Asdras Awakening (X)

Asdras felt it keenly.

Making a vow to oneself was like stepping into a realm where one's will was sharpened against the blade of their deepest fears. The moment the vow was made, an almost imperceptible trial began, testing the mettle of one's resolve.

And Asdras's resolve was tested as he faced them. He looked at their faces, their eyes flickering with a pulsing glow as if it were their first time truly seeing the world around them. It hit him more deeply than he liked to admit.

He thought about himself. He had vowed to do it, with the crow and the forest as his witnesses. But now, facing their expectant eyes, his resolve was tested anew.

He felt stripped of pretense, confronting the bare reality of his inner self. In that moment, he realized he was just a young man with barely any facial hair. He didn't remember his age, but he knew he was merely a boy grappling with the harsh realities of his decisions, which were nothing but his to be accountable for.

'I… promised it, I…'

He thought back to the tale the crow had told him and the three choices the young man had to make. He couldn't bring himself to accept any of those choices, so he did it differently. At that time, he felt powerful, as if the world were his to conquer.

Yet, when he returned to the campsite and saw their waiting faces, his confidence wavered. First wore a joking smirk; Sixth played his lute quietly, watching Asdras without the rope to stifle his scream; Eight no longer looked around but gazed deeply at her sword, as if hearing it speak to her; Third helped bring Fifth with Second, an old man who could no longer walk or wave.

Seeing them all, Asdras nearly broke and ran away, thinking that the third choice in the tale wasn't so bad after all. But he held himself steady, something within him resonating deeply. It was as if his spirit armored his will, affirming and defending his vow, as if stepping onto a battlefield of sorts.

Every quality he believed in, every trait he thought solid, was scrutinized under the harsh light of their hope and materialized in their silent gazes. For a moment, he thought the sunlight paled under the weight of their unspoken words.

And the villagers knew they had placed the pale boy before them in what could be called a personal hell, where one fights against demons and ghosts, falling if not winning with blood and flesh.

Their souls wavered, trembling with the uncertainty of their path ahead, questioning whether it was a noble commitment or a fool's attempt to hide behind their scars and let a boy free them while bearing their burdens and making new ones.

It drained them, but just as Asdras felt the weight yet didn't step back, they also firmed their will for the task. They were tired of years of suffering and not knowing what it was to truly live and dream.

They missed their families, friends, and once beautiful village, all taken from them by the curse and the monster. The remnants of their community were forced to watch, week by week, as their blood transformed into cursed trees after the promises and hopes of awakening their bloodline power to fight the beast.

With a near herculean effort, Asdras stepped forward first, his sword trembling in his hands as if catching fire. He moved to honor his vow, though his body attempted, with every passing second, to betray his resolve.

The villagers followed, determined to honor their willingness and not burden the boy before them. Their bones, once thought to be the framework of their strength, now felt as if they had turned to jelly.

As they lifted their feet to advance, overwhelming fatigue gripped them. It felt as though they had walked for years, every sinew and muscle crying out with the weariness of a lifetime.

First, be it for his age or his name, he kissed the cold steel while wearing his everyday grin. He looked ahead of Asdras at the village entrance. Memories of his days surfaced like specters, haunting his last view of the living world.

He remembered the day he lost his mother, the sorrow so heavy it felt like the sky itself had met the ground. His father, once an easygoing man, turned somber and never smiled again. His sister, once full of life, grew almost mute, her voice barely a whisper when asked to do something.

In those days, First tried to hide his pain behind a stoic facade. Yet the sorrow gnawed at him, making him quiet. He would sit for hours, staring at nothing, his mind a whirlwind of dark thoughts.

One day, in an unknown act of self-preservation, he made a silly joke to himself, a nonsensical quip about a chicken and a shoe. To his astonishment, he heard a giggle — soft, tentative, but unmistakably his sister's. It was like the first ray of sunlight after a storm for him.

From that moment on, First vowed to always make new jokes and wear a silly smirk. It became his shell, his way of coping with life's harshness. His sister's giggles grew into laughter, his father's somber eyes softened, and the dark cloud lifted slightly. First's humor became a cornerstone of his identity. The name 'First' stuck, not because he forgot his real name, but because it marked the first step in healing his family's broken spirit.

As he felt the cold blade touch him, he knew it was his first step to healing himself. For the first time in his life, his grin blossomed into a wide smile, his eyes tearing up as he thought about meeting his family wherever they were. His smile lasted until his last words slipped from his lips.

"Thanks, lad."

Asdras barely heard First's voice trailing off to the ground. His mind was a whirlpool of confusion and sorrow, unable to halt his body's actions. He glanced beside him and saw Sixth, the young boy he felt an elder brotherly urge to protect, yet now he was ending his life.

Sixth didn't scream as Asdras thought he would. In the past, he would scream until his mouth was dry and tasted of iron.

When Sixth was five, he began to see a shadow that always watched him — a presence that filled him with fear and made him scream uncontrollably. Orphaned and alone, he was raised in a church where the mother nun took no pity on his visions or screams.

Instead, she met his cries with the harshness of wood across his back. The pain was relentless, but it taught him to suppress his fear. Despite this cruel upbringing, Sixth found solace in the wood of a lute when he was given the chance to learn music. He clung to it desperately, finding in its strings a world where he could escape his terror.

At night, Sixth would imagine himself playing the lute, his eyes tightly shut, picturing the scores taught by the priest. His favorite tune was "The Twilight Crow," a song he mastered first before moving on to others.

To him, this song symbolized hope — a light piercing the shadow that haunted him. However, as fate would have it, the shadow he feared materialized into a crow-like monster, making him feel that even his beloved lute could no longer protect him. In a desperate attempt to silence his fear, he tied his mouth with a coarse rope.

Without the rope and having carefully placed his lute in a wooden box with a makeshift note, Sixth felt himself falling, not into the clutches of the shadow but into the depths of his own terms.

The shadow had not conquered his spirit, but silencing himself was his way of controlling the uncontrollable. His gesture to Asdras, pointing towards the wooden box, was his final act of communication, urging him to understand his meaning.

Third took her chance, stepping forward with a resolve that carried more weight than she had anticipated, like a playing tune that snapped under its own intensity, breaking free from its constraints.

She couldn't bear the thought of seeing her daughter go before her time. In her mind, it was natural for sons and daughters to outlive their parents. As her memories began to spin and fade, she watched them unfold as if time had stopped, giving her a final moment to recall her loving husband, the farm they nurtured with pride, and the herbs she picked early in the morning for tea and seasoning.

She remembered the small but comfortable stand where they sold the freshest herb bread with eggs that couldn't be found even in the city.

Alongside these cherished memories, she lamented the limited time she had spent with her daughter. She had always wanted to be a good mother, but losing her firstborn and longing for a son had driven her away emotionally when she was blessed with a girl.

The regret of not being the mother she wished to be gnawed at her, especially as her daughter grew up in such a hellish environment, unable to hear her mother's words of love and regret.

As she stepped forward, she avoided looking at her daughter one last time, the weight of her guilt heavy on her heart. She wished she could go back and change things, but she knew that was impossible. She did this not for herself but for her daughter's freedom from this nightmare. If it meant her daughter could be free, she would ensure she went first.

With a final, sorrowful breath, Third made her peace. She stepped forward into the unknown, her heart filled with hope that her sacrifice would pave the way for her daughter's liberation, leaving behind a sliver of her redemption.

Asdras nearly doubled over but froze as a sudden warmth spread through his hand. His eyes barely registered the blade's odd angle where it had lodged itself. Instead, his focus tunneled into a radiant, innocent smile that seemed to light up the world around him. In that moment, even though his memories were not fully back, he knew he had found something purer than anything the world had to offer him.

Eight felt happy, truly happy. Since childhood, the songs had always been stuffy to her ears. She felt as if the world around her was hidden behind a thick curtain, much like the one in her home.

She had a different understanding of how things worked, and because of that, she spent most of her time alone. At first, Eight felt sorrow and loneliness. But when she first heard her doll talking to her, she realized that nothing else around her mattered.

She didn't grow angry at her mother's absence, as the doll promised to stay by her side forever. She didn't even notice when she caught her father with the neighboring woman.

For her, sounds were thin and distant, while the colors around her were a bright camp of fairy tales. She loved to watch birds sing, insects crawl, and flowers blossom.

Even when the monster appeared, even when her father and brother were taken while she was distracted, her ears refused to register it, and her eyes still saw the world differently.

It wasn't until she held the wooden stick she found with the beautiful boy, Asdras, that she felt something strange happening to her, as if the fairies were calling her to become one of them.

When she saw Asdras's sword, it was like music to her ears — beautiful, calm, and magical. It felt familiar, as if it were her true family and place to be. So she embraced it, and to repay him, she gave her warm hands for the first time to someone other than her doll.