From a shadow that bears no crown… yet will burn the crown itself.
And me? I have lived long enough to learn that justice does not come. Years in the lower city are not counted by numbers… but by the nights you survived hunger, betrayal, and yourself.
I do not know my age now. I'm not sure if I'm in my twenties or thirties. But I know the number of scars on my back, the graves I dug with my own hands, and the times I swallowed rage instead of bread.
They say life is measured in years. I say it's measured by how many times the world broke you—and you kept breathing.
I grew up peeking at joy through window glass. I grew up training my heart not to beat, teaching my eyes not to weep, so the wolf won't smell my weakness.
In the Upper City they celebrate a child's birthday with five tiers of sweets. In the Lower City? We blow out the candles of our lives with tongues of flame.
When you walk these streets, don't ask the time. Time here is not "three in the afternoon," but "after the massacre," "before the burial," "when the mother collapsed from crying," or "when the father screamed and no one heard."
I… am not sorrowful. I passed sorrow like one walks through ash. I am now a coal, waiting for the right wind to erupt.
And if you ask who I am now?
I am the one who learned not to trust passersby, not to trust friends, not even his own voice. I am the one who sleeps with one eye open, a hand on the knife's hilt. I am the one who burned his childhood notebooks and rewrote them with ink and blood.
If someone asks my name today, I will smile. Not because I forgot it, but because the true name… became something you do not speak aloud. My name became a curse; my emblem, a scar on the walls of fear.
They call me a rebel. But they do not know how many times I tried to be an ordinary citizen: to work, to love, to laugh. Everything here punishes purity.
Yes, I wanted to live. But they would not let me. And now… I want them to taste what they did to me.
Do you want to know what awaits the city? A prophecy? Maybe. I don't believe in prophecies, only outcomes.
The Upper City will fall… not by a sorcerer, not by an army, but by the first child of the Lower City who says: "Enough."
When you raise a child on injustice… you do not create a servant. You forge an enemy who smiles as he breaks the chains.
Suddenly I could no longer hold myself. My feet stopped in the alley, my clenched hands ignited, my mother's voice came back as if calling me from her grave. My chest tightened, and anger grew heavier than air, heavier than pain, heavier than my name.
I lifted my head toward the gray sky and screamed… I screamed with every drop of blood in my heart, with every blade of silence:
"I will kill them!"
"I will kill those cursed nobles!!"
"I will kill them one by one… tear off those pathetic masks that turned a happy child into a sorrowful one!"
"I will kill them for every moment I cried from hunger, for every slap that landed on my mother's face, for every kiss I buried under the soil!"
I screamed until the walls of the quarter trembled, until the crows left their nests, until the beggars' hearts shivered in the corners.
I did not shout for attention. I shouted because my heart could no longer hold silence. Because every tear I had buried in my chest now erupted like a poison.
"I will make them see my face!" "The face they fashioned with their own hands, the face that never knew warmth, or holidays, or bedtime stories!"
Imagine a child with innocent features clutching a broken toy… then take away his mother, his safety, his name, his childhood… what remains?
A shadow. Hateful. Broken. Alone… yet still standing, still breathing.
I am that shadow.
I will not forgive them. I will not excuse them. I will not forget them.
I do not ask for justice… I bring vengeance.
And if I must walk across all their corpses to bring back my mother's voice, I will walk.
If they call me a criminal? Let them.
But let one of them write this down: "The child you made from tears… returned to you with a sword."
Then silence fell.
My voice faded, but the fire inside me did not. The wind carried my scream into alleys, into closed windows, into the chests of those who had forgotten that a shadow remained alive in the city.
I stood there between a crumbling wall and a broken lamppost, breathing.
A thin cat passed by my side; it looked at me with eyes that spoke as if it understood everything I had said. In the dark, I heard a faint sound… the soft sob of a child behind a wooden crate.
I moved closer.
He was shaking, holding himself, his eyes soaked in fear and hunger, in what was left of a childhood unlike anything the world knew.
He looked at me. He said nothing. Nor did I.
But between him and me, something broke.
Something cracked… as I had cracked before.
Was I that child? Had I extended my hand like he did? Did he see in me a face like his when he grows?
I don't know.
All I know is that I looked at him…and I smiled.
A smile that meant nothing… no warmth. An empty smile, like the city, like the gray sky, like life after my mother.
Then I turned my face and walked.
I do not know where to. Maybe to the house of the first noble… maybe to the fire… or back to the depths of my silence.
But this I know for certain… something began tonight.
And it will not end easily.
I walked.
My steps were heavy; only the steps were audible. The air grew denser, the sky choked its color, the wind stopped. Then I saw him.
A black cat sat in the middle of the road, motionless. His eyes shone with a color that did not belong to life.
I stopped.
My heart gave no warning, but something in my bones whispered: "Do not approach."
I tried to change my route, to turn away, to ignore him as I have ignored everything for so long.
But when I stepped away…
the cat spoke.
Not with a human voice. Not with an animal voice.
But with a third thing unclassifiable.
The sound that came out I cannot describe with words.
The moment it spoke… a tremor ran up my spine to my fingertips.
I froze. My face…
was not marked by fear. It was astonishment.
Not the astonishment of survival, nor of terror… but the kind you feel when you look upon a monster…
"How amusing you are…" the cat licked its paws slowly, and it had no shadow. "O humans… how amusing you are."
Then it raised its gaze to me. It did not move. It did not blink.
"You take revenge… you kill… you swear you seek justice, but in the end you eat one another."
Its voice was warm… somehow.
Its first blink was like a cold stab in my chest, its claws seemed longer than they should be, and its speech was not understood by the mind but felt in flesh and bone.
I wanted to speak. But my tongue shrank… as if I had returned to being an infant who cannot form words.
The cat laughed.
A laugh unfit for a creature. Far too human… yet coming from a mouth that was not human.
"Do you think you are different?" it said as it rose, its back bending like a broken arch in the night.
"Do you think vengeance will fill the hollow in your heart?" "You will kill them, and then what? Will your mother return? Will you find the other child inside you?"
It took one step.
One single step.
But the ground beneath it cracked like glass.
I did not move.
The air turned to smoke. The city vanished; we were no longer in the alley… but in a white place.
It looked at me long, its eyes carrying the chaos of the world, then whispered:
"If you truly are the shadow… beware, for even shadows are crushed when they approach the light."
Then it walked away.
Simply… as if it did not belong to our world.
It left me standing between my tremor and my silence, realizing I had seen something…
The air began to stir again, but I did not move. The cat walked off slowly, swaying with calm steps as if nothing had happened. As if I had not screamed not long ago, had not sworn vengeance, had not vowed anything.
As if everything… had no meaning.
And suddenly my voice burst out.
"Who are you?!" I cried, gasping, like someone trying to pull his soul from his throat.
"Who the hell are you?!"
I ran after it a few steps, like a madman chasing his shadow, my eyes lost, my body trembling, my heart hammering at the gates of madness.
"Who are you?! Answer me! Who are you?!" I shouted once, twice, three times… until I felt the whole street listening.
The cat stopped.
It turned half its body. It raised its head toward me slowly, eyes deep beyond measure.
Then… it spoke.
"I am…"