Colva always slept soundly.
The trees whispered lullabies in the wind. Lanterns flickered low. From cottage to cottage, warmth lingered in hearths and laughter had only recently faded.
It was a night like any other.
Until the sky turned red.
---
I woke to the scent of burning wood—and something fouler.
A sharp, bitter stench. Like flesh.
My eyes opened.
The window glowed.
A strange orange-red light pulsed against the walls, far too bright for dawn. Then I heard it. Distant at first.
Screams.
Then the crack of splitting wood.
Then… silence.
I threw on my boots and rushed out into the night—
And Colva was burning.
---
Roofs were ablaze. Smoke clawed into the sky. Shadows moved between houses, monstrous and unnatural. Horns. Claws. Red eyes glowing like coals in the dark.
Demons.
Demons had come to Colva.
I stood frozen, heart pounding, until another scream tore through the night—and it was a voice I knew.
---
"Elda!"
I tore through the streets toward our home.
The front wall had collapsed. The doorway was split in half. Smoke curled through every gap.
I burst inside and found her—Elda, my sister—slumped near the hearth, her staff shattered beside her, blood smeared across her forehead. She had fought. Protected.
But she had lost.
My knees buckled as I dropped to her side. "No—please, no, no…"
Her hand was already cold.
And beside her—
"Milo… Miko…"
My twin brothers.
Only eleven.
They lay together, curled beneath a blanket near the corner, as if hiding had made it safe.
As if that would protect them.
Their eyes were closed.
But they would never open again.
---
The scream that tore from my throat wasn't human.
I stumbled outside, choking on grief, vision blurred by tears and smoke. I didn't know where I was running—only that I had to find someone.
Anyone.
---
I made it to Renji's house just in time to see a winged demon leaping from its roof, the beams cracking as flames consumed it.
I found Renji half-buried in rubble, his arms still wrapped around his sister's body.
He turned his head as I dropped beside him.
"Aisu…" he rasped.
"No—Renji, stay awake, I'll get Hiro—"
His voice was faint. "We were gonna… hunt again, huh?"
Tears streamed down my face as I gripped his shoulder. "Yeah… we were."
He smiled.
And then, he was still.
---
Hiro found me.
Or maybe I found him.
He was crawling from the alley behind the wreckage—his leg twisted, his shoulder bleeding, his face scorched.
"Don't stop," he said, voice broken. "We have to move…"
So we moved.
I carried him. Limping. Staggering. Toward the forest's edge.
Toward somewhere that wasn't death.
---
But it found us anyway.
Three demons.
They didn't roar.
They didn't speak.
They just stepped from the smoke—taller than men, armored in bone, blades black as night.
I set Hiro down.
And stood.
I had no sword. No magic.
Only pain.
Only loss.
And then—
I broke.
---
The world twisted.
A scream rose from somewhere deep in me—deeper than my bones, louder than fire.
Then came the pulse.
A single heartbeat that split the silence.
And then—
Darkness.
It poured from me, black and violent, rising like flames soaked in grief and rage. The nearest demon charged.
And vanished into smoke.
Devoured.
The other two hesitated.
I rose.
Black fire coiled around me, eyes wide, chest burning with power I never knew I had.
> "You took everything from me."
Their blades gleamed.
> "My sister. My brothers. My friends."
I raised my hand, and darkness surged like a wave behind me.
> "Now I take everything from you."
One demon lunged.
The black fire struck it mid-air.
But the third—too fast—too close.
I didn't see the blade until it was in me.
A wet, tearing sound. A deep crunch of bone. The sword pierced through my stomach and out my back.
My eyes widened.
Blood dripped from my mouth.
The black flames shuddered.
But they did not vanish.
They screamed.
And in that scream—
The demon burned.
The fire swallowed him from the inside, starting from the blade.
The corpse turned to ash.
And I collapsed.
---
The world faded to shadow.
I felt the blood leave me.
My vision swam in red and dark.
But somewhere in that void—
Something refused to let go.
A second heartbeat pulsed—not mine. Something ancient. Watching. Waiting.
It bound itself to my dying soul.
And I breathed again.
---
Far away, in a frost-bound ruin hidden from the world, an old woman stirred.
She looked toward the east, where the smoke of Colva still climbed.
> "The flame that survives death," she whispered, "is the one that burns the longest."