The boy sat in the hollow left by the shattered egg, dark hair pooling around him like a cloak spun from night. For a long while, he did not move. He simply… existed. Pale face turned toward nothing, abyssal eyes blank and unblinking, as if he had not yet decided whether to remain or to vanish back into silence.
The wilderness dared not stir. Not a breath of wind, not the cry of a bird, not the whisper of leaves. Even the insects held their noise. An unnatural stillness ruled the clearing, as though the world itself awaited his first motion.
At last, he moved.
His hand rose slowly from his side. Fingers unfolded, pale and slender, trembling faintly as they cut through the air. He turned the hand before his face, palm upward, then downward, as if he were trying to understand what it was. But there was no wonder in his expression, no fear, no confusion. His face remained blank, his black eyes steady and void.
He flexed his fingers once. The sound of joints moving echoed unnaturally loud in the silence.
He lowered the hand, then placed it against the earth. The soil recoiled. A faint shiver rippled through the ground, no louder than a breath, but deep enough that the trees swayed though no wind touched them.
He pressed his other hand down. His body lifted, frail limbs trembling slightly, yet steady enough to rise. He stood.
It was not the clumsy staggering of a child who had never walked. There was no wobble, no faltering step. He did not need to learn balance, for balance was already his. He rose to his feet with a slow grace, his movements precise, unhurried, as though every motion had been etched into him long before his birth.
He stood upright, back straight, shoulders drawn with a stillness that mimicked authority. His bare feet pressed against the dirt, pale against the dark soil, yet he did not shiver from the cold of the earth. He did not feel the air. He did not feel anything.
And yet, when he walked, there was elegance.
The first step was silent, leaving no mark upon the ground. The second fell with the rhythm of inevitability, the stride of one who knew no hesitation. Each motion, though performed by the vessel of a child, carried a weight the wilderness could not ignore. He walked not like a boy, nor even like a man, but like something ancient that had always known how to move.
The trees leaned away from his path. Branches shifted without wind, clearing before him. Shadows thickened and bled across the ground in his wake, swallowing faint starlight until it seemed the night itself bent to follow.
He paused, staring into the distance. His eyes moved slowly across the wilderness, though they reflected nothing of what they saw. His gaze swept over twisted roots, jagged stones, gnarled branches, pools of stagnant water. The air was heavy with decay and the scent of forgotten things.
But he felt nothing.
The stillness in his chest never broke. No thought stirred behind those abyssal eyes. No memory flickered, no recognition of the world. The wilderness was vast, dark, endless… and to him, it was empty.
Yet when he walked again, his stride did not falter. He did not creep cautiously, nor wander aimlessly. His steps carried an unconscious rhythm, as though every inch of the forbidden wilderness belonged to him.
An owl, perched high in a withered tree, turned its head sharply to watch him. Its yellow eyes widened, feathers trembling, though the boy had not looked its way. The bird shivered once before launching itself into the night, wings beating frantically, fleeing as though it had glimpsed something that should not exist.
The boy neither noticed nor cared. His gaze lingered instead on a stream that wound through the clearing, its water dark beneath the starlight. He approached it, feet silent against the earth, and knelt at its edge.
He leaned forward, staring into the water.
The stream reflected nothing.
Where his face should have been, there was only shadow. The water refused him, as though it could not comprehend the shape it was asked to show. Only the long strands of his hair rippled faintly on the surface, drifting in black lines across the current.
He tilted his head slightly. The shadow tilted with him.
But his eyes remained blank.
He raised a hand, touching his own face as though to confirm its existence. His fingers brushed pale skin, cold and smooth, but no reaction stirred within him. The touch held no comfort, no reassurance, no recognition. It was as if he touched nothing at all.
The stream gurgled faintly, the first sound since his awakening, but even that seemed weak, smothered under the weight of his silence.
He stood once more, turning from the water. The world remained still. Not a creature dared stir. Not even the leaves whispered.
He walked again, slow steps carrying him deeper into the wilderness. His movements, though those of a child, carried an authority older than the mountains. Every stride was deliberate, steady, inevitable—as though each step had already been written, and the world could only bow as it was fulfilled.
Behind him, the broken shell of the egg dissolved into dust, carried away on a wind that did not exist. The clearing where he had been born dimmed, shadows thickening until even the memory of moonlight was erased.
But he did not look back.
The boy walked forward, eyes empty, steps silent, and the wilderness followed him with dread.