Flashback — Ethan at Emma's Bedside
The house was quiet.
No arguments.
No missions.
No guns.
Just silence.
A small lamp glowed in the corner of Emma's childhood room — warm, soft, yellow.
The curtains swayed gently from the open window.
Night breeze.
The kind of night meant for peace.
Emma — maybe 7 years old — slept curled under a light blanket.
Face calm.
Breathing slow.
Small hands tucked under her cheek.
Ethan stood at the doorway first, silently, like he was afraid that stepping closer might break something precious.
He finally moved… slow.
Boots barely making sound on the floor.
He sat beside her bed.
Not touching.
Just… watching.
Her eyelashes twitched once — a dream.
Ethan's expression was not cold.
Nor warm.
Just… tired.
He whispered,
> "Emma…"
The name didn't wake her — but it hurt him.
His eyes traced her small hands.
Soft skin.
Not yet bruised.
Not yet bloodied.
Not yet trembling under the weight of guilt.
He imagined — no — he knew what would come.
The rooms she would walk into and never forget.
The screams she would hear.
The rain she would cry under.
The blood she would wash off hands that once held crayons.
His jaw tightened.
"You're going to become a murderer…"
The words were not cruel.
They were a sentence he had already accepted.
He leaned slightly, so only the air could hear:
"I wish I could have given you another life."
His voice cracked — just once.
He reached out — but didn't touch her.
His fingers stopped just an inch over her hair.
Because if he touched her,
He would break.
Rain began outside.
Soft.
Gentle.
Like the world was crying for her before she even understood why.
Ethan closed his eyes.
"I'm sorry."
He stood, slowly.
Walked to the door.
Looked back one last time.
A small innocent child slept — dreaming of nothing tragic.
And Ethan whispered, from the doorway, voice weak:
"You'll survive… because you are my daughter."
He closed the door.
And the sound was quiet —
but the future it sealed was not.
Why Ethan Made This Choice?
Making Emma. Like this.
Ethan Elarat was not born evil.
He became it.
He spent his youth drowning in violence — killing, torturing, and destroying lives alongside Vencor. He earned a reputation that spread across entire cities.
People feared his shadow.
People whispered his name like a curse.
And Ethan liked it.
For years, he was exactly what everyone believed he was — a monster.
But then something happened that Vencor never understood:
Ethan started thinking.
Years of blood washed into his mind.
Faces. Screams. Children. Innocent people.
They didn't haunt him immediately.
But slowly…
they started to come back at night.
Every night.
He tried to ignore them.
He tried to push deeper into cruelty.
But guilt began to grow like rot inside bone.
He realized:
"What I've done can never be forgiven."
---
His Attempt to Change
He left Vencor.
Left the gang.
Joined the military, because it was the one place where killing was allowed but had meaning.
He tried to fight for something good.
But every time he killed a man in uniform —
he saw the faces he once killed in alleys.
No healing came.
Atonement didn't come.
And when he tried to stop Vencor —
when he begged his old friend to stop the cruelty —
Vencor only laughed.
"You and I are the same, Ethan. You can't change what we are."
So Ethan disappeared.
For years.
Trying to find a purpose.
Failing.
---
The Thought That Broke Him
While living away from cities and violence, he met someone.
He became a father.
Emma was small.
Quiet.
Soft-spoken.
When he held her for the first time —
he knew two things:
1. He did not deserve to have a daughter.
2. If he did nothing, his sins would still stain the world forever.
He couldn't delete his past.
He couldn't undo what he had done.
But he could do one last thing:
Create something that cleans the world he once harmed.
---
The Plan
He needed Emma to become something people feared but admired.
Not a monster like him—
but the monster that kills monsters.
So he made the cruelest decision a parent could ever make:
He let Vencor turn her into a killer.
Because Emma Elarat, the daughter of Ethan Elarat, the world's former nightmare—
Would eventually be known as:
The Hero Who Killed Evil.
And in doing so— she would erase him.
She would erase everything he had been.
Emma wouldn't know the truth.
She would only know one thing:
She was cleaning the world.
Saving people.
And Ethan could disappear in peace, believing:
"If the world sees her as a hero…
then my sins might finally die."
---
The Tragedy
But Ethan did not predict one thing:
Emma would not become a pure hero.
She would become a shattered one.
A hero made from blood.
A savior born from trauma.
A weapon created from guilt.
---
That is the tragedy of Ethan Elarat.
He did not make Emma a monster because he wanted to.
He made Emma a monster
because he believed it was the only way
to save the world from the monster he used to be.
Scene — Ethan vs. Vencor (The Eve of the Tragedy)
The sky was black that night.
No moon.
No stars.
Just cold wind crawling between buildings like a ghost.
Vencor's private office was dim, lit by one flickering lamp.
He was leaning back in his chair, cigarette burning slowly between his fingers.
The door opened.
Ethan Elarat entered.
The room felt smaller with him in it — not because of his size, but because of what he used to be.
Vencor smirked.
> Vencor:
"You finally came back. How long has it been? Five years?
Did you enjoy playing soldier, Ethan?"
Ethan didn't sit.
Didn't blink.
His eyes were calm.
Too calm.
> Ethan:
"I didn't come to talk about the past."
Vencor raised an eyebrow.
> Vencor:
"Then what? Come to beg me to stop again?"
Silence.
Then Ethan stepped forward — slow, deliberate.
> Ethan:
"No. I came to tell you something."
Vencor's smirk faded.
Something in Ethan's voice felt wrong.
> Vencor:
"…What is it?"
Ethan exhaled.
A heavy breath — like releasing a lifetime of weight.
> Ethan:
"My daughter."
Vencor's eyes narrowed — amused.
> Vencor:
"Ah, yes. The girl. Emma, was it?
Sweet kid. Quiet. Looks nothing like you.
You want me to keep her away from all this?"
Ethan's face didn't change.
> Ethan:
"No."
A pause.
A dangerous one.
> Ethan:
"I want you to use her."
Vencor blinked — shocked.
> Vencor:
"…Repeat that."
Ethan stepped closer — their faces only inches apart.
> Ethan:
"You heard me.
Break her.
Shape her.
Make her into a weapon.
My weapon."
Vencor laughed — loud, cruel, echoing.
> Vencor:
"You're insane. You want your own daughter to become a killer?"
Ethan didn't blink.
> Ethan:
"I want her to become what I could never be."
Vencor stopped laughing.
> Ethan:
"I have killed enough to drown in blood.
I tried to undo it — I couldn't.
So someone else will.
Someone who carries my name.
Someone who will erase the monsters I helped create."
He grabbed Vencor's collar — tight.
> Ethan (low, steady):
"She'll grow. She'll learn. She'll suffer.
And one day…"
His eyes turned cold — colder than death.
> Ethan:
"She will come for you."
Vencor froze.
No smile now.
Just silence.
Ethan let go.
Turned.
Walked toward the door.
But he stopped before leaving — and spoke without looking back:
> Ethan:
"Vencor…
You always said monsters like us don't get to choose how we die."
He looked over his shoulder.
> Ethan:
"But I did."
His voice was ice.
> Ethan:
"You will die by her hands."
He left.
The door closed.
The lamp flickered.
Vencor sat there — motionless — for the first time in his life uneasy.
---
The Next Day
Emma was forced into her first blood.
Her parents.
The beginning. Of Her Long Journey.
Chapter end