The world was a blur of pain and the coppery taste of blood. Each ragged breath Ray drew was a fire in his lungs, a desperate, whistling gasp that did little to fill the void left by the beating.
"How was it, huh? Wanna take more?"
The voice, Lucas's voice, was a smug, grating sound from somewhere above him. It was the sound of a predator toying with broken prey. Ray tried to open his eyes, but one was swollen shut, a throbbing mass of agony. Through the slit of the other, he saw the cracked asphalt of the secluded street, swimming in and out of focus. His own blood, dark and slick, was beginning to pool near his mouth.
Just a little longer, he thought, the words a fuzzy, distant comfort in his mind. He'll get bored. He always gets bored.
Lucas was everything Ray wasn't: six feet of corded muscle, sun-kissed hair, and a face that made girls sigh. Ray was… background noise. Average height, average build, black hair that was always a little too long. The only thing that wasn't average were his eyes—a flat, stormy grey, the color of a dead sky. Right now, they were clouded with pain.
He'd seen them the moment he turned the corner. Lucas and his pack, loitering in the alleyway, the acrid scent of their smoke a stain on the evening air. Ray's heart had immediately stuttered into a frantic rhythm. He'd dropped his gaze, quickened his pace, and prayed to any god that might be listening to make him invisible.
"Ray, my boy! Where ya going? Why don't you hang out with us?"
The voice had been a lash, snapping any hope he had. He'd stopped, his shoulders tensing up to his ears.
"Wanna have a smoke?" Lucas had asked, a mocking grin plastered on his face.
"I don't smoke," Ray had mumbled, the words barely audible.
The grin vanished. "You do smoke. From now on, you bastard."
The world had upended. A hard shove sent him crashing into the rough brick wall, the impact knocking the air from his lungs. Before he could react, a calloused hand clamped over his mouth and nose, and the glowing tip of a cigarette was shoved between his lips.
He'd held his breath, his lungs burning, his vision spotting. Not this. Anything but this. It was a stupid, pointless line in the sand, but it was his line. He'd scratched at the hand, a weak, frantic motion.
It was his biggest mistake.
Lucas had recoiled, staring at the faint red lines on his skin as if they were a profound insult. "You fucking bitch!! How dare you!!"
The first punch had been a detonation. His head snapped back, his world dissolving into a constellation of white sparks. Then came the second. And the third. A boot connected with his ribs, and he heard a sickening crack more than he felt it. He crumpled, curling into a tight ball, a human shield against the storm of blows. He became a millipede, trying to protect its soft underbelly.
The kicks and punches were a relentless, percussive rhythm. He could hear the grunts of effort, the laughter. He stopped being a person and became a thing, a sack of meat for them to vent their casual cruelty upon.
Now, lying broken on the ground, the world was dimming. The sounds grew distant, muffled, as if he were sinking into deep water. His heart was a frantic, trapped bird beating against his ribs, each flutter a desperate, failing struggle.
"Hey… hey, he's not breathing!" The voice was panicked, one of Lucas's lackeys.
A shadow fell over him. Lucas. Ray could barely make out his silhouette against the bruised purple of the twilight sky.
"What are we gonna do??" the lackey whined.
Lucas's voice was low, calm, and utterly insane. "Look around you. There are no people. No cameras. Even if someone dies here… nobody will suspect a bunch of highschoolers did it."
The words were the final nail. There was no anger in them, no fear. Just a cold, simple statement of fact. Ray was a problem that had been dealt with.
Darkness crept in from the edges of his vision, soft and inviting. The pain began to recede, replaced by a profound, bone-deep cold. The frantic beating of his heart slowed, each beat a heavy, final thud.
Over my dead body, he thought again, the irony a bitter taste in his mouth.
And then, there was nothing.
No light. No sound. No pain.
Just an endless, silent black.
And in that black, something stirred. It was not a thought, not a presence. It was a hunger. An ancient, bottomless void that had been waiting for an eternity. It tasted the edges of his fading soul—the fear, the despair, the raw, unfulfilled will to live.
It found the flavor… agreeable.
The void began to condense. It wasn't a fusion, not a merging of equals. It was a consumption. The last shivering ember of Ray's consciousness was drawn into a maelstrom of primordial malice. His memories, his pain, his grey eyes—they were all devoured, becoming mere seasoning for a far greater, more terrible feast.
He was gone.
But in the absolute nothingness, a new awareness flickered. A single, coherent thought formed in the heart of the devouring dark, a thought that was both Ray and something infinitely older.
...Ash...
The thought had weight, texture. It was the first word of a new genesis.
I am… Ashborn.