A weakling.
It wasn't a particularly new word to Emrys, being a name he had grown up with, and in his definition, it meant being useless, unable to provide or be of any real use.
That he learned from observation in the Rysial Orphanage home.
A place where special kids, unfortunate souls abandoned by relatives, like him, were taken to be cared for.
With them not having much use at the start of their lives, or being able to provide anything of value, the only way to matter, to be something, was:
The Awakening.
Emrys did not know much about it, but the little he knew was this:
Every human had a chance to awaken something called a Halo, and with that power awakened, they could become something important.
It was his only ladder out of the misery of invisibility, and he had looked up to it greatly...only to fail!
Not only did he fail to awaken a good Halo, he instead awakened a Fallen Halo.
One similar to the Demonifixes, a race despised by humanity above all else.
Still, if he had been a human who had awakened a Fallen Halo, perhaps he could still have been of some use to some curious mind piqued by his anomaly, but this was where fate itself had dealt him a crappy hand.
He didn't just awaken a Fallen Halo; he awakened a Broken One.
His Halo was faulty, incomplete, and for that reason, made him no different than an ordinary human.
In a poof, his only chance of becoming anything more than a weakling faded into thin air.
But that was nothing.
CREAK!
The sound of bones creaking echoed as his hand folded tight into a fist.
It was the betrayal that hurt deeper.
Some orphanage kids sometimes failed to awaken, or awakened with worthless Halos like his.
Their fate was to be condemned as slaves to the orphanage, doing menial jobs around.
He had expected to spend his remaining days tending pigs, only to be sold off in the dead of night, bound in chains at the neck and limbs, and discarded for some measly cash.
What pained him the most?
They didn't even sell him well!
Two Halo Coins.
That barely bought a bag of cow dung (fertilizer) in this age.
He had been sold for less than cow shit, and the bloody mongrel who had sold him had been so ecstatic that he was able to sell him for two Halo Coins.
It all seemed like fate simply fucking around with him.
But now?
He lay in a pit, barely able to see the light above.
Cold bodies pressed beneath him while flies buzzed softly over gore scattered from both human and demon.
That was enough to tell: this wasn't a game or some fantasy.
This was real, and as his body grew colder with each passing moment, the reality set in.
He would...die.
Death!
Perhaps death would have been a liberation from it all.
From this cruel world that placed people on such high pedestals for the simple reason that they had a fancy circle glowing above their heads.
Where those he had called family had done nothing but sell him off, and those who he had awakened a similar Halo to had sucked away his life essence.
Perhaps the greatest gift fate could give him now was death.
"Fate?"
The word quietly left his bloodied lips.
That was the second most preached word to them, after weakling.
He could still remember those sermons vividly.
That if they worked harder, diligently, and were righteous, then surely fate was an ever-kind mother who would, no matter the ordeal they faced now, reward them abundantly.
That they would awaken a powerful Halo that would give them the life of their dreams.
And he had believed that with all of his heart, and did his best in everything he was required, diligently and consistently.
But what had all that led to?]
A pit.
If fate were real, he shouldn't be here at all.
In his last few breaths, Emrys came upon the realization.
"It's… all… a lie."
"Everything… I… know… ab… out… the… world… is… all… a… lie."
His blue eyes widened, dimming rapidly as he struggled desperately to hold on to the life he felt leaving him, yet it was slipping uncontrollably out of his grasp.
And in that moment, something snapped.
A deep, unfathomable hatred!
To all that he had known and listened to, only to discover it was all a lie.
To all that he had loved, only to be betrayed.
And for the hope he had harboured, only to see it dashed away.
Die?
How could death be worthy of him?
What had he done to deserve it as a gift?
He had been diligent.
He had been honest.
He had trained until his bones snapped and his hands were bloodied.
He had been promised a bright future, yet he lay here rotting in a corpse pit.
"I will…"
He whispered in quiet rage, his hands reaching for the sky.
"Everything… destroy."
Those were Emrys's last words before his hands lost their power and fell with a thump onto the corpse beneath him.
His heartbeat quieted down as the last bit of life essence quietly slipped from him.
Silence reigned over the gory pit, but...not for long.
FLICCCCKKKERR
A dark flicker of light.
A darkness so deep it birthed light even within the dark, and its source:
A half-moon circle quietly hovering above Emrys's forehead.