On the northern outskirts of Maramureș, a region that serves as a border between Romania and Ukraine, there stood a fairly small orphanage on a mountainside.
The building was very old, its crumbling structure making it seem as though it might collapse at any moment. Not far from the orphanage stood a small, aging chapel. Aside from that, there were hardly any houses, let alone a village anywhere nearby.
It was a very isolated place, a sharp contrast to Maramureș's reputation as a fairly popular tourist destination in Romania.
Klank Klank
The sound of a metal bell clanking broke the peaceful silence surrounding the orphanage as the sun rose in the east.
"Guys, wake up. It's already past six. It's time for morning prayers. Sister will scold us if you don't wake up soon."
The voice belonged to a teenage girl, around fifteen years old. She had a typical Eastern European appearance, with beautiful brunette hair tied neatly in place.
She said this as she opened the door to a room containing seven people, all of them still sleeping comfortably despite lying on nothing more than thin sheets of fabric. The sheets were too flimsy to even be called beds, yet it was as if the coldness of the floor did not bother them in the slightest.
"Five more minutesssss…" muttered a seven-year-old boy, half-conscious, drooling all over the sheet.
"Dracula is cute," came the voice of a little girl on the other side of the room, speaking in her sleep.
"Ghhhkkkk… ghkkkk…" An ugly snore came from a chubby boy around ten years old, sleeping with his arms spread out as if he were being crucified, a rather strange sleeping position.
Hearing their responses and seeing that no one even bothered to wake up after the irritating clanking of the bell in her hand, she clenched her fist in frustration.
"Y-you guys…"
Her gaze then shifted to a boy sleeping in the corner of the room, facing the wall.
"And you, Jay. As the oldest among them, you should be setting a good example for your siblings. You should be the one waking up first and leading them to morning prayers," she said.
The boy named Jay then turned around, as if he had not been sleeping at all and had simply chosen to ignore her.
"I wasn't even sleeping though," he said, looking at her with deep black eyes and noticeable dark circles beneath them.
"You didn't sleep all night again, even though Sister already scolded you a few days ago?" The girl, whose name was Elena, let out a sigh of disbelief.
"Well, the book Sister gave me yesterday was really good. I couldn't help reading it all night. So technically, it's her fault, right?" Jay replied as he yawned, closing the book in his hand before standing up and walking toward Elena, only to snatch the bell from her hand.
"What are you doing?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Watch and learn," Jay said. He took a deep breath, then-
"WAKE UP, IT'S TIME FOR BREAKFAST!"
He shouted at the top of his lungs, and not long after, all the children snapped their eyes open, as if a magnetic force had been triggered by the word breakfast.
"Breakfast!?"
"I'm coming!"
Jay smirked at Elena, who stood beside him, completely flabbergasted.
"Alright, I'm going to wash my face. You handle the rest," he said, handing the bell back to her before leaving the room and disappearing down the hall, leaving Elena frozen in silence.
What was even the point of snatching the bell from me? Elena thought, just before she was swarmed by the kids.
"Elena, where's breakfast?"
"What are we having? Is it potato stew? I hope it's potato stew. I don't like stale bread!"
Questions flew at her from all directions, and she could not answer a single one of them, because breakfast was not even ready yet.
That little…
She clenched her fist, fighting the urge to run after Jay and smack him on the head. In the end, she only sighed in defeat, accepting her fate. Right now, all she could do was figure out how to calm down these chaotic embodiments known as children.
Sigh.
"Being an older sister is a tough job."
***
It was a beautiful morning, warm sunlight gleaming through the forest and bathing the vast, grassy land in gold.
Between two maple trees, Jay lay alone on a hammock, fast asleep. Today, as usual, he would be taking the orphanage's cows out for their breakfast, letting them graze in the meadow not far away.
"No matter how I think about it, it still feels ironic that I'm taking livestock out for their breakfast when I haven't even had mine yet," he muttered, closing his eyes again.
Breakfast was not a big deal for Jay. Not just for him, but for everyone in the orphanage. They were unsurprisingly poor, and the only way they could earn enough money to put food on the table was by selling the milk the cows produced to nearby villagers.
It was already remarkable that they had managed to survive for so many years doing just that. Donations were rare. No one really cared to give money to a small orphanage isolated from society. Occasionally, there were contributions from former orphans who had once lived there. Most of them had moved to the city in search of a better life, leaving this place behind.
They were busy building lives of their own, and it was already generous of them to share a portion of their hard-earned money to help feed children they did not even know. Jay was not ungrateful. He understood that.
'I wonder if I'd do the same if I ever got out of this place', he thought, staring up at the sky as the wind gently swayed his black hair.
As his thoughts wandered and his eyes drifted shut, he suddenly felt the atmosphere around him fall unnaturally silent. There were no birdsong, no rustling leaves, not even the low sounds of the cows.
Jay was naturally gifted with exceptionally sharp senses, far more sensitive than those of a normal human. He did not even know why he possessed such a talent.
Then the silence broke.
A sudden earthquake jolted him. The ground shook violently, flocks of birds burst into the sky, and the cows began to scream in panic.
"Ugh," Jay groaned in pain as he was thrown from his hammock and hit the ground. The fall scraped him slightly, though the bleeding stopped only seconds later.
He crawled toward the open field, struggling to keep his balance as the earth continued to tremble.
'An earthquake!?'
As he tried to analyze the situation, a dim light flickered deep within the forest ahead of him.
Moments later, the vibrations subsided. Jay pushed himself upright, dusted off his clothes, and scanned his surroundings, trying to piece together what had just happened. Then he remembered the faint glow he had seen when the quake struck.
"That light… this earthquake is probably have something do with it," Jay muttered.
'Should I go into the forest?'
He glanced back toward the orphanage on the hillside, hidden from normal human sight. If Sister or Elena found out he had gone into the forest alone, he would be grounded for at least a week, and the thought made his chest feel tight.
"Well, that's only if they find out," he said with a dismissive shrug.
Leaving the cows behind as they calmly returned to grazing, as if nothing had happened, Jay stepped into the forest, carrying only the stick he used to herd them.
As he walked deeper toward the source of the light, his body began to tremble slightly, as though an invisible force were pulling him forward.
'There's no doubt about it. That light caused the earthquake', he thought.
After walking for some time, Jay finally reached the place he believed to be the origin of the light. Just as he suspected, the sight before him was astonishing. Dozens of trees lay shattered and uprooted, strewn across the ground.
But Jay's eyes were not focused on the destroyed trees. On the contrary, his attention was drawn to the center of the crater.
Lying on the ground was a boy, probably around the same age as him, unconscious. He had dark silver hair, pale skin, and a surprisingly handsome face. His clothes were torn apart, and numerous scars marked his small body.
Jay relaxed slightly as the trembling in his body finally stopped. He approached the boy hesitantly, knowing he had to check whether the boy was still alive. He could not just leave someone unconscious in the middle of the forest.
"This boy…" he muttered.
Jay tried to wake him by gently poking him with the wooden stick in his hand, but the boy showed no sign of movement.
'Is he dead?'
Even with his heightened senses, Jay could barely detect any pulse from the boy's body.
After a brief pause, he crouched beside him and reached toward the boy's neck to check for a pulse. Before his fingers could touch skin, the boy's eyes snapped open, catching Jay completely off guard.
"Wha-"
In an instant, the boy grabbed Jay's wrist. The movement was so fast Jay did not have time to react. At the same time, he felt something sharp press against his neck.
"You have five seconds to identify yourself and explain why you're trying to grab my neck," the boy said coldly, a pair of piercing blue eyes locked onto Jay's deep black ones.
"Ja-… Zayyn. My name is Zayyn Kovalenko," Jay replied calmly, an almost unbelievable composure given the killing intent radiating from the silver-haired boy. "I wasn't trying to hurt you. I was just checking whether you were alive."
Silence followed. No one spoke. No sound broke the air. It was just two boys staring at each other, one of them fully capable of killing the other at any moment.
After a moment of scrutiny, the silver-haired boy seemed satisfied. The pressure vanished as he withdrew his killing intent and released Jay's wrist.
'I thought I was going to die. That really hurt. That brat is absurdly strong', Jay thought, forcing himself to remain calm as he rubbed his wrist.
The silver-haired boy stood up and checked something inside his pocket before turning his gaze back to Jay.
"You said your name is Zayyn. Tell me where we are," he said.
"That's me," Jay replied. "But isn't it rude to ask questions without introducing yourself first?"
The boy fell silent for a moment before finally speaking.
"Me… I am Vali Lu-... Lucian. My name is Vali Lucian."