Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Niru, what are you staring at ?”

Mom, please, stop.

“Aiii, my son hasn’t eaten today, come here”

……..

It's been three days since I stopped eating.
Mother’s body began rotting, and I couldn’t do anything about it.
I don’t wanna die.
But there’s nothing to live for.

Dad said he’d be back after the evacuation drills. He has not yet returned.
It’s been six days since he left.

“The zone nine border collapsed. The Uz forces retreated while the rebels took over.
The council has released a statement about the bounty to people who capture and kill the rebels.
That’s it for Uz news. We’ll be back shortly after “ the TV’s crisp sound echoes in the house.

I think he left anyway.
Maybe he knew all this time that mother would soon die.
And maybe that’s why he smiled so brightly when he left.

I called the emergency dispatch the first night.

The line kept looping: “Thank you for your patience. A responder will arrive shortly.”
No one did, no one will ever come into this house again.
I was a kid, but I wasn’t clueless.
Someone who loves you wouldn’t do this.

I looked at Mom. Her skin was green and blue.
I can’t bear to look at her.

Something wet drips across my cheek, and I hadn’t realised I had been crying.
She won’t be here to nag at me.

Oh my sweet ma,
How did you die so pitifully?

I dragged the blanket that my mom hated because it felt prickly, across the cold floor.

I’m so sorry, Mom. I whispered as I covered her fully.
I’m sorry that I hate you so much, so I had to cover you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry

I love you.
I do.
I do.
I hope I do
I’m sorry that I never appreciated you.

My legs felt weak.
My steps made no sound as I trudged across the tiles to the kitchen.

I saw the plates I ate from 5 days ago.
There were no plates Mom ate from.

I didn’t cry when she stopped breathing.

I cried when I opened the cupboard and saw only one bowl missing.
She hadn’t eaten in days. She fed me instead.
And I hadn’t even noticed.
So I cried like I could take it back.

And as for my final act of love, mother. I’ll leave you.
Like everyone you loved did.

Authors note:
Hey yall. im silver. 17 . A uni fresher.i grew up as wattpad girlie so idk a lot of stuff going on here and i discovered Ao3's full potential like 1 week ago, so here i am now . pls show this story lots of love since it was actually a part of my maladaptive daydreaming.
If there are any mistakes in the text , please pardon me as English is not my first language. infact its my third. .
and can yell pls tell me how long should I write a ch? And what do u expect from this read , I'm curious! THANK YOU FOR SHOWING YOUR SUPPORT AND READING THIS STORY, MWAHHHH *bites you* hehe

Chapter Text

The cold is unforgiving.
Especially to the people to people who have no place to call their own.

The cold bites back, and I don’t flinch.
The snow crunches under my feet as I step out of the tiny makeshift house that my mom called home.
The sky is ash in colour, and I can see wealth looming over the horizon.
tall and proud with skyscrapers of flesh-eating monsters
They are human too, but different.
The clouds don’t move. Not even birds sing here.

A crow watches over me as I walk away from my hope . It looks at me like it knows what i did and what i left behind.
I can’t go back, though. What kind of son stays with a corpse? And what kind of corpse would love me?

I slip Half Alive into a ration store.
The elderly man behind the counter didn’t meet my eyes. He shook his head and muttered, “There are no rations left, son”
Can I take some items from those? I point to the trash sprawled before the shop.
The man just wipes his spectacles and points to some objects.
“Anything except those are okay”, he said, his voice flat.

I kneel and begin collecting some necessities, a backpack, an apple, rotten but fine, some worn-out clothing -
This would fit you more than that, “uttered the old man as he gave me a shirt to fit into my large but lean frame.
I sift through the heap with fingers too long, too thin, wrists jutting out like cracked bone.
The shirt I’m wearing hangs loose like I’m a boy who outgrew everything but his sorrow.
The old man watches me. Not with pity. Just an observation.

In the smudged window beside me, I catch a glimpse of myself:
Dark brown hair, wavy, uncombed, clinging to my forehead like it’s afraid to let go.
Eyes are too dark for someone this young.
Soft features that used to make strangers call me “gentle” now stretched thin with hunger.
My frame is tall, almost as tall as six feet, but lean like it never quite filled out.
I look like someone who’s been trying to disappear quietly.
I turned my eyes back to the man and thanked him quietly while leaving.
I turned my eyes back to the man and thanked him quietly as I left.

The roads curve like a spine, with billboards flickering.
LONG LIVE UZ.

United Zones is a policy created many years ago.
Built to end pain, poverty, pollution, hunger, and many other problems.
For a while, it worked.
It was the perfect utopia.
All countries were divided into zones and districts.
Together, they formed the United Zones.

"Grandma! Grandma! Look, the drone is approaching us. See, the government wants us to be at peace."

"But peace decays too," the old woman's hoarse voice echoes through the silent street.
Cracks and loopholes began to appear in the government.

"My dear child, you'll never know how it was in my days. They are flesh-eating monsters."

AI trackers, online banking, Bluetooth devices, facial recognition cameras, motion sensors, and helping robots, everything was marketed as advanced technology to people.
while it was just a form of control for the government.
As always, the rich grew richer, and the poor grew poorer.

They said zones were safe.
Surveillance was security.
Silence was peace.
People stopped thinking.
People stopped choosing.
Because why would you do that if someone else is already doing it for you?
The people walked right into oppression’s mouth even before realising.

My senses were focused on the woman's words.
The council wanted to make the world a better place, with better humans.
Humans who were perfect enough for the world to be called a utopia.
Humans who all had the same thought process.
Humans who followed blindly because it once rewarded them.

Then something new came along.
Bioengineering.
It was called a revolution in technology.
It started with removing or adding qualities in food to match one's taste.
Then, just as bringing back dead or extinct animals to life.
Then test-tube babies.
Slowly, they started engineering children.

But Mother Nature is not to be predicted. One after another, the children kept falling ill and dying.
People began questioning and rioting.
And there's nothing the government hates more than enlightenment among the people.
People were deported to remote places.
The chain around their necks began tightening.

Anomalies started forming. The walking dead. Not the kind you see in movies; no, they were humans with no feelings or too many feelings. They were left to rot by scientists, who saw only one per cent success among ninety-nine failures.
Designer children were made to your preferences. Want blonde hair? That'd be an extra 50 million. Obedient and smart? 20 million.
Everything had a price.
These children were called puppet children. Then came the zone breakers, lying on the borders of zone, body, and mind, filled with violence and wrath. And at the top of the chain used to sit god children, they were removed from existence because they were too powerful for the council to control.

As I pass the woman, her words blurred into smoke.
She looks at me, dead in the eye.

You’re not supposed to be here. You’re not broken enough yet.
She says with eyes piercing right through mine.
Like I was something in the dark, she shouldn’t have seen but did anyway.
Her smile is eerie.

The kid with her moments ago is nowhere to be seen now. Was I hallucinating?

You won’t survive if you’re human. Become something more. Something they’ll fear.

the fuck are you talking about, lady?

Why are you running away, dear?
Her grip is stronger than it should be. Her fingers are ice and bone.
And her eyes, oh god, her eyes -
They’re not crazy. They’re remembering.

“You think you’re the only one who buried someone they loved?”
I freeze.

“You think you’re alone in the ruin, child?
They made us this way. All of us.

But some of you, some of you were never supposed to live past birth.”
My breath catches.

She leans in closer, voice raw like an old violin string.
“You weren’t born broken, Nirav.
You were meant to break.
And the second you figure out why, they’ll come for you too.”

She said my fucking name….

THE PROPHECY IS REAL
DO NOT BE AFRAID.
“FIND THE ELEVEN, MAKE THE NOISE THAT THEY HATE SO MUCH. BE THE REVOLUTION THAT THEY FEAR. FEED ON THE FLESH LIKE THEY DID TO OURS. BRING ON THE NEW DAWN THEY PROPOSED.”
She shouted crazily with her hand up in the air as if she were praying.

“Abnormality detected, please stay in place. The authorities are arriving in 1 minute 26 seconds. “
A static noise buzzed.
“1 minute 25 seconds, 1 minute 24 seconds,…”

I NEED TO RUN.

“Woman, let go of me! I do not understand a single thing you’re saying. We have to run now.”

“Hahahahaha, I’m happy that I’ve fulfilled my duty, son. Do not be afraid of grief, my child, for it will be your life- “

3 seconds.
“UZPD here, please put your hands up,” shouted the officers

I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I DON’T WANT TO FUCKING DIE.

I push the woman down and sprint as fast as I can.

“BANG”

“BANG”

“BANG”

I flinch from the noise, but I run and run. Tears flowing down from my dark eyes across my face from the dust and perhaps an overwhelming feeling that another person is dead because of me, and I do not feel anything for her except guilt that o dont feel something that I’m supposed to feel.
I ran till my legs gave out. And I reached nowhere.

Chapter Text

I kept walking for what felt like an eternity. I figured if I kept walking long enough, something would crack. And it did.

I heard his name first in the underground stalls of what used to be Zone 7’s trade line.

They say if you keep walking without a destination, the city itself starts whispering to you.
I didn’t believe in fate. But hunger makes a man listen to ghosts.

Zone 7 used to be a trade district. Now it's a graveyard for market stalls, half-burnt tarpaulin sheets flapping in the wind like mourning flags.
They still call it the Market of Echoes.Vendors still sit behind broken counters, selling things that were never meant to be resold, like wire coils, cracked sunglasses, powdered rat meat wrapped in nostalgia. No one here smiles. No one trusts. But everyone talks.

*Whispers trade faster than bullets.*

I walked past an old woman frying cockroach legs in battery oil. Past a child peddling empty glass vials labelled "sleep serum."
And the deeper I went, the weirder the place got. Past the outer circle. Past the stalls still pretending UZ was alive. The air grew heavier there. Like the world had secrets it wanted to choke on.
I passed through what looked like a collapsed subway tunnel. Behind it, the real traders lived. Not of goods—but of names. Faces. Legends.
A man with no legs and a hundred tattoos sat by a lantern. His voice rasped with rusted memory.

“You looking for fire?” he asked, his eyes never meeting mine . I didn’t answer.
Wont you shut up now, Zhao? Well, I guess he desires something more. A woman chuckled.
Her eyes were pearly white with no trace of pupil. creepy but promising. my gut told me to trust her word or is it just dark manipulation magic?
“There’s a boy,” he said anyway. “Not from here. Eyes like gold coins. Scars like constellation maps.”
My breath caught.

“They call him Niko.”

Another woman leaned in, skin burned from exposure, hair knotted with beads.
“He came through here. Stole rations. Left blood. Never spoke.”
“He’s got numbers branded on him,” another said. “Property code. Athens Engineering batch.”
A fourth whispered, “he got bounty hunters on him by the government and his parents”
“his parents?” hissed the latter.
“You know how those failed bots like, unfortunately for his parents, he was rebellious and he almost killed his dad before running away”, whispered the guy like he is a sin
“These rich, spoiled brats think the world revolves around them, don’t they?” he glanced in my direction. I didn’t know the answer, so I just smiled.

Niko.

I didn’t know why the name itched in my throat.But something about it felt like a stone tossed into a well inside me. Something that would echo.I needed to find him.
But to do that, I’d have to go deeper. Past the whisperers. Past the traders. Into the old abandoned transit zone.
Where people don’t go unless they’re desperate. Or doomed.

The transit zone sat like a corpse beneath the city.

Steel skeletons of trains still rested on the tracks, rusted and broken, as if waiting for orders that would never come. Paint peeled off the walls like rotting skin. The air stank of metal and mildew and old electricity.Graffiti screamed across the walls, coded messages, rebel warnings, childish drawings of gods and monsters.The lights flickered weakly above, the last breath of the station’s once proud spine.

I stepped over shattered tiles and bones of forgotten wanderers. Rats the size of cats watched me with still, intelligent eyes.Something dripped from the ceiling. Red. Not water.
“You don’t belong here,” someone hissed from the dark.
I turned. No one.Just shadows stretching too long.Then footsteps. Fast. Ragged. Someone running.And etched onto the nearest wall in dark, flaking ink:

**“AE-27-GK was here.”**

He had been here.

I knew one thing for sure. Foes of your foes are your friends.
Which means it’s the rebels for me. But rebels are already in groups spread over zones. But the rebel population decreases every day due to the new **big beautiful bill**, and it will soon be only the lone rebels left. So I need to start with them.

Starting with this boy I keep hearing of.

NIKO.

I spent days in the belly of the district.
Wandering from ruin to ruin, tracing the echoes Niko left behind like breadcrumbs smeared with ash and silence.Every place he touched had a scar.
A half-burned bedroll in a railcar where blood stained the wall like finger paint.A group of rebels left torn apart, nothing human left except their teeth and tags.
Anomaly-infested alleys he’d cleared through, their bodies twisted, eyes too wide, too empty.

Each time I arrived, I was too late.But I was getting closer.

Some said he vanished into the air. Others said he slit through dimensions, a glitch in the system.But I knew the truth now. He was running just like me. And leaving a message for someone who might understand. And then I saw it.

Gold.A shimmer.

the glow of two hazel-gold eyes was watching me.
Unblinking.Alive.Fearful and hateful.

Chapter Text

There he was. The boy they warned me about. The gold glimmer wasn’t the sun. It was his eyes.
They burned from the dark like the last two coins tossed into a cursed wishing well.

He didn’t blink. Neither did I.

For one long second, the world held its breath between us. No wind. No noise. Just bone-deep silence and the static buzz of imminent violence.
He stepped forward.
Barefoot. Bleeding from the knuckles. Shirt torn, hair a mess of dirty-blonde curls that caught the light like fire. His jaw clenched.
He looked like the kind of boy the world tried to destroy and failed, so he turned around and started destroying it back.

“Don’t you dare come any closer”, he said
The words weren’t loud. But they were sharp enough to cut skin.

“Niko,” I said his name.
His pupils shrank. That was all the warning I got.

Then he moved.

A flash of metal. A blade, small, familiar, personal. Not military. A kitchen utility knife sharpened down to a fang. He **lunged** like an animal.
I ducked. Just in time. The blade scraped past my shoulder, slicing fabric. I didn’t even feel the cut until the blood started dripping.

“You don’t get to say my name,” he snarled.
His voice was raw. Shaking. Like someone who hadn’t spoken in days. Or someone who’d screamed too much to be heard.I raised both hands.

“Wait. I’m not here to - ”

He kicked me square in the gut. I went flying backwards, crashing against the wall, my breath knocked out of me.My vision spun. Stars. Static. Cracked bone somewhere in my ribs.

“They sent you, didn’t they?” Another swing.
I dodged, barely. This time, I grabbed his wrist. A mistake.
He used the grip to pull me in, slamming his knee into my chest. Then he spun, elbow to my temple. I dropped.

He straddled me, blade pressed to my throat, hair dripping sweat and blood. Breathing heavily. Gold eyes wild.
His lips trembled. Not with fear but with rage. Old, endless rage that never found a place to land until now.

“Did my father send you? Or the council?”
“I don’t know your father,” I choked out.
“Everyone knows my father.” His hand trembled. Not from weakness. From restraint.

He was going to kill me. I felt it.

I don't want to die.
I don’t want to die.
I DON’T WANT TO FUCKING DIE.

My thoughts were going wild. The part of him that didn't want to be found. The part that knew peace was a trap.

But then, I whispered. “AE-27-GK.”

The air was thick with tension.
“I saw it written on the wall,” I said. “You left it behind.”

His blade didn’t move.

“I’m not with them,” I whispered. “I’m just… lost.”
We stared at each other.
His eyes filled with an emotion I could not decipher. Time paused.

oh,
What a beautiful being he is.
His eyes shone under the rage of midday sun. Sweat dripping from his curls down to his exposed collarbone, sculpting the perfect golden body. How can someone be this pretty?

“Next time, I won’t miss,” he spoke, taking me out of my thoughts.
He rose. Left me gasping on the floor. And vanished into the shadows like he was never there at all.

I don’t know how long I lay there. Just me, the dust, and the cold ache in my ribs.
I thought I was alone again until I felt eyes on me.
I turned. Saw a figure leaning against the wall.

Petite . Slender. Quiet.
Light green eyes glowing like stars drowned in ice.
He didn’t speak. Just stared.
Then, finally, he clicked his tongue. “You’re worse than I expected.”
I tried to stand. My knees buckled. He didn’t help me.

“Who are you?” I coughed.
“Ilyas,” he replied, tone flat. “El, if that’s easier for your half-dead brain to remember.”
He walked toward me with that eerie calm, crouched low to meet my eye. “You think chasing after him will make you strong?” he said. “He’ll rip you apart before he even knows your name.”
I flinched. Not at his words, but the quiet way he said them. Like he knew exactly how that felt.

“Why are you following me?”

“Because the Oracle chose you.”
‘The oracle as in the rebel group?” I froze. “ what position do you hold in the oracle?”
“And because,” he added completely ignoring my question, “I’m very curious what makes a boy like you worth bleeding for.”

He reached out. His hand , thin and full of cuts and marks.
His shaky fingers brushed the side of my face. Just for a second. Cool, clinical. But it lingered. I hated that I leaned into it.

“El” I whispered.
He tilted his head. “what?.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admitted.
“Good,” he smirked. “That means you're not one of them.”

Ilyas stood and started walking. I didn’t know why I followed. But my gut told me so i followed him for days, stopping by districts and cornering down the one thing we’ve been searching for.
But as I trailed behind him, I couldn’t help but notice everything about him, the fragility and power that danced in the same breath. He talked and walked like an old man with the body and face of a teen.

His build was small, no more than 5'6", and his frame looked like it would snap in a harsh wind. Yet every step he took was precise, like he knew exactly where to place his weight to avoid breaking.
His baggy clothes swallowed his limbs, but I could still make out the limp in his right leg. His hands were thin, calloused, and trembling. His pupils were just slightly too wide, dilated like he’d stared too long into a light only he could see. He blinked slowly, like it took effort, like every second cost him something.

He stumbled once, barely, then realigned like a marionette finding its strings again. His breath came in short, shallow bursts, not from all the travelling, but like he forgot how to breathe unless reminded.
Dark hair, tangled and limp with exhaustion, clung to his forehead. And those radioactive green eyes never stopped scanning. Not even for a second. He looked like a ghost and moved like a blade.

But as we turned a corner, something stopped him. I followed his gaze. A mark burned into the side of a freight container.

AE-27-GK.

Niko’s code. Fresh. He was close again.
And this time, I wasn’t chasing.
This time I’d be ready.

Chapter Text

The mark was still fresh.
AE-27-GK.
Etched into the freight container like a ghost’s final breath.

El froze first. I followed his gaze. And then we both felt it. The air changed. A presence.
From the shadows, a figure emerged. Gold eyes glinting under the dying light. Shirtless, hair wild, sweat and blood staining his skin like a feral prince of the ruins.
Niko.

He saw us. Our eyes locked. My breath caught.
El didn’t flinch.
Niko did. His gaze locked onto El’s slender frame—frail, fragile, an easy target.
In a split second, he lunged.
A blur of motion. Blade raised. Wild and fast like a wounded animal.

But El? El shoved me forward like a human shield.
“Are you kidding me- ?!”

I caught Niko mid-air, his blade grazing my arm. I grunted and shoved him back hard. He hit the ground, stunned.
And in that exact second, we heard it.

BANG.

A sharp gunshot cracked through the silence.
Niko cried out. He was hit.

A Council Hunter stepped into the light. Masked. Armed. Cold. The barrel of his gun was still smoking.
“Target acquired,” he muttered into his comm.
Rage erupted in me.

Before he could take another shot, I lunged. Fist to jaw. He staggered. El moved out of the way, watching with those sharp green eyes.
The hunter tried to reload- Too late.
I slammed his head into the container. Once. Twice. The mask cracked. Blood spurted. He stopped moving.

I turned. Niko was clutching his side, panting, eyes full of suspicion and disbelief.
“Who the fuck is he?” he spat, pointing at El.
“El,” I said. “He’s with me.”
“I didn’t ask who he's with,” Niko hissed. “I asked who he is.”

El stepped forward casually, pulling Niko up by the arm with shocking strength for someone so sickly. “Why would a man who will die soon need to know me?”
Niko froze.
“You do know they’re hunting you,” El continued. “And to find you, they’re tracking someone who’s been looking for you like a mad dog.”
His eyes slid to me. Niko’s breath hitched.
“..So you tracked him,” he said, voice cold.
El nodded. “Exactly. We need to move. Now.”

We didn’t say another word until we reached El’s safe place.
Hidden beneath a collapsed train station, it smelled of iron, mould, and burnt chemicals. Beakers clinked. Vials glowed with liquid things I didn’t want to understand.
“This is…” I started.
“My escape room,” El said simply. “And yes, everything here’s illegal.”

He moved easily through the clutter, picking up tools, checking Niko’s wound like a field medic.
“I wasn’t always with the rebels,” he began. “I was taken when I was nine. From Palestine. I was supposed to go home after school, but I never made it.”
He didn’t look up as he spoke. Just kept cleaning Niko’s wound.

“They trafficked me. Sold me to one of the mafia syndicates working with UZ’s underground. The ones you now call the Oracle.”
Niko looked up, sharp. El continued.

“They weren’t always rebels. They started as a mafia ring. The labs were brutal. They used me for testing- drugs, chemical implants, neurological rewiring. Wanted to see how much the human mind could take before breaking.”
“How are you still alive?” Niko asked.
El paused.
“Only my mind is, my body is giving up.”

He moved to clean a burn on Niko’s side. His hands shook, just faintly, but he didn’t stop.
"They succeeded in drugs which increase memory, mental strength and adrenaline rush."
“I developed symptoms. My body didn't have time to develop and grow. Tremors. Lung collapse. Memory spikes. Over-sensitivity to light and sound. I collapsed often. Sometimes they didn’t even notice for hours.”
I stayed quiet, watching El. The way his baggy tee hung over his small- boned body. The way his breathing quickened whenever we got too close. He had the body of a boy but eyes of war.
“Why did they keep you alive?” I asked.

He looked at me.
“Because I made them maps. Routes. Algorithms. I remembered everything. Those drugs make your mind work in inhuman ways.”
He reached for a pill bottle, paused. Then shoved it aside.
“I don’t take them anymore. Makes me feel like their pet.”

Niko narrowed his eyes. “So now what? You just watch them?”
“I intercept their comms. Steal their data. Sabotage shipments. Quietly. From a distance. And their newest target is you, Niko. You have a huge bounty on you."
He turned to me. “And I knew Nirav would be the perfect way in.”
“Why me?” I asked.
“Because you’re loud when you care. People like you burn a path through the city.”
I swallowed. Niko said nothing.

But I saw his gaze flicker over El. The thinness. The bandages. The cuts. The injection marks
“You still get tremors?”
“That's part of my life now.”

Niko didn’t smile. But he didn’t leave, either.

That was enough for now.

Later, El curled under a threadbare blanket, breath shallow, hands twitching as if haunted by dreams.

Niko sat on a crate near the far wall. Shirtless. The firelight drew shadows on every cut, every scar. I stared longer than I should have.
His body looked like it was sculpted by the Greeks. His eyes and hair were of the same thread.

I stepped closer. Carefully. “We need to talk.”
“If you say the word ‘prophecy,’ I swear-”
“You’re one of the twelve,” I said softly but firmly. “That woman wasn’t wrong.”

“What woman?” His laugh was sharp, bitter. “And what? You’re the chosen one who came to collect me?”
“No,” I said. “I’m the one who saw you first.”
His expression wavered. Just slightly.

“I saw how you moved. Like you didn’t care if you died. But you do. I know you do.”
“Stop acting like you know me,” he muttered.
“I don’t,” I admitted. “But I want to.”
That caught him off guard.

I stepped closer. My hand barely brushed his wrist. He didn’t pull away.
“Your body moves like war,” I whispered. “But your eyes-your eyes look like you’re waiting for someone to tell you it’s okay to stop.”
Niko swallowed.

“I saw your pain. I felt it when I touched you. I want to touch you again.”
My fingers trailed lightly up his arm. Slow. Deliberate. Testing. His muscles tensed beneath my palm.
“Don’t do this,” he muttered.

“Why not?”
“Because I kill people like you.”
I leaned closer. “Then kill me tomorrow. But tonight, let me see you.”
He didn’t move. Not toward me. Not away.

Our lips were almost touching. Our breath shared the same heat.
Behind us, El shifted in sleep, muttering something unintelligible.

I broke the moment, stepped back.
Niko let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding.
“You’re insane.”
“Only for you.”
“You saw me 3 days ago.”
“Haven’t you heard of attraction at first sight?”
He didn’t reply. But he didn’t walk away either.
And that’s one member in.

Chapter Text

I should’ve left.
The second that bullet tore into my side, I should’ve disappeared. Back into the sewers, the train lines, the graveyard ruins. Let the shadows devour me like they always did. That was the rule ,vanish or die.

But I didn’t run. Because I saw him.

The boy with eyes like still water before a storm. Nirav.

He wasn’t what I imagined. I thought I’d find someone hollow-eyed, barking orders, foaming with anti-council rage. But Nirav didn’t scream. He didn’t posture. He didn’t seek to be followed he simply was.
And he wanted me.

He was quiet.

His silence wasn’t emptiness,it was weight. It was deliberate. Like every word he chose cost him something. He didn’t move like a soldier, but the room moved around him. Like someone born in a locked room but still knew how to carve a door. Someone who’d been broken and rebuilt so carefully, you couldn’t see the seams until you got too close.

His body didn’t boast power, but commanded space. His face wasn’t perfect, but unforgettable. A fine scar near his lip, like someone once tried to silence him and failed. Warm brown eyes that should have been soft, but weren’t. They held things. Held me. Even before he spoke.And that infuriated me.

Because the moment I saw him,blood on his shirt, breath uneven, still standing between me and that bullet, I felt something feral crawl beneath my ribs.

Jealousy. Terror. Need.

Then I saw him with that boy.
That trembling ghost-El.
Small, pale. Too soft for war. But he was near Nirav. Too near.

I thought he wanted me.
HE WANTED ME.
And I snapped.

I lunged, blade raised. El shoved Nirav in front like a meat shield. Nirav caught me, didn’t flinch, didn’t even try to hurt me. He just held me. Like he’d been waiting.
Then the shot came. White-hot pain split through my ribs. I dropped.

Nirav moved like a storm unleashed. Destroyed the hunter. Blood on his hands. Breath like fire.
And when it was over, when I spat curses and demanded names, he didn’t yell.
He just said, “He’s with me.”
Why did that sentence burn more than the bullet?
They dragged me into a lair carved from chemicals and shadows. El’s so-called “escape room.” A lab full of buzzing things, cracked glass, quiet death.

I hated everything about it.
But I hated El more.

El, with his trembling hands and perfect sutures. El, with his haunted glow and dying breath. El, who Nirav looked at like he mattered.
So I asked too many questions.

“Why do your hands shake?”
“Side effect. Long story.”
“Do you even sleep?”
“Do you?”

He told us about being kidnapped. Tortured. Turned into a tool. And I knew that story. I knew it all too well. I lived it too.
But I still hated him.
Not for surviving. Not for being smart.
But because Nirav cared.

So when El collapsed in the corner, thin chest rising with the rhythm of an old machine, I waited.
And Nirav came.
Calm. Cautious. But so fucking close.

“We need to talk,” he said.
He spoke of prophecy. Of twelve. Of fate. Of death. I almost laughed. Almost shoved him away.

But then I looked at his face and saw belief. Not delusion. Not desperation. Conviction.
“You think I’m part of this?” I rasped. “I’m not a hero. I’m a weapon with a memory.”
“You survived. That’s more than most.”

He knelt beside me. Touched my wrist. Gentle, but not soft.
“You fight like you want to disappear,” he whispered. “But you watch like you’re waiting to be seen.”
And I shattered.

His hand rested on my chest. His thumb traced the burn of old scars and fresh blood.
I couldn’t breathe.
Not from pain.
From want.

He smelled like iron and the first rain hitting earth after dust. His curls clung to his forehead and his mouth . God, that mouth looked like it knew how to bruise and heal in the same breath.
He was too close.
And not close enough.
I wanted to memorize every freckle. Every scar. The curve of his shoulder. The flicker in his eyes when he’s about to speak but doesn’t.

I would have followed him into a fire if he asked.
I would let him burn me if it meant he’d look at me again like that.

And before he could pull away, I whispered ,low, guttural, poisonous:
“Don’t touch him like that.”

His eyes narrowed. “El?”
“I don’t care what he’s been through. He’s not me.”

He didn’t answer. But he stayed.
And that ruined me.

I fell asleep half-curled toward him. Needing. Grasping.
Not dreaming of escape.

Dreaming of him.
Of Nirav.
My baby.

I'll dream
Of the way he saved me without asking who I was.
Of the way he sees me even when I want to vanish.

the way I will kill anyone who touches him the way I want to be touched.
He doesn’t know it yet.
But I’m already his.
Even if it kills me.

And I want him to be mine even if it kills him.