The night air tasted wrong — like burned prayers and broken promises.
Each step I took across the shattered temple floor echoed too loud, as if the world itself recoiled from me.
I pressed a hand to my chest.
The symbols carved there still burned faintly, black and alive beneath my skin.
I could feel them — not like tattoos, but like open wounds that refused to bleed.
The black lotus had taken root inside me.
I was not the boy they tried to kill.
Not anymore.
I remembered a voice.
My mother's — singing lullabies in a language she was forbidden to teach me.
I remembered her hands — rough, calloused, strong — tucking me under fraying blankets while she whispered,
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"Survive, little ash. Even in fire, survive."
I remembered the first time I saw her bleed for protecting my cursed name.
I remembered the day they dragged her away.
Pain bloomed in my chest — sharp, vivid, merciless.
Not the ritual’s pain. This was older. Deeper.
The black lotus inside me unfurled its petals slowly, greedily drinking my sorrow.
And the more it fed, the less I felt.
The stars overhead were too bright.
Each one pulsed like a wound in the sky.
I moved through the bones and burnt offerings without flinching.
The altar — what was left of it — hissed as rain began to fall, steam rising in twisting ghost-shapes.
Somewhere beyond the ruins, I heard movement.
Soft. Careful.
Like someone trying very hard not to be noticed.
They had come for the aftermath.
Scavengers. Hunters. Survivors.
Or worse — the ones who sent the elders here in the first place.
The black lotus inside me whispered:
"You are not prey. You are the storm they forgot to fear."
I smiled — or at least, I bared my teeth.
There was no place for me to run.
Not anymore.
I would not flee.
I would not hide.
I would let the world come — and watch it burn.
"Thank you for reading! ?? If you're enjoying Raen's dark journey, please leave a comment or favorite — it really helps and motivates me to keep writing! See you soon in Chapter 3: The Silent Ones."