Ruins of Wethervore
The world was burning.
Flames swallowed what remained of Wethervore, turning homes, towers, and memories into black dust. The sky bled red, and the air was thick with smoke and ash. The wind howled through streets once filled with laughter — now only the crackle of fire answered back.
A lone figure walked through the ruins.
His snow-white hair was stained with soot and blood, and his blue eyes glowed faintly through the smoke — light flickering in the emptiness. Within those eyes, delicate white sigils shimmered like fading constellations.
He dragged a sword behind him, its dull edge screeching against the scorched ground. The sound cut through the silence like a dying heartbeat. He wasn't dragging it for effect — he was simply too weak to lift it.
Each step left a print in the ashes.
Each breath trembled.
"How… how am I so weak?" he thought, voice breaking in the hollow of his mind.
"I couldn't do anything… I still can't…"
Images flashed before his eyes — faces, smiles, laughter now lost to the fire.
His mother's gentle smile.
His little sister's cheerful grin.
His best friend's final, fearless look.
And then her.
"Lyra…" he whispered.
Pink hair. Soft laughter. Eyes brighter than the sunrise. The only warmth he had ever known — gone, just like the rest.
His hands clenched the sword tighter. The metal burned against his skin, but he didn't stop walking, he saw people buried in the ruble, children crying having lost their parents, yet he continued to walk.
Finally before him loomed the Demon Lord's castle, its black gates untouched by flame, towering and cruel. Two demons stood guard — tall, armored, their crimson eyes gleaming in the firelight.
He approached them, dragging the sword, his steps uneven but steady. The demons didn't move. Their eyes followed him with silent amusement.
He stopped a few feet away, shaking from exhaustion, and with all the strength left in his body, he lifted the sword, pointing it weakly toward them.
The blade wavered in the air.
His breath came in ragged gasps.
For a long moment, nothing happened.
Then one demon's lips curled into a grin. The other tilted its head slightly — almost curious.
Without a single word, they both turned and pushed the gate open.
The heavy doors groaned as they swung wide, revealing the dark hall beyond — lit only by the crimson glow spilling from within.
The young man said nothing.
He lowered his sword and stepped forward, crossing the threshold as the demons' faint, mocking chuckles echoed behind him.
Inside, the throne awaited.
He knew — the gate had been opened for a reason he didn't need them to voice. The demons' thin, amused gazes said it all, and the knowledge burned him worse than any flame. He couldn't do anything but cry. Not because the knowledge surprised him, but because the truth was softer and colder than he had imagined: they were letting him come in to suffer.
Still, the crying didn't stop him. He stepped into the throne hall.
The air inside the chamber was a living thing — thick with negative mana that tasted of rust and rot. It pressed against his lungs, tightened his chest, and forced bile up his throat. The aura of the Demon Lord rolled out in waves; each one made the world tilt. He gagged. He pissed himself. The sword nearly slid from his fingers — molten weight and fear every bit as real — but he clenched his grip until his knuckles went white.
As a boy he'd run from pain. He'd hidden and whined his way through dangers. That cowardice had kept him alive once, but it would not save him now.
From the shadows atop a black throne, the Demon Lord watched. When he noticed the human, he didn't rise. He only laughed — a single, low sound that swelled into a roar and then shattered into merciless pieces. The laughter rolled through the hall, filling the columns and bouncing back from the fractured mirrors of glass and obsidian, until it felt as if the room itself was mocking him.
The laughter stopped as quickly as it had started. The Demon Lord's grin thinned into something like hunger. He leaned forward and spoke, every syllable a boulder smashing into the soul.
"What have you come here to do, insect?"
The voice wrapped around him, shook the marrow in his bones, and made the floor under his feet seem like a lie. He stammered; his words came out small and ragged.
"I— I have come to end your evil… to— to pay you back for all you did."
The castle answered with a laugh even louder than before — a sound that made old torches tremble and splinters fall from the ceiling. The Demon Lord's eyes glinted with slow amusement.
"You? Have come to vanquish me?" he said, incredulous. Then, quieter, sharper: "What have you truly come here to do?"
The question was a blade turned inward. In that terrible silence, truth slid into him like poison: he had not come to save the living. He had come to be taken — to die and be reunited with those he had failed. The thought left him raw and naked.
The Demon Lord's lips parted in a smile that was no longer playful.
"I know what you have truly come for," he said. "And I will not grant you that mercy."
Something awful and furious rose inside him — grief turned animal. He screamed, not words but a sound torn from the throat by loss, and lunged forward, charging the throne with the sword held like a flag of surrender and hate at once.
With a single snap of the Demon Lord's fingers, shadows unfurled. Dozens of demonic hands and chains slammed around him. They pinched, burned, and bound — restraining flesh and bone as easily as a net catches a moth, they began to drag him across the floor, away from the Demon King, he struggled, trying to fight himself free, but who was he kidding, he couldn't even beat the weakest goblin.
The Demon Lord watched as the captors did their work, and his grin grew wider, colder.
"Torture him," he ordered, voice soft as cutting glass. "And make sure he does not die."
The order dropped into the hall like a verdict.
"Wait!, wait! Please!" He said crying as he was being dragged away.
The demons dragged him into some sort of dungeon which carried the stench of rotting flesh, enough to make you vomit you guys out... There he saw body parts of soldiers that were captured,his eyes widened in fear of what was about to happen to him.
The demons around him answered with clicks and rasps; the sound of claws and chains began — immediate, mechanical, inexorable. Pain followed, and with it the knowledge he had wanted: there would be no mercy, only a slow, deliberate obliteration of what remained of him, they took him apart piece by piece every single day.
Three months.
That's how long it lasted. Three endless months of pain and silence.
Every time he neared death, the demons forced their blood down his throat — thick, black, burning like acid. For a human, it wasn't healing; it was torture. It rebuilt his body while ripping his soul apart. Pain became his heartbeat, his breath, his entire existence.
He no longer screamed. He no longer cried.
He just watched.
His eyes were empty, his voice gone. The demons laughed as they worked, calling him the crybaby of Wethervore — the weakest human they'd ever seen.
But one night, after his usual torment had ended, he looked at the demon that had tortured him about to leave and spoke for the first time in weeks.
His voice was cold, steady, terrifyingly calm.
"Where are you going? We're not done yet."
The demon froze. For the first time, it felt fear.
"What's wrong with you, human?" it growled. "Do you not feel pain anymore? Ha! You want to die, don't you? At this point, anyone would."
Grim's lips curled into a faint, broken smile.
"Fool. It's not that I want to die… I just want to see what else you've got. What more can you do to me?"
He was nothing but skin and bone now, barely breathing — yet his eyes glowed faintly, wild and unbroken.
"You've gone mad," the demon hissed, stepping back before leaving the chamber.
Grim chuckled to himself, the sound rough and hollow.
"Is that it? Have I gone mad? Is this what's left of me?"
He burst into laughter — a sound that echoed through the dungeon, cracked and hysterical. Tears streamed down his face as a memory of his mother rushed to him, his mother in the kitchen cooking one of her deli meals, he pulled his arms free from the chains, flesh tearing, bones snapping. He didn't even flinch. His laughter turned manic
"I'm coming mother." He said
as he twisted his neck with his own hands — and everything went silent.
Darkness.
Then — light.
He felt weightless, suspended in a vast, empty space that shimmered like the heavens. At its center glowed a blinding light, pure and endless.
"Am I… in heaven?" he whispered.
It was beautiful. So beautiful it made him cry — really cry, for the first time in months, he lowered his head and clenched his fists, if only I was stronger, if I was stronger I would have been able to protect the one I love, instead I always had them protecting me, if I had one wish, just one... I would wish to protect them if even it was just once. Just after this, a powerful force pulled him toward the light."huh?, what's happening?, what the?" It wrapped around him, consuming him until his body disappeared into its brilliance.
Then everything went white.
When his vision returned, he was lying in a bed.
Not just any bed — his bed.
He sat up quickly, eyes wide. The air was warm, clean. Outside the window stretched green lawns, sunlight, and children playing.
"Where… am I?" he murmured.
"Am I alive? Was it all a dream?"
No. It couldn't be. It had been too real — too painful to be a dream.
He looked around the small wooden room — the same cabin he once lived in with his mother and sister. His heart began to race.
Then a voice.
"Grim!! Grim!!"
It was high-pitched, cheerful — familiar. A door burst open and a little girl ran in.
"Mom says dinner's ready!"
Grim froze. His eyes widened as tears slipped down his cheeks. It was his sister. But she was so small — maybe five or six years old.
He stumbled forward and wrapped his arms around her.
"Mira… you're alive…" he whispered, voice trembling.
"Moooom! I think Grim's on drugs!" she yelled, squirming out of his arms.
He blinked, pulling back, half laughing, half sobbing.
"Wait— how old are you?"
"Six!" Mira said proudly, hands on her hips.
Grim stared at her, heart pounding.
"Then that means… I'm eight…" he muttered, glancing at his small hands.
He had gone back.
Eighteen years.
Mira ran off, giggling. Grim rushed to the mirror on his dresser and stared at the reflection — a boy's face stared back at him.
He didn't waste another second. He ran to the dining room. His mother stood there, setting the table, just as she always did.
She turned as he entered, smiling warmly.
"You crybaby," she said softly. "Why are you crying?"
He fell to his knees, trembling, tears pouring freely now.
"It's nothing, Mom… I'm okay. I'm… "
He smiled through the tears and wrapped his arms around her, clinging to the warmth he thought he'd lost forever.
The smell of stew filled the air as Grim quietly helped his mother set the table. The familiar clatter of dishes, the warmth of the fire — it all felt unreal, like a dream he might wake up from at any second.
His hands trembled as he placed the bowls down. If I've really gone back in time… then everything that happened… everything that destroyed us…
He swallowed hard, his reflection flickering in the polished metal of a spoon.
Does that mean it's all about to happen again?
The thought sent a chill through him. His heart raced, but then — he clenched his jaw and shook his head.
"No," he muttered under his breath, his eyes sharpening.
There was no way he would allow that to happen again. Not to Mira. Not to his mother. Not to anyone.
"But… what can I even do?" he whispered, glancing at his small hands. "I'm weak. I couldn't even lift a sword before…"
Then, slowly, his trembling stopped. A different light flickered in his eyes — the same cold resolve that had survived through torture and death.
"No," he said again, firmer this time.
"Armed with my memories… I'm the most powerful person here."
He looked out the window — children playing, sunlight shining through the trees — the same world that would one day burn.
"I can't change the future too much," he thought. "If I do, I'll lose the only advantage I have — the future I've seen."
He clenched his fists, the determination burning stronger than ever.
"I have to prepare. I have to get stronger."
Then he raised his head, his eyes glowing faintly — that old, broken light returning with a new purpose.
"No…" he whispered, a small grin forming.
"I will get stronger."
And then, louder, with every ounce of his heart—
"I will become the strongest!!!"
The words echoed through the small cabin, trembling with both pain and hope. His mother peeked over from the kitchen, confused by her son's sudden shout.
"Grim? What's gotten into you?"
He smiled and shook his head, forcing a calm laugh.
"Nothing, Mom. I just… remembered something important."
She smiled back, not pressing further.
But Grim knew — that was the day his real story began.