Darkness loosened slowly.
Demion became aware of warmth first.
Weak warmth.
The kind a dying candle gives a room that has already accepted the cold.
Then came the smell.
Medicine.
Wet cloth.
Burned paint.
And beneath everything else—
rotting flesh.
His eyes opened.
The ceiling above him was wooden, warped by age and rain. Water stains spread across it in crooked patterns.
For several seconds, he didn't move.
Then memory returned.
Rain.
Bodies collapsing into the street.
People screaming.
The burned man grabbing his wrist.
Demion sat upright too quickly.
Pain split through his skull.
The room lurched sideways.
"Easy."
The voice came from the corner.
Demion looked toward it.
The burned man sat beside a small table cluttered with torn cloth and cloudy jars. Candlelight flickered across ruined flesh. One side of his face looked melted into itself, skin pulled tight over exposed scars.
Up close, the damage was worse.
Yet the eye staring back at him remained strangely calm.
The man spoke first.
"My name's Sachu."
His voice sounded rough, as though every word scraped against old wounds before escaping his throat.
Demion said nothing.
Sachu didn't seem bothered by the silence.
"I don't know what you are," he admitted quietly.
"And I don't know what happened back there."
Rain tapped softly against the window.
"But I saw those people die around you."
A pause.
"And I saw your face afterward."
Demion's fingers tightened against the blanket.
"You looked terrified."
The room fell silent.
Candlelight trembled softly between them.
Finally, Sachu reached for a cup beside the table and held it out.
"Drink."
Demion stared at it cautiously.
Sachu gave a dry laugh.
"If I wanted you dead, I would've left you in the street."
Demion slowly took the cup.
The liquid tasted bitter.
Warm.
Unfamiliar.
The warmth spread weakly through his chest.
He realized suddenly that no one had ever cared whether he was cold before.
The thought unsettled him.
"You shouldn't have helped me," he said quietly.
Sachu leaned back against the wall.
"Maybe not."
Another pause.
"But leaving you there didn't feel right either."
Demion lowered his eyes.
He couldn't understand that answer.
Not fully.
People only helped when they wanted something.
Food.
Money.
Obedience.
Kindness without purpose felt unnatural.
"Why aren't you afraid of me?"
Sachu laughed softly.
A tired sound.
"Who says I'm not?"
Demion looked toward him again.
Sachu's remaining eye reflected the candlelight quietly.
"Fear doesn't decide everything," he murmured.
The words settled heavily into the room.
Demion stared at the cup in his hands.
Then, after a long silence:
"I killed them."
Sachu didn't interrupt.
Demion's voice came slower now.
"The girl in the alley..."
Rain tapped steadily overhead.
"She would've suffered her entire life."
His throat tightened slightly.
"And the others... if life only continues pain... then ending it—"
"—creates more pain."
Demion stopped speaking.
Sachu's voice wasn't angry.
That somehow made it worse.
The burned man looked toward the candle flame.
"When someone dies," he said quietly, "their suffering doesn't disappear."
A small pause.
"It spreads."
Demion felt something shift uneasily inside his chest.
Sachu lowered his gaze.
"The people left behind carry it instead."
The words struck harder than Demion expected.
His father lying broken in the alley.
His sister beneath the blanket.
The emptiness afterward.
Sachu flexed scarred fingers slowly.
"You think death ends pain because you've only looked at the person dying," he murmured.
Rain slid down the window behind him.
"But suffering leaves echoes behind it."
The room became still.
Demion's breathing felt uneven.
"I didn't want them to suffer anymore."
The words sounded smaller now.
Almost ashamed.
Sachu looked toward him quietly.
"I know."
No hatred.
No disgust.
Only understanding.
Something painful tightened inside Demion's chest.
Sachu slowly stood.
Even that looked difficult.
His movements carried the stiffness of someone whose body hurt constantly.
Yet he still crossed the room.
Demion instinctively tensed.
Sachu stopped beside the bed.
Then carefully—
slowly—
he placed an arm around Demion's shoulders.
Demion froze.
Warmth.
Not violent.
Not demanding.
Gentle.
His entire body stiffened instinctively.
For one terrifying moment, it felt unbearable.
No one had ever held him like this before.
Sachu's voice came quietly beside him.
"Death isn't the only way suffering ends."
Rain tapped softly against the roof.
"If people stopped abandoning each other..."
A pause.
"Maybe someday it could disappear completely."
The words sounded fragile.
Human.
Not absolute like Vermilion.
Not cold like Azael.
Just human.
And somehow that made them feel heavier.
Something unfamiliar moved through Demion's chest.
Not hope.
Something smaller.
Something quieter.
But alive.
Sachu slowly stepped back.
Demion looked up at him silently.
The scars covering the man's body looked unbearable.
Burned flesh.
Permanent pain.
A body that probably hurt every moment it remained alive.
And still—
he chose kindness.
Demion couldn't understand it.
Slowly, without thinking, he reached out.
His fingers brushed against Sachu's wrist.
The world shattered.
Flames.
Smoke swallowing the sky.
Screaming.
Then sunlight.
A younger face.
Whole.
Laughing beside a river.
Eighteen years old.
Alive in a way Demion had never seen before.
Then fire again.
Skin burning.
Hands clawing desperately through smoke.
Pain.
So much pain.
Demion gasped violently.
The vision disappeared.
The room returned.
Candlelight.
Rain.
Breathing.
Sachu stared at him in shock.
Demion's eyes widened slowly.
Because for the first time—
he had seen someone before suffering destroyed them.
And somehow...
that hurt even more.
His voice barely escaped him.
"...Is that you?"