Rain tore through the forest in crooked sheets, striking leaves and bark with a violence that sounded almost deliberate.
Branches whipped past as boots slammed into mud, each step ripping wet suction sounds from the earth. The man's breath came in uneven bursts, sharp enough to scrape his throat raw. His coat dragged him down, waterlogged and heavy, but his arms never loosened. They were locked around the small bundle pressed to his chest, fingers dug so tightly into cloth that his knuckles burned.
The newborn stirred.
A thin sound slipped out—weak, breathless.
The man's jaw clenched. His eyes flicked wildly between the trees, pupils blown wide as lightning briefly turned the forest into a frozen painting of black trunks and silver rain.
"Stay," he rasped, the word cracking as if it had been torn from his lungs. His tongue felt thick, useless. "Stay with me."
Behind him, something shifted.
Not the chaotic noise of animals. Not the random crash of the storm.
Movement—measured and deliberate.
Eight shadows flowed between the trees, boots barely disturbing the mud. Cloaks swallowed the light. Faces remained hidden, but blades caught lightning in brief, surgical flashes before disappearing again.
The man swerved suddenly and burst through a sagging doorway.
The abandoned house exhaled rot and death.
His feet slowed before his mind could catch up.
Bodies carpeted the floor.
They lay twisted at impossible angles, some collapsed against the walls, others frozen mid-reach. Fingers were snapped backward. Necks bent too far. Eyes stared upward, glassy and empty, reflecting nothing. Blood crept between warped floorboards, sticky and dark, carried inch by inch by the rain that spilled through the shattered window.
Thunder rolled.
For an instant, lightning peeled the shadows away.
Then darkness reclaimed everything.
The man's stomach seized. His throat tightened until swallowing became impossible.
"No…" The sound barely escaped him. It was thinner than the rain. "Not here."
The baby shifted again, a faint tremor against his chest. The man's arms reflexively tightened, shoulders curling inward as if he could fold the storm away from the child with his body alone.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Footsteps outside.
Even. Unrushed.
The man backed away, heel scraping against a loose plank. His breath shortened, each inhale catching high in his chest like it couldn't descend far enough to matter.
Then he turned and ran.
The forest swallowed him whole.
Roots clawed at his boots. Branches tore at his coat. His vision blurred, rain stinging his eyes until the world smeared into motion and sound.
The ground betrayed him.
His foot slid sideways as mud collapsed beneath his weight. His ankle twisted with a wet crack, pain erupting upward in a white-hot spear. His balance vanished.
"No—!"
The world tilted.
His grip loosened for half a heartbeat.
The bundle slipped.
Time stretched thin and fragile as glass.
The baby struck the ground with a dull, awful sound, rolling once before stopping face-up in the mud. Rain traced clean paths across soft skin. A thin line of red seeped from beneath the right eye, mixing with brown water until it vanished.
The forest went quiet.
The man hit the ground moments later, palms scraping raw. He crawled, nails digging into dirt, dragging his useless leg behind him. His hands shook so violently they could barely hold the infant when he reached him.
He pressed his ear against the tiny chest.
Nothing.
No flutter.
No warmth.
His fingers spasmed.
His breath stuttered and collapsed into his lungs, refusing to come back out.
"Please," he whispered, forehead dropping against the child's face. His shoulders rocked forward, then back, again and again, as rain streamed down his hair and soaked into his skin. "Please."
Leaves rustled.
Eight figures stepped from the darkness.
They formed a circle without speaking, boots sinking evenly into the earth. Steel hummed softly as blades were drawn free, the sound nearly lost beneath the rain.
One stepped closer.
"Stand down," the leader said. His voice was calm. Practiced. "Irregular offspring must be purged."
The man lifted his hands slowly.
They trembled.
His eyes never left his son.
Then his hands lowered.
He collapsed back into the mud, curling his body around the infant. His forehead pressed hard against cold skin. His teeth ground together until his jaw ached.
"If my heart still beats," he breathed, the words breaking apart between gasps, "then yours will too."
He closed his eyes.
Something ignited inside his chest.
A faint glow pulsed beneath his skin—blue-white, flickering weakly, like a star on the edge of collapse. His heartbeat stumbled, then surged violently. Pain tore through his ribs as electricity crawled along bone and nerve, burning its way upward.
The assassins moved.
Blades flashed.
Steel punched into flesh.
The man screamed—not from fear, but strain.
He forced the current higher, dragging it through muscle that tore under the pressure. Sparks snapped along his neck, danced across his jaw, raced down his arms. His body convulsed, knees slamming into the mud as blood spilled from his wounds.
He slammed both hands against the baby's chest.
The charge leapt.
KRAK—TSSH!
The sound split the storm.
Agony detonated inside him. His heart tore itself apart from within, the light collapsing in on itself as his body gave out. He fell forward, lifeless weight shielding his son.
Silence.
"The child is dead," one assassin muttered, blade lowering.
"Dispose of the corpse," the leader said. "Leave the man."
They vanished into the rain.
The forest exhaled.
Rain softened.
Minutes passed.
Then—
A shudder.
Tiny lungs dragged air inward.
A cry ripped through the night.
"WAAAAAAAH!"
Lightning split the sky as the newborn screamed, voice raw and furious. Rain washed the blood from his face, but the scar beneath his eye remained—thin and permanent.
The storm listened.
The forest watched.
And deep within the child's chest, a spark burned on.