The Ashes of a Memory

Snow was falling.

Each flake drifted down softly, like a silent curtain covering the world. On the blood-soaked ground, bodies lay scattered — old and young, man and woman — all frozen with the same expression of terror.

A small boy, his face smeared with blood and dust, stood motionless amid the sea of corpses. His dark eyes had no more tears left to shed — only confusion, and something slowly dying within his heart.

Karl — just twelve years old.

No one survived in that village. His mother, his father, and his little sister with golden hair — all had fallen on that fateful night, the night the demons from the Chaos Abyss came.

The wind howled through the charred remains of houses. Karl walked, step by step, past broken doors, overturned carts, and his swordmaster lying headless on the ground. A lost soul wandering through a world that no longer existed.

Then came footsteps — slow, heavy, echoing on the snow-covered earth. A tall, dark figure emerged from the fog, eyes ablaze and a grotesque bone mask covering half his face.

"What a pity… that bloodline fell into the hands of a child," he sneered, his voice like blades scraping against steel.

Karl said nothing. No screams, no tears. He just stared, as if engraving the figure into his very bones.

For from that moment on, his heart would never forget.

Karl walked through the ruins.

Ash still drifted from the charred rooftops. The stench of blood, smoke, and burnt flesh mixed into a nauseating fog that clung to every breath. His trembling hands clutched a broken sword he had found, its blade caked in mud and dried blood.

In the distance, screams and galloping hooves still echoed. The demons had not fully withdrawn. They were hunting the last survivors — if any still remained.

Karl slipped into a small stone cellar behind a collapsed house. He curled up in a dark corner, arms around his knees, his body limp. The darkness was no longer frightening — the real horror was outside.

Then he began to hear whispers.

He didn't know where they came from, or if someone was with him, but the sound rang clear in his mind — a deep, icy voice:

"Do you want to survive?"

Karl lifted his head. No one. Just the flicker of firelight through a crack in the stone.

"Do you want revenge?"

The question made his heart pound. He didn't understand what was happening, but in that moment — when his tears had long since dried — he nodded.

"Good. Your blood is the key. Live… and wait for the day I return."

A bitter wind swept through the cellar. Karl collapsed, slipping into a long, nightmare-filled slumber.

When Karl opened his eyes, the dim light from the cellar's entrance made him squint. The earth beneath him was damp, and the silence pressing in was almost suffocating. But the cold was gone.

He sat up, his head spinning. For a moment, Karl thought everything had been just a nightmare. But then — the charred corpses outside the cellar, the acrid scent of smoke and ashes — the truth came flooding back like a blade to the soul.

He stumbled out of the cellar, slowly making his way through the ravaged streets. On crumbling walls, he saw words scrawled in blood — curses, cries for help, or simply names of the dead. A few twisted drawings remained, as if someone in their final moments had tried to leave behind a last trace.

In the central square, once used for festivals, there remained only a broken stone pillar and a shattered statue. Beside it lay the bodies of his parents — still holding hands, eyes closed in peaceful slumber, though their lips were cracked and their bodies burnt beyond recognition.

Karl dropped to his knees. No tears. No screams. Just an unbearable emptiness sinking into his bones.

From that moment — he knew he was no longer a child.

Karl stood up, slowly walking across the square, each step sinking into the ashes of the past. No one had survived. No voices, no cries. Only him — a child with no tears left to shed, no heart left to fear.

On the road out of the village, the wind swept through the ruins, lifting dust and ash into the sky like it meant to swallow the world. Karl walked without looking back. But then, a whisper echoed in his mind — so faint he thought he was imagining it.

"You still live… how curious."

Karl froze. The voice came from somewhere deep within, not human. It was ancient, low, and distant — yet as if it had been waiting for him all along.

"If you seek vengeance, I will grant you strength."

He looked up at the ashen sky. No answer. No confirmation. But inside, something had been ignited — cold and fierce.

Not long after, people found a lone boy standing amidst the ruins, his eyes filled with sorrow… and something else. They didn't know his name. He didn't speak of where he came from. And he no longer spoke his own name.

From that day forward, Karl vanished from the world — and a new Karl was born, carrying a burden, a silent vow, and a pain unseen.