The sky has been stripped of color. Blue is an archaic concept, forgotten by history, replaced by a pulsing, suffocating canvas of grey. The black smoke doesn't just rise; it roils with a terrifying elegance, commanding the horizon like an absolute decree issued by a lunatic divinity. It serves as a shroud for the dying sun, barring any light from touching this cursed earth.
Beneath the shadow of this artificial night, I lie broken. Not on a mattress, nor in a cradle, but atop the fragments of an obliterated world. My spine grinds against cracked concrete, while my skin recoils from the unnatural chill of the mud.
Consciousness returns slowly, like poison creeping up from my extremities. My eyes open, but the world before me is distorted, as if the lens of reality has shattered into a thousand pieces. Dust, ash, and the particulate matter of death dance in the air, invading my lungs with every attempt to breathe. Each inhalation is torture; it feels like inhaling crushed glass.
I try to move my lips. My tongue feels stiff and briny. The taste of iron. The taste of rust. The taste of leaking life.
"I wonder..." my voice is raspy, barely audible, drowned out by the roar of a wind carrying the scent of sulfur. "How is this world born? Does it... does it come into being with a scream like this?"
The question hangs, unanswered. Only the wind replies, carrying the sound of structural groans from buildings collapsing in the distance.
"But... why?" Tears begin to pool, not from sorrow, but from the stinging smoke and a swelling desperation. "Why?! Why?!!!"
The scream ruptures a vessel in my throat. It is the cry of a newborn, yet it does not welcome life; it indicts existence itself.
My gaze shifts upward, piercing the black smoke that swirls like a vortex to hell. I search for their faces. The faces of the creators. Not God, but those closer to home. Those who planted the seed of this flesh.
"Father... Mother..."
Their images flicker in my mind, warped by the pain hammering inside my skull. Mother's gentle face seems to melt in my memory; Father's stern expression cracks like a broken mirror.
"Did you... did you do something to make the universe this wrathful?" I whisper to the invisible corpses around me. "Did you steal fire from heaven? Did you murder an angel? If not... then why?!"
Why does this punishment fall on me? I have only just opened my eyes, only just realized the existence of "I," and the universe's first gift is hell. This is the most brutal of cosmic injustices. If sin is an inheritance, then I have inherited a blood debt I never borrowed.
The pain strikes again. A shockwave starting from the solar plexus, radiating through every nerve. This is not merely physical injury; this is ontological pain. The agony of simply being.
"It hurts too much..." a whimper escapes, mixed with bloody froth at the corner of my lips. "I cannot endure this. Take it... please, take this life right now."
But death refuses to draw near. Death, it seems, is enjoying the show. It sits in the corner, watching me writhe like a worm salted on the pavement.
I feel a disgusting warmth beneath my body. The fluid flows heavily—thick and sticky. A dark red liquid, nearly black, mixing with the soil, the dust, and the filth of a collapsed civilization. Blood. Not just mine. It is an organic slurry of thousands of lives extinguished in unison.
The smell... Dear God, the smell.
It is the sharp tang of copper, blended with the aroma of seared meat, ruptured entrails, and the sickening sweetness of decay accelerated by heat. A scent biologically impossible for a human to inhale without emptying their stomach. Yet, I breathe it in. I drink the aroma because there is no other air left.
My rambling becomes uncontrollable. Words spill out without a filter, a delirium-fueled monologue.
"The Gods... you bastards! You frauds!" I spit, the saliva thick and red. "You promise paradise behind prayers, but you deliver the apocalypse behind the sky! Look! Look at your masterpiece! An abstract painting of meat and bone!"
My vision blurs further. The physical world begins to fade, replaced by a reel of film from the past playing on a broken projector.
I see a grassy field. Green. So green it hurts the eyes. The sun shines softly—not the sun choked by smoke, but a golden, late-afternoon sun.
The sound of laughter.
Children's laughter. Pure, crisp, unburdened. They run chasing a ball, chasing butterflies, chasing dreams not yet crushed.
I see parents sitting on park benches. They are smiling. That smile... a smile full of hope. They look at their children and think, "The future will be beautiful."
"Lies..." I whisper amidst the hallucination. "You are all liars."
The image shifts. The green grass slowly turns to ash. The children's laughter distorts, slowing down into mournful screams. The parents' faces melt, their skin peeling away like burning paper to reveal grinning skulls. Happiness was just an illusion, a thin mask covering the true face of the world: suffering.
The memory tortures me more than the physical wounds. The contrast between what once was and what is now is the sharpest knife of all. Hope is the deadliest poison.
Crack.
The sound is distinct. It is the sound of my ribs shifting, or perhaps the sound of my soul snapping in two.
Scrape.
My fingers claw the earth. My nails break, scratching against the rough concrete until they bleed, trying to find a grip on a slippery reality.
Inside my chest, behind the weakly beating heart, something ignites. Not hope. Not love. Not faith.
It is a cold ember. Black.
I realize something as I stare at the smoke-choked sky. No one is coming to save me. Not Father. Not Mother. Not God. Prayer is a futile monologue in an empty theater. If this world is hell, then I must not be the victim. I must become the demon.
My hand reaches for the sky again. The movement defies all laws of anatomy. Torn muscles are forced to work by a will that transcends the instinct for survival. My body lifts from its chest, my spine arching like a bow ready to loose a poisoned arrow.
I am like a corpse pulled by invisible strings. I am coming back to life. Not as the human who was just crying for his mother, but as a new entity. Rebirth. This is my true birthday. The day innocence died and a monster was born.
My mouth opens wide. My jaw grinds, as if wanting to swallow all the black smoke in the sky. My damaged vocal cords vibrate, preparing an oath. A curse.
My eyes, previously blurred, now focus on a single imaginary point in the distance. I see "him." Who is "him"? I don't know. Maybe the king who started this war. Maybe the god who allowed it. Maybe fate itself. It doesn't matter. The subject is irrelevant; the object is my suffering, and the predicate is vengeance.
My breath catches, gathering the last scraps of oxygen for one sentence that will become my life's purpose from this second on.
"I..."
The voice is low, a growl, like the sound of grinding tombstones.
"...will kill."
Every syllable is spoken with heavy emphasis.
"Whoever."
My eyes widen, blood vessels in the sclera bursting, turning the world entirely red.
"THAT IS!!!"
The final scream shatters the remnants of my sanity. It is a declaration of war against all existence.
Once the sentence is spoken, it is as if the strings holding up this puppet are cut. My body loses its strength again. Gravity pulls me back into the embrace of the wet, metallic earth.
I lie back down. Weak. Broken. Helpless.
But something is different.
Before, I lay waiting for death. Now, I lie waiting for time.
My eyes stare at the grey sky once more. The black smoke is still there; the arrogant divine law still holds. But this time, I no longer ask "why." The question is irrelevant. I don't need answers. I need blood.
The red fluid flowing around me is no longer just filth; it is fuel. This pain is no longer torture; it is a reminder.
My consciousness begins to fade, slipping into pitch darkness. But within that darkness, I do not sleep peacefully. I sleep with a burning grudge, keeping the fire alive in the middle of the storm.
I return to the ground for only one reason: to rest for a moment, to gather strength, before I rise and fulfill that promise.
Today I was born. And the world will regret playing midwife to this birth.
Darkness.
Silence.
Waiting.