The night his parents died did not end—it lingered, clinging to him like smoke in his lungs. He had watched, silent and unseen, as shadows with human faces turned his home into a grave. No screams escaped him; no tears betrayed him. Only his eyes moved, absorbing everything—the way one man limped, the glint of a ring, the rhythm of their voices.
By dawn, the boy was gone.
They would say he fled in fear. They would be wrong.
He moved carefully through the world now, a ghost in borrowed spaces, listening more than speaking, watching more than living. Time did not heal him; it sharpened him. Every detail he gathered became a thread, and slowly, patiently, he began to weave them together.
He was no longer running.
He was learning.
And somewhere, without knowing it, the men who took everything from him had already begun to lose it all.