A sound pierced the oppressive silence of the forest—the faint, rhythmic creaking of wooden wheels straining against an uneven path.
A carriage?
The thought flickered like a dying candle in my mind. A carriage meant a road, and a road could only lead to one thing: a nearby village. Hope, weak and persistent, flared in my chest despite the exhaustion.
"Just a little more," I whispered to the shadows, my voice cracking from disuse. "Hold on, Riven… your eyes… they can see through the dark now."
I blinked slowly, realizing the terrifying truth—my left eye was shimmering faintly, casting a ghostly, crimson light that illuminated the silhouettes of ancient trees and jagged stones. It was a gift from the curse… or perhaps, the first price I was destined to pay.
The longer I went without food, the heavier my thoughts became. Hunger wasn't just a physical ache anymore; it was a beast with endless, gnashing teeth, slowly devouring my sanity from the inside out.
A soft, distant moo snapped me back into focus.
A cow. It was close.
I crouched low, my movements guided by a predatory instinct I hadn't possessed a day ago. I picked up a broken piece of wood from the damp earth—the edges were rough and jagged, but sharp enough to draw blood. I tightened my grip, my heart pounding against my ribs like a hammer.
Each step I took was slow and deliberate. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath, as if the forest itself were waiting for me to strike. I raised the wooden shard, ready to lung—
Then, the world shattered.
A burning sting erupted behind my left eye, far more intense than before. The world twisted and bled into a kaleidoscope of shadows.
"Riven…"
Voices. No—not just voices. Their voices.
My mother and father stood before me in the dim clearing. Their skin was a ghostly pale, their clothes still stained with the crimson marks of their end. But their eyes… their eyes weren't filled with the love I remembered. They were hollow, overflowing with an icy, jagged hatred.
"You let us die," my mother's voice trembled, vibrating with a lethal accusation.
My father's tone followed, sharper and colder than the winter wind: "Why are you still alive, Riven? Why didn't you die with us?!"
"STOP IT!!!" I screamed, the sound tearing through the silent forest and shredding the air. Tears blurred my sight, hot and bitter, yet the horrific images did not fade.
Then came the laughter.
Low. Cruel. Echoing from every corner of the dark woods and from the deepest pits of my own mind.
"Hahaha… Riven…"
The Demon's presence pressed against my chest like a crushing weight, stealing the very air from my lungs. "Your parents wish you were dead," he whispered, his voice dripping with a sickening grin.
"Shut up!" I shouted back, clutching my head as if I could squeeze the voice out. "Don't you dare speak for them!"
But the laughter only grew louder, more frantic. Then, the pain returned—fierce, electric, and blinding.
"AHH! My eye—what is happening to me!?" I fell to my knees, burying my face in the dirt, trying to escape the agony that felt like a white-hot iron being driven into my skull.
The Demon's voice suddenly softened, turning into a chilling, almost fatherly whisper. "You are part of this world now, Riven."
"What… what does that even mean!?" I gasped through the pain.
I could feel his smile, a dark chasm opening in the void. "Survive, Riven… and we will meet again."
I snapped my eyes open, gasping for breath as if I had just surfaced from deep water. Sweat drenched my clothes, and my pulse was a frantic drum in my ears. The forest was silent once more. No parents. No demon. Only the sound of my own trembling breath.
"What was that?" I whispered, touching my throbbing eye. It pulsed faintly beneath my skin, like a second heart.
A curse? Or a destiny I couldn't outrun?
Either way, as I stood up in the dark, I knew one thing with absolute certainty: that night, the child who had fled the village was gone forever. Something new had taken its place.