I saw myself barefoot in the dirt, a crust of bread clutched in a shaking hand. My stomach twisted from hunger, but I broke it in half and gave it to another boy, smaller, hungrier, his eyes dull with starvation.
He looked at me as if I had given him the world.
“Thank you,” he’d whispered.
And I remembered how proud I’d felt—for a single, fragile heartbeat.
The shadows hissed, their voices curling around the vision.
“Look at him.The boy of kindness. The boy of mercy.”
The image changed. I was older, taller, and my ribs still showed. Children shouted after me in the alleys—“bastard, whore’s son”—their stones biting into my skin. My fists clenched, but I never struck back. I turned away, because some part of me still believed I could be better. That I didn’t have to become what they called me.
“The boy who endured,”the whispers breathed. “The boy who chose gentleness when the world offered him none.”
Another flicker—my mother. Her body slumped, her shawl clutched tight as men left her in the night. The smell of cheap wine. The quiet sob she thought I couldn’t hear. I remembered sitting beside her anyway, placing my hand on hers, whispering,“It’s alright, Mother. I still love you.”
The child in the vision smiled through his tears, holding her hand, refusing to let go even as shame crushed them both.
And I wept.
Because that was who I had been—a boy who gave everything when he had nothing, who endured when the world demanded hatred, who loved when love had already died.
The shadows thickened, pressing close until the air itself began to quake. Their voices rolled through the pit like thunder crawling over bone.
“This is your innocence. This is your goodness. This is what you must kill. The boy who loved despite hunger. The boy who forgave despite shame. The boy who carried hope when he should have broken. He is the last tether to your humanity. Destroy him.”
The boy stood in the darkness.
He trembled, clutching his hands together. “Please…” His voice cracked like old wood. “Don’t kill me. I’m you. I’m all that’s left. If you do this, you’ll never feel again. You’ll never be good again.”
My breath broke. My chest caved inward until it hurt to stand. My throat filled with the taste of iron and salt.
“I don’t want to lose you,” I whispered, my voice tearing itself apart.
The shadows roared, their sound shaking the stone, splitting the air until it screamed.
“Kill him. Break him. Or remain here forever. If you cling to him, Amara will be devoured. Salvatore will rise. And you will die in the dark, useless, gnawed by your own regret. You must, Lazarus.”
The boy stumbled forward, sobbing, his small hands clutching my own as though I were the last star in a collapsing sky. His eyes held everything I had ever lost. “Don’t,” he wept. “If you kill me, you’ll never be good again. You’ll become him. You’ll be your father’s son.”
And it shattered me.
Because I wanted to keep him.
The boy who believed the world could still be kind.
The boy who gave bread to the starving, who forgave the unforgivable, who whispered love to a mother drenched in shame.
He was the last thing pure in me. The last thing untouched by Severen’s shadow.
But then I saw them—Amara’s face pale with fear, my mother’s body crumpled and bruised, Salvatore’s smirk carved into betrayal. The world I loved was devoured by darkness.
The pit erupted. The walls twisted, rippling like molten glass until they split open into a doorway.
A home with warm golden light.
The shadows whispered, their tone soft now, coaxing, and persuading.
