The chapel smelled of wet ash, old stone, and the faint iron tang of blood. Rain slipped through the broken roof, dripping in slow rhythm onto the altar where the bodies had been arranged. The light of the lantern swayed, casting monstrous shapes along the walls — shattered pews, cracked statues, fingers frozen in prayer.
Two men stood near the front. One older, his coat stained at the cuffs; the other younger, pale beneath his hood.
A cigarette trembled faintly between the older man's fingers, ash curling down like gray snow. He exhaled slow, watching the smoke drift through the shattered beams above.
"Third church this month," the older man muttered, knuckles white on the lantern handle.
The younger man was on the phone, voice low. "Yes, mam … no survivors… just the mark." He paused, listening, eyes flicking to the altar. "Understood." He slipped the phone into his coat, mouth tight.
"No survivors?"
"None." The older man's mouth tightened. "Just this."
They both turned to the altar, where a single, jagged X had been carved into the stone, thick with fresh blood. It cut across the face of a saint, splitting mouth from brow, a crude desecration on top of destruction.
"It's him again," the younger whispered. "The shadow walker."
"Don't say that name." The cigarette trembled at the older man's lips.
"They say he's no man."
"They're wrong." The older man's jaw worked as he stared at the mark, eyes narrowing. "He's just a man who's made himself a curse."
For a long moment, neither spoke. The cigarette burned low between two fingers. Outside, the wind pressed against the broken stained glass, whispering through the wreckage. Finally, the younger man shifted.
"We'll be next if we're not careful."
The older man crushed the cigarette beneath his boot, grinding it into the stone.
"Then let it come."
Rain blurred the rooftops, turning slate and clay into a streaked wash of black.
A figure moved through it — silent, fast, cutting across the city's bones.
Ex crouched on the edge of a crumbling parapet, hood drawn low. Beneath, his face was bare to the night, the rain, the eyes of the gods. He wanted them to see him.
At his hips, two daggers — blades forged from the same dark alloy — hummed faintly, as if alive. His fingers brushed the hilts, feeling the familiar electric thrum that crawled up his arms.
Below, the priest hurried through the empty streets, robes pulled tight, head ducked, lips moving in silent prayer. His boots splashed through shallow puddles, breath sharp in the cold air. He looked back once, twice — seeing nothing but his own fear.
Ex moved.
The rooftops folded beneath his steps, a blur of wet stone and wind. He followed the man's path, gliding from ledge to ledge, the night wrapping itself around him like a second skin.
The moment came — a narrow alley, no eyes, no light.
Ex fell like a shadow breaking loose.
The priest half-turned, mouth open on a gasp that never finished. Steel kissed flesh, clean and precise. The priest's weight sagged into Ex's arms. There was no struggle, only the faint rattle of breath, the slow fading of warmth.
Ex eased the body to the ground. Rain whispered down on them.
He dipped two fingers into the blood, turned to the stone wall, and dragged them in a sharp, deliberate X. It shone slick and black in the moonlight, a wound left on the world.
A tremor ran through him — not guilt, not regret.
Recognition.
He stepped back. Without sound, without farewell, he vanished into the dark.
The forest rose like a black wall at the city's edge, swallowing the last light.
Beneath the canopy, the air turned heavy, the world older.
Ex moved through it without hesitation. Here, where the trees closed overhead and the earth softened underfoot, the world bent around him. Animals stirred, watching from the undergrowth — foxs, owls, the faint gleam of wild eyes — but none fled. They knew his scent, his weight, his silence..
The forest broke open at a rocky ledge where a thin waterfall spilled into a silver pool. Moonlight rippled across the water, cold and clear, the surface trembling like glass.
Ex knelt at the edge, fingers brushing the surface. The cold bit into his skin, sharp and clean. For a long moment, he stayed there, head bowed, watching the ripples spread.
He stripped off his bloodstained shirt, scars catching pale in the moonlight — pale slashes, deep grooves, a map of old violence. As he slipped into the water, the cold seized his breath, pulled it sharp from his lungs. He let it. Let it take the heat, the weight, the hunger. Let it carve him down to the bone.
The water rushed over him, threading through his hair, his fingers, the hollow spaces between his ribs. He submerged completely, eyes open, staring up at the blurred moon above, until his chest ached and his mind blurred at the edges.
When he broke the surface, the world felt quieter.
On the shore, he laid out his blades. The dark metal pulsed faintly in the moonlight, as if aware, as if waiting. He drew a whetstone from his pack, ran it slow and steady along the edge of each dagger. Sparks danced faintly, fireflies in miniature. With each pass, the sound was soft but deliberate — metal on stone, the sound of purpose refined.
Beside him, the chain-link earring lay on a flat rock, glinting like a fragment of night. Ex reached out, thumb brushing its surface. His face reflected back, faint, almost formless — a reminder that whatever he was, it was something he had forged himself into.
He packed his few things: a worn satchel, a flask, a strip of cloth that once bore a name he no longer remembered. His hands moved without sound, practiced, precise.
From a leather pouch, he pulled dried meat, chewed slowly. He drank from a canteen, water tasting of moss and stone. These were small rituals, survival stripped bare. But they tethered him — to the body, to the world, to the thread of purpose that ran beneath the hunger.
When he finished, he sat back on his heels, watching the sky.
Above, the stars burned cold and vast, scattered like the pieces of a map he could no longer read. He wondered — though the thought barely grazed his mind — if somewhere among them waited the gods he hunted, looking down, knowing, afraid.
I will not be small to them, he thought.
Not a footnote. Not a whisper. Not a man to be pitied.
He rose, gathering his things with methodical precision. Shirt, cloak, blades. Earring clipped back into place. The forest breathed around him, silent, waiting.
"Soon," he murmured, almost to the trees, almost to himself.
"Soon, you'll hear their names among the dead like curses."
For a heartbeat longer, he stood at the water's edge, eyes fixed on the sky...
A faint pulse answered.
From the daggers at his hips.
The metal warmed under his touch, a hungry thing, whispering in the back of his skull. He drew one blade, held it up. Moonlight caught along the black edge, trembling like a living nerve.
He remembered when he had found them here, half-buried in roots, long before his mind had stitched itself into shape again. The blades had felt like an extension of his broken will — something raw, something made to rend.
Ex exhaled, breath trembling at the edges.
"Two years," he murmured. "And now…"
His voice trailed off, caught in the hush of the trees. His hand skimmed over a scar at his ribs — one of many — then let it fall.
I was not meant to stay.
The peace here… was never mine to hold.
Before he left, he turned to the trees.
"Thank you," he whispered, voice rough, barely human. "For hiding me. For letting me heal. For not casting me out."
The forest answered with stillness.
He took his first step beyond the clearing. The animals stirred, restless, their eyes following his shape until the shadows swallowed him whole.
As Ex walked, the weight inside him gathered — old memories, broken shards, the names of gods and monsters. He remembered fire. He remembered chains. He remembered screaming until his voice tore apart.
But his name?
Gone.
Only the purpose remained.
I will tear them down.
gods, angels, chosen, saints — all of them.
I will be the ruin they never saw coming.
He paused at the edge of the forest, the night stretching vast before him.
"I am the sword of battle," he murmured, voice low, words tasting of ash and iron. "Forged to slaughter enemies."
His fingers tightened on the dagger hilt, the metal pulsing back, eager.
"And when the battle is over," he whispered, stepping into the dark,
"I sit chipped, alone, covered in blood, while the world marches on without me."
A faint smile — not warmth, not joy, but the ghost of something still unbroken.
"Like the sword… I never asked for creation."
"And with that, Ex walked forward —
into the hunt.
into the war.
into the night."