"Some wounds never heal because they were never physical wounds."
⸻
The rain kept falling mercilessly.
But it was not rain that washed away — it was rain that revealed.
Luin walked through the alleys of the old market,
where fear feeds on human weakness,
and pain is sold silently on wet stone and broken dreams.
⸻
A strange smell.
A mixture of mud, sweat... and hot iron.
Blood.
He sensed it before he saw it.
He felt it deep in his bones.
⸻
A scream.
Then whispers.
Then... silence — the kind that weighs on the heart.
He turned.
And saw.
⸻
A large man clutching a small boy by the neck.
Beside them, another child knelt on the ground —
his hand outstretched, bleeding... fingers severed.
A piece of wood beside him —
and on it, those fingers nailed in place.
The knife was still dripping.
⸻
The man laughed.
The child cried without sound.
The crowd stared... without reaction.
As if cruelty had become a familiar street show.
⸻
"A familiar scene..."
"As if I've been here before."
⸻
The memory struck him like lightning.
A dark basement.
The dim flicker of a dying lamp.
Three children.
And a masked man approaching slowly... holding a rusty knife.
"Every liar loses a finger."
"Whoever speaks... gets branded."
Then came the screams —
two children crying for help,
and the sound of burning flesh.
And Luin —
he just sat there, frozen, watching.
He did nothing.
He was afraid.
⸻
"I was there."
"And I did nothing."
"Coward."
"Too weak to move."
⸻
But now...
"I have to do something... now."
The words didn't come from his mouth.
They came from somewhere deeper —
an old, hollow place inside him...
from something he thought had died long ago.
⸻
His feet didn't ask for permission.
They simply moved.
No thought.
No courage.
Only pain — turning into motion.
⸻
The man raised the knife again, ready to cut.
But he never finished the swing.
In an instant, Luin was there.
A sharp strike to the man's wrist —
the knife flew,
and in the same breath, Luin caught it...
and drove it back into the man's chest.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
Until the laughter stopped.
And the man collapsed —
the rain washing the steam from his dying body.
⸻
Luin didn't look at him.
He looked at the child.
Then at the blood.
Then at his own trembling hand.
"This wasn't a rescue."
"It was revenge... for an old memory that never died."
⸻
The first child ran.
The second crawled away, dragging fear behind him.
And Luin...
stood still —
the rain mixing with the blood on his palm.
⸻
Then...
a whisper.
Close.
Cold.
As if spoken by his own heart.
"Your pain... is the key to your seal."
⸻
He looked at his forearm.
Beneath the skin, for a fleeting moment,
a curved symbol flickered —
like burning ink trying to breathe.
Then it vanished.
⸻
"That wasn't courage."
"I shouldn't have done that."
⸻
The rain continued to fall.
But it didn't wash anything away.
Instead, it seemed to feed something buried —
watering the seeds of a darkness
that had just begun to awaken.
⸻
End of Chapter Two