The air hung heavy, thick as wet cloth pressed against skin. A smell sharp and sour, like old blood, still lingered.
Velharis was dead.
Once, its streets rang with laughter, with music spilling from every corner. Bright festivals and warm faces, a kingdom alive with hope.
Now, only silence.
The kind of silence that screams the loudest, echoing with memories of cries that cut like knives.
Only one soul remained, wandering the ruins.
Elliot.
The last king. The cursed witness to it all.
He moved like a shadow, drifting through streets that had forgotten how to breathe. Every step was weighed down by ghosts: friends, family, faces torn apart by fire and steel.
His clothes hung in tatters, soaked through with blood that wasn't his.
His body was a map of pain, with ragged cuts and bruises blooming in angry colors.
But it was his eyes that told the real story—empty, yet burning.
A man hollowed by loss, surviving just long enough to drown in regret.
No tears came.
No screams.
Just silence.
A silence heavy enough to break you.
"What good is a king," he whispered, voice cracked and bitter, "if he can't protect his people?"
His wounds were deep, raw and ragged, flesh torn back like the pages of a cruel story.
And yet he stood.
Not because he was strong,
But because falling was something only a king who'd lost everything couldn't allow himself to do.
He clung to the last shreds of pride like a man drowning in an ocean of ashes.
Until his legs gave out.
His body collapsed onto the cold stone.
The final heartbeat of Velharis… silenced.
The irony was sharp.
They fought for him.
They died for him.
And when the dust settled, the only one left was the man they tried so hard to save.
Elliot, the last king of Velharis,
Took their dreams, their sorrow, and the unbearable weight of survival—
to the grave.