He glanced up.

  The sky above was a sickly hue—washed-out blue bleeding into the oncoming dusk, like the last gasp of a dying ember. It wasn't yet night. But it had stopped being day.

  He swallowed.

  Then, he spoke.

  Not because he wanted to get a reply. Not because someone would hear.

  But since silence, when not spoken, acquire teeth.

  "....What do I do now?"

  The words tumbled out of his mouth like rocks thrown into water—rippling, but plummeting quickly. His voice surprised him. It was reed-thin. Delicate. As if it had lost the memory of belonging to anyone.

  "I.... I want to get strong," he repeated, softly.

  The words were blunt. Ill-fitting. But they were true.

  "I don't want to be afraid any more," he whispered, his throat constricting. "I don't want to be hiding any more. I don't want…"

  His breath hitched.

  "...to starve."

  He curled his fingers into fists—not with anger. No. This was a weaker emotion. The frantic cling of a person who had nothing to cling to.

  His hands trembled.

  "....But I don't know how."

  No cultivation scrolls in the village. No hidden ancient masters living in huts. No sects, no spirit roots, no trials. Only inebriated old men who spoke about legends they could hardly remember—tales of immortals flying on swords, gods who held lightning in their fists, and heroes who never shed a drop of blood.

  But none of them had walked the mud of this village. None had ever slept in wet thatch under a stolen blanket and a blade made from a shattered bowl.

  He was just a child.

  What future could he carve?

  And yet.

  Yet.

  Somewhere under the hunger, under the fear, under the bruises that never scabbed and the frost that nipped at night— There was something else.

  A silence that did not whimper.

  A refusal that did not shout.

  He never believed in greatness. He never believed in destiny. He barely even believed in gods.

  But he did believe in wanting.

  And wanting was enough to make a creature crawl.

  He hungered—not for food, though his stomach had long since forgotten fullness. He hungered for something.

  An opportunity. A spark. A fissure in the world where a boy such as he could slip through and become something greater than dust under other people's feet.

  The gentle breeze rustled through the foliage, disturbing the moss above softly. One drop followed afterwards—softly, cold, against his face like an unprompted unshed tear of his own.

  Rain.

  He blinked up at the sky, its pale face darkening into gray now. Thunder rumbled softly in the distance. The boy winced and cursed under his breath.

  He sprang up, grabbing for the burlap sack slumped against a root—the one he'd stored the scrawny hare he'd caught. It was little, but it was something. And something was better than nothing.

  The rain intensified into a misty curtain of rain, the kind that penetrated clothing and the mind. He half-stumbled, half-ran back to the worn path that curved to the bent shed he used for cover. The ground underfoot, slick with moss and new mud, became slippery.

  Then—his foot struck something.

  The world spun. The slope betrayed him.

  And then the fall—knees thudding into wet ground, his shoulder smashing into curled roots, thorns ripping into his arms. His face slammed into mud, stinking and vile.

  "Fuck the ancestors of this cursed rain!"

  He groaned, hoisting himself up out of the mud. His hand instinctively went to the satchel over his shoulder.

  It was wet. Ripped. The hare he'd caught—his only sustenance for the next two days—was half-thrown from the sack, covered in mud and leaves. Its pale fur resembled something already decaying.

  His lips clenched.

  "Just my luck," he grumbled, breath catching as the rain grew heavier, cold and thin like needles pricking at his skin.

  Mist clung to his ankles, holding on to the earth. He was drenched. Mud tugged at his feet. He looked up, peering over the arc of the slope.

  There—just ahead. A shallow ridge, nearly concealed behind a slanted group of old rocks and thick vines, covered by a century of moss and time.

  He squinted.

  Behind the tangle…

  A hollow.

  Not—not merely an empty.

  A cave.

  It did not appear sacred. It did not even appear special. He moved forward.

  The cave wasn’t large. It breathed dampness—thick with the scent of moss and still water. The air was old. It clung to his skin like a second layer of rain. The walls shimmered faintly with grey-green lichen, and the ceiling curved low, forcing him to walk hunched. He didn’t go far. Just deep enough to escape the worst of the rain.

  His body shuddered with cold and the fall, but here at least the ground wasn't shifting mud.

  He sat down, folding up his knees, his head laid on the rock. Beside him, curled up in the battered sack, lay the body of the hare, its countenance as dejected as he felt.

  But as his eyes adapted, and his breathing relaxed into deeper, softer breaths, he saw something.

  A little deeper in—past a bend.

  A wall.

  He rose slowly, curiosity replacing where frustration had been. The rear of the cave was exposed.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  A wall, high and smooth, stood before him—too smooth to be natural. It was cracked, worn dark with moss and time—but its surface bore the unmistakable pattern of hands.

  And on that wall… words.

  Dozens. Hundreds. Etched in dark strokes, looping, bleeding into the stone like ink scorched into flesh.

  They started off neatly, at eye level. But as the lines fell, they slanted. Twisted. Became frantic.

  By the end, the script had twisted into forms that refused to be words—crawling lines like veins, or thorns, or something that was eager to talk but had lost the memory of how.

  His mouth felt dry.

  His heart beat slower.

  He read.

  -----------------------------------------------------------------------

  I'm not writing this to be remembered.

  Fuck remembrance.

  I'm writing this 'cause the voices won't stop gnawing my goddamn skull.

  They whisper in my sleep.

  They bite when I breathe.

  They curl under my tongue like worms in rot.

  So perhaps if I vomit it out here, in this urine-stained cave where even the ghosts gag—perhaps I'll have a moment's peace.

  You discovered this location?

  Shit.

  I'm sorry for you.

  Or perhaps I ain't. Perhaps you fucking did deserve it.

  Perhaps you're like me. Empty as a broken bone. Ill with wanting. Ill with needing.

  If you're reading these words, then life's already kicked your ribs in and pissed in the cracks.

  You're starving.

  Not for bread. Not for safety.

  You’re starving for something meaner.

  Some fucked-up reason.

  Some speck of power.

  Some harsh reality to respond to that voice that yells inside your head whenever you glance up into the sky and remember that it doesn't even see you.

  That cry that screams, "Why the fuck am I this small in a world this fucking big?"

  Yes. That one.

  Let me tell you something, cave crawler.

  They named me Xie Wuming.

  The Nameless Bastard.

  The Hollow Flame.

  The Sky-Buried Curse.

  The Oath-Breaker.

  The Filth-Tongue.

  The Spiral-Souled Scum.

  The Weed That Grew in Shit and Still Learned to Fucking Bite.

  And still after all of that, they weren't done.

  The Heir of Fuck-All.

  The Beast That Pissed on Heaven's Seal.

  The Nine-Lie Bastard.

  The Devil Who Burned Backwards.

  The Ghost That Wouldn't Stay Dead.

  The Shit-Stain on the Dao.

  Tch. So many names.

  You needed names, did you?

  Needed something to spit between your teeth so that you didn't choke on your fear.

  You referred to me as demon, curse, stain, shadow, freak, blasphemy.

  As if a fucking name could cage me.

  As if putting me in your little holy books would cleanse the blood from your hands.

  Well fuck your names. Fuck your seals.

  Fuck your sanctified paths.

  I will tell you the truth.

  I wasn't born evil.

  I was fucking built that way.

  I had no one to crawl to. No one to cry to. No one to fucking beg.

  No mother's lullaby.

  No warm fatherly hands.

  They died face-down in gutter froth behind a piss-washed wine house.

  Stabbed. Starved. Forgotten.

  No incense.

  No names.

  No fucking tombstones.

  Their corpses were scooped up like old dogs and dumped behind a dusty temple like spoiled rice.

  And me?

  Wrapped in fishskin. Sleek with blood and guts. A beggar sustained me long enough to sell me for a half-rotten peach in the famine season.

  So yeah. That’s my origin story. Big fuckin’ deal.

  No phoenix. No dragon. No destiny. Only maggots and shit water.

  No glowing birthmark.

  No jade-eyed elder arriving with a divine mandate.

  No mystic prophecy scrawled in stars.

  Just hunger. Just filth.

  Just me, gnawing on bone to learn before I could fucking talk.

  I wasn’t born beneath the heavens. I was spat out by the dirt.

  And guess what?

  Even flies did not want me.

  Even rats went around my cradle.

  Dogs would not smell me. Crows flew over my stench.

  I wasn't an error.

  I was waste.

  -----------------------------------------------------------------------

  No one fucking visited me.

  No kindly sage in moonlight robes.

  No wandering goddamn master with a twinkle in his eye and a legacy to pass on.

  No family crest imprinted on my ass.

  No prophecy.

  No savior.

  Just me, a cracked-fingered little shit in the gutters, reeking of piss and rot, chewing on bark and bottle glass for the taste of anything.

  I wasn't a hidden dragon waiting to be found.

  I was a damn sewer rat with hate in my lungs and scars where dreams ought to have been.

  Scabs covered my hands from brawling over garbage. My nails were worn down to the quick. My knees were bleeding from crawling along alley filth. I had fleas that were nearer to me than humans were.

  I learned to steal before I could speak.

  Bit fingers before I could beg with them.

  Snarled like a dog at people twice my size for the right to chew bones already dripping with other bastards' spit.

  I bled so long that the taste of iron was more comforting than my own name.

  Smiles? They were warning signs. A smile always meant that someone was going to steal something from me—flesh, pride, breath, didn't matter.

  And what did this world teach me?

  That it don't care a rat's bloated dick about the weak.

  It eats them.

  Shits them out.

  Then unearths them and laughs as he grinds their faces back into the ground, declaring it fate.

  "There's no justice in Heaven. There's only a fucking hierarchy."

  You ever look and notice what power is?

  It ain't flowing robes and glittering talismans. That's window dressing. Theater.

  Power is not resplendent baubles or bloodlines steeped in incense and vanity.

  Power is teeth.

  Power is fists that never stop even when your fucking bones scream.

  Power is limping on broken knees with your insides spilling out and still muttering, "Not yet. Not fucking done."

  They say righteousness exists.

  Fuck off.

  That's a bedtime story the powerful tell themselves so they can sleep after coating the walls in someone else's blood and painting them red.

  Me? I drank ditch water that contained dead rats floating in it. I chewed femur marrow I pilfered off cremation pyres.

  I torched the part of me that yearned for hugs. Strangled out the kid who longed for lullabies.

  I murdered that soft little shit inside me—and from the rot, I built something else.

  Not a man.

  Not even a beast.

  A fucking demon. One that won't heal. One that bites back.

  -----------------------------------------------------------------------

  When I first felt qi, it wasn't during meditation. Wasn't some enlightenment bullshit under a waterfall.

  It was from a rich prick's blood.

  A rather dainty young master with too much silk, too little soul.

  He waved meat around my face as if I was a pet.

  Told me to bark.

  His boys laughed like pigs.

  "Dance, mutt."

  I smiled.

  Then I ripped his fucking throat out.

  He squealed like a butchered sow. Gurgled. Grabbed at his neck like he could hold the life in.

  I saw it in his eyes—that panic. That realization.

  These "cultivators"? They ain't gods.

  They're meat.

  And meat bleeds.

  This world told me to wait.

  Wait for my roots to wake.

  Wait for the sect to come knocking.

  Wait for some nice old fuck to say into my eyes, "You are special, child."

  I fucking waited.

  With an empty stomach and fractured ribs, I waited.

  Until waiting was worse than death.

  Until I understood—

  We were not born to be chosen.

  We were born to take.

  To rip power out of the world’s clenched fists.

  They said that I had no roots.

  No cultivation affinity.

  Trash-tier spiritual veins. Dead-end bloodline. Mundane filth.

  But let me tell you something:

  Waste that does not burn begins to rot.

  And rot?

  Rot creates monsters.

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  This world don't hate evil.

  It fears independence.

  Fears those who bow to nothing.

  Not Heaven. Not Karma. Not even that sanctified dogshit known as the Dao.

  You want to know when I knew?

  Not during meditation. Not while studying sacred scrolls in a jade temple.

  It was the first time I'd ever killed a man.

  Golden Branch Sect outer disciple.

  He wore shiny robes and dead fish eyes. The type that could see right through people.

  My friend Yulan? Dumb bastard. Hungry. Stole a dried lotus root.

  This highborn piece of shit—he broke every bone in Yulan's body.

  Kicked his teeth in. Laughed as Yulan pissed himself, crying for his momma.

  Then just walked away. Didn't even look back.

  So I smiled. I bowed. Played the dumb mutt.

  "Of course, Young Master. I will guide you through the crags. It is safer, yes."

  When we arrived at the cliffs—the steep, quiet ones where even echoes shut the fuck up—I pushed.

  No hesitation.

  Only release.

  His spine cracked like a rotten branch.

  He screamed halfway down. Then silence.

  I remained there.

  Breathing.

  And then—

  I screamed.

  Not because of guilt. Fuck no.

  I screamed because I enjoyed it.

  For that silence had been the world's first in which they did not loathe me.

  It feared me.

  I buried what was left of him in thornbrush. Took his pendant. Crushed his spiritual pouch on the rocks.

  Used the blood to draw a rune—some half-mad thing I once saw carved on a lunatic’s back in the asylum caves.

  Didn’t know what it meant.

  Didn't fucking care.

  I made it mine.

  And in that fucked-up moment, it hit me—

  I didn't need a title.

  Did not require ancestry or Heaven's favor.

  Didn't require a sect or a shifu or a fucking birthright. I could take it all.

  Piece by bloody piece.

  almost as much of a turn-off as the whole "I'll destroy the world to be immortal" thing. Who hasn’t thought about immortality while staring into the void of their cereal bowl, right?

  If you’re enjoying this descent into madness, consider leaving a comment. It feeds me. Literally. I haven’t seen sunlight in two days.

  Thanks for reading.

  —The Author, who definitely isn't channeling personal issues into fictional mass destruction.