Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 73: Diary (2)

Chapter 73: Diary (2)

She spread out in a brilliant darkness, cold and relentless, as if life itself were being emptied—not in a natural flow, but in a silent collapse.

The captain’s face froze for a moment, his gaze lost in the surreal scene before him.

It wasn’t a man’s blood he had just spilled.

It wasn’t an ordinary wound.

It was something else... something older, more dangerous, whose magnitude he didn’t yet comprehend.

No.

The liquid stirred.

It writhed, changed, like a living essence, rearranging into a new form.

And in a split second, it transformed into a rain of piercing droplets, with speed and precision almost supernatural, flying at the speed of wind.

Each drop sliced through the air with a sharp whistle, surgical, breaking the silence with chilling intensity.

They were projectiles of merciless violence, nearly invisible, but irreversible.

A breath, a muffled cry, then nothing.

The bodies collapsed without a sound, like shadows evaporating into the night.

All that remained was the echo of an unexplained threat, of a power far greater than anyone could have imagined.

The bodies crumpled, one by one, their limbs twisting under the invisible assault, torn from within, pierced from all sides by that deadly rain.

They fell in silence, their faces disfigured by terror and confusion.

One of them collapsed at my feet, eyes wide open, frozen in an expression of disbelief, as if he hadn’t understood what had killed him.

He seemed to still search for an explanation, a meaning to the violence that had struck him.

But only silence remained.

A heavy, crushing silence, where even the air seemed suspended, as if the entire world had stopped breathing.

And he... he stood there, motionless, solitary, watching the horror he had unleashed, as if nothing could touch him.

He was the only tangible presence in that scene of absolute violence.

Then he bent down, calmly, over the still-warm corpse of the captain, as if it were just an object, a silent offering.

His lips, delicate yet assured, pressed against the still-warm throat, where life had just left the body.

And he drank.

The black, thick, viscous liquid mingled with his breath, feeding an ancient, insatiable thirst.

His body, disfigured by wounds, began to close slowly, as if the devastated flesh was regenerating, each fragment reforming with supernatural slowness, as if the wound had been no more than a breath in the air.

The blood wasn’t merely absorbed—it healed, it gave life back.

And in that macabre scene, he was both predator and prey, a being balanced between destruction and rebirth, absorbing the strength of his victims to rebuild himself.

A vampire, I thought, a being drawn from the darkest legends.

A creature alive, yet dead at once, existing beyond natural laws.

Did he come for my blood?

That of a shapeshifter, whose very essence was changeable, elusive?

Did he want me for what I was, or for what I could offer him?

The shiver of an ancient, almost ancestral fear crept into me.

Was it my nature, my difference that drew him, or the promise of a power he desired?

In his eyes, I sensed a hunger, a thirst, but also a curiosity that eluded me.

He was not a mere predator, but something far more complex, a being whose motives were as deep and obscure as the shadows he came from.

But he took nothing from me.

He didn’t look at me as prey, not as a simple meal to devour.

His eyes, though hungry, held no immediate desire—not that animal glint I had often seen in predators.

Instead, he manipulated the blood in the air, shaping it, surrounding it with his fingers like a sculptor molds clay, with total control, a strange gentleness.

The energy itself seemed to bend to his will, responding to his gestures like a living material.

And in this movement, these precise gestures, the chains that held me, invisible yet heavy, began to fall, one by one, breaking under a pressure I hadn’t understood, until they dissolved into the air, leaving room for a freedom I had never known.

That evening, he approached, slowly, almost imperceptibly.

I still remember that chill of fear that swept over me, a visceral dread for my body, as if every fiber of my skin tensed before the threat he represented.

But what happened next was entirely different.

The fear that had overwhelmed me at first transformed into a strange anticipation, a breath held still.

It was not pain, nor the end of my existence.

On the contrary, it was as if, in the darkness of that moment, another kind of transformation was taking place, something more subtle, but just as profound.

It wasn’t the violation of my body that I had feared, but a sort of redefinition of who I was, an alteration of my reality I hadn’t anticipated.

"Lysara."

A name.

Mine, now.

For the previous one had vanished, long since swallowed, drowned in screams, pain, and those endless, unrelenting days.

This one, this new name, didn’t only carry the echo of my past—it seemed woven into the present moment, fragile but vivid.

And in that simple word, something... something inside me awoke, a gentle tremor, almost imperceptible.

There was a strange comfort that filled my chest, a semblance of warmth, a forgotten feeling of what it meant to exist.

It wasn’t yet freedom, nor peace, but a blurry memory, as old as the air I breathed, a memory of what it feels like to be whole, alive, human.

I still remember what he said to me, just after.

His words, spoken with calm assurance, had wrapped around me like a silent mist. They were neither soft nor harsh, but carried an unshakable truth, a subtle yet undeniable weight. Every syllable seemed to settle in the air, freezing in the space around us.

What he said wasn’t just a statement—it was a silent upheaval, a fragment of reality settling into me like a seed ready to sprout in darkness. I felt, all at once, that something had changed, that everything had taken on a new meaning, one I wasn’t yet ready to fully understand.

"Move forward. Leave that life behind. It is no longer yours."

And for the first time, a tiny, irreversible crack split the armor of my despair.

For the first time... I believed he might be right. That my life, long reduced to a string of pain and mechanical survival, could be something else. Something broader, more alive.

It wasn’t certainty, nor even conviction—just a timid spark, flickering, but real. A possibility.

And that single thought, fragile as an ember in a frozen wind, was enough to make my heart beat differently, to rekindle in me a breath of hope I had long thought extinguished.

Then... he made me fight a Gorvak.

A terrifying monster, born from the entrails of fire and ash, its breath thick with burning cinders, able to smother life with a single wheeze. Its skin, thick and cracked, resembled leather blackened by ancient flames, marked by glowing veins as if lava itself flowed beneath its epidermis.

I had never faced anything like it. Its mere presence was enough to shake the will of the bravest. Every movement of the beast made the ground tremble, every breath raised clouds of burning dust.

Faced with it, the weapon in my hands seemed laughable. And yet... yet something in me refused to yield.

Perhaps it was the first trial, the first true affirmation that I was no longer the shadow of before.

And despite the fear, despite the instinct screaming at me to run, something inside me burned with a new intensity.

A deep, visceral desire that had nothing to do with survival or fear.

No. This time, it was different.

I wanted to prove my worth. Not to escape punishment. Not to save my skin. But because I wanted him to truly see me.

To meet my gaze and think, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was worthy. Worthy of the weapon he had given me. Worthy of the path he had opened.

Worthy, perhaps, of a life where I was no longer just a burden or a ghost.

So I thought of a weapon.

A weapon I had glimpsed once, in a distant city, a place I had slipped through like a hungry specter, invisible among the living.

A weapon whose mere sight had ignited my imagination, awakened in me a forbidden desire—to one day hold a fragment of power in my hands.

But I had never dared. Never believed I had the right.

And he... he didn’t hesitate.

He shaped it, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. With his own blood, he gave it form: liquid, alive, a glowing flicker between his palms.

Then, by the force of his will alone, he solidified it, giving it substance and weight.

When he handed it to me, it was without ceremony, without solemnity, as if it were obvious.

As if, in his eyes, I mattered. Was worthy.

As if, for the first time, someone had seen not just what I was, but what I could become.

I took it.

The weapon, vibrant with life, in my hands.

And I fought.

With everything I was, with all the rage, all the hunger to exist I had carried inside me through years of forgetting.

I faced the Gorvak, that mass of hate and fire, and I killed it.

Not without pain.

Its claws tore into me, its burning breath nearly blinded me. More than once, I faltered, feeling my strength abandon me, thinking it would be the end.

But I rose again. Again. And again.

Not out of pride. Not out of anger.

But for him. For me.

For the silent promise that this fight represented: the promise of being more than a survivor. Of being free. Whole. Alive.

When it was over, as my breath struggled to find its rhythm and ash fell slowly around us, he approached the Gorvak’s smoldering corpse.

Without a word, with brutal efficiency, he dragged it to a circle of blackened stones.

There, before my still wide eyes, he began to butcher it, methodical, precise, as if performing an ancient rite.

From his gestures emerged chosen pieces, torn from the burnt carcass.

He lit a fire with pale, silent flames, roasted the monster’s flesh, slain by my hands.

And when the meal was ready, he offered me the first bite.

No ceremony. No speech.

He fed me. As one feeds a being they want to see grow—not out of pity, but recognition.

As if, for him, that gesture sealed what I was becoming.

A real meal.

The first in... too long to count.

I no longer remembered the last time I’d eaten without stealing, without glancing nervously over my shoulder, without being ready to flee at the slightest noise.

That night, under a sky heavy with ash and silence, I ate like a starving wolf.

Every bite carried the brutal taste of survival, but also, for the first time, that of a fragile peace.

My hands trembled—not from fatigue, not from fear, but from something deeper, more primal: a mute, wild gratitude that tightened my throat and lit an unfamiliar warmth in my chest.

That meal, that moment, was a gift.

And I devoured it with the gentle rage of someone finally reclaiming a fragment of existence.

Days passed, and more Gorvaks came.

Again and again, like tireless trials laid across my path.

I didn’t understand. I didn’t know why he made me fight. Why he had chosen me, among so many who would never have dared look him in the eye.

Why me, the broken shadow, the nameless wanderer.

But little by little, through his simple gestures—a plate offered without demand, a weapon shaped from his own blood, a gaze laid upon me without scorn—he taught me a lesson I never thought I’d be able to hear.

That I could live differently.

That my worth no longer depended on fleeing, nor on submission, but on my ability to rise again, to strike, to exist.

And if to earn this new life I had to fight, then I would.

Again and again.

Until my body gave out—or until my name rang louder than the chains that had once broken me.

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