearing was silent again.
The only sound was the ragged breathing of the conscious maid, her arms wrapped around herself, eyes wide in stunned disbelief. Her lips trembled, but no words came. Not at first.
She stared at him—silver hair, blood-smeared clothes, shaking limbs.
That face. That name.
"Y-You came back," she whispered.
Ezra blinked. "I—"
He didn't get to finish.
Voices echoed from deeper in the forest—closer this time. More men. More trouble.
The maid grabbed his wrist, her fingers surprisingly firm. "We have to go. Now. If they find us, they'll kill us. All of us."
Ezra looked at her, then down at the second maid lying unconscious nearby—young, barely older than he looked now. Her body rose and fell faintly.
Alive.
He didn't hesitate.
His muscles screamed as he lifted her into his arms, her weight threatening to collapse him. But he didn't falter.
He couldn't.
The axe was picked up by the conscious maid—grimy, bloodied, but still sharp enough to matter. She stood beside him, resolve tightening her jaw.
And together, they disappeared into the trees—into the shadows.
The silver-haired boy who no one believed in…
And the two maids whose fate had shifted the moment he stepped back into that clearing.