Tae's Arc

Chapter 1 of 5

Tae was fourteen, and he had lived longer than the world. He had walked every age of the earth, fought every war worth fighting, and buried every enemy who tried to break the weak. Now he wanted only one thing: quiet. He lay across the couch in his glass penthouse, controller in hand, socks off, a game paused on the wide screen. No fights today. No begging crowds. Just the hum of the city far below and a save file waiting for him. The glass wall lit up. A pattern burned across it, thin lines spinning into a bright wheel of circles. Tae knew the mark. It was old, older than most of the things he had killed. Heat pressed against his face. He did not flinch. Nothing had burned him in a thousand years. A woman stepped through the light. She stood taller than the door, her long hair the color of copper, glowing lines drawn across her arms and face. Power came off her like cold air off ice. She looked at the paused game, then at Tae, and her lip curled. "You are the one they call unbreakable," she said. "I expected a warrior. I found a boy playing games." Tae did not sit up. "I stopped being a warrior. Go bother someone weaker." "I do not fight the weak," she said. "Neither do you. That is why I came for you." He set the controller down slowly. "I came here to sleep. To play. To be left alone. I earned that." "Something is unmaking the realms," she said. "It eats the strong first. When the strong are gone, it takes the rest. The children. The old. Everyone you spent your ages protecting." She raised her hand. The burning wheel spun faster on the glass. "I have watched it for a hundred years. I cannot stop it. You can." Tae stood. The mark's heat should have peeled his skin. It did nothing. He walked to the glass and pressed his palm flat against the spinning pattern. It did not fight him. It welcomed him, and that was worse. "If I say no?" he asked. "Then it comes here," she said. "To this room. To your quiet." He looked at his paused game one last time. He looked at the city he had chosen because no one there knew his name. Then he pulled his hand back, and the mark on the glass followed it, wrapping up his arm in glowing lines that would not fade. "You marked me," he said. "You marked yourself when you touched it," she answered. "It knows you now. It will not let go until the thing is dead." Tae stared at the burning lines circling his wrist. His quiet was over. He had wanted to do nothing forever. Now something older than his rest wanted him to fight again, and this time it had followed him home.