Chapter 20: Awakening
Few minutes later.
Danny stared at the body beneath the snow, now partially covered again.
His hands were still trembling, and he couldn’t stop them. His breathing was uneven, fast then held.
This was my first time killing someone.
Not a worm. Not a wolf. A man. A man who had looked at him.
He looked down at the broken sword still in his chained hand, red at the tip. A few moments ago, the man had been alive, breathing, eyes open. He had been cold and weak, but alive.
Now...
He was dead, and the snow was already making him part of the ground. Still. The blood around his neck was turning dark as it froze.
Danny slowly lowered the sword, his arm feeling like lead. He wanted to drop it, but his fingers wouldn’t open.
It might not be my last.
The thought came uninvited, and it frightened him more than the killing itself.
He didn’t want to become someone who killed peoplejudt like that. In his village, killers were cursed, driven out. His mother had told him never to raise a hand against another person, no matter what.
But he also knew something now, something cold and true that the frozen forest had taught him in one afternoon.
If he wanted to survive in this world, with monsters, with prisoners who would use him as bait, with snowstorms, there might come a time when he would have to do it again. And again. And it might get easier.
Danny turned away from the body quickly, as if looking away would make the thought go away. He pulled the stolen coat tighter around himself - it smelled like the dead man.
Then—
The air in front of him distorted.
Danny froze mid-step. One foot in the snow.
His eyes widened.
It looked as if the space itself was bending, like heat haze over a fire, but in the freezing cold. The snowflakes falling through that spot slowed down, hung in the air.
"What...?" he whispered.
A faint, pale blue glow appeared in front of him, right in the bent air. Not bright, but clear, like writing made of cold light.
Words began forming in the air, letter by letter, as if an invisible hand was writing.
Danny stared at them. He couldn’t understand what he was seeing. He had never seen letters float. He knew how to read only a little, from the caravan trader.
Then a message appeared, solid and still.
[Host conditions fulfilled.]
Danny’s eyes widened. His mouth opened slightly. The words were in front of his face, but not on anything.
Another message appeared beneath it, with a soft chime only he could hear.
[Awakening requirement achieved.]
His heart began beating faster, hammering against his ribs. What was this? Was this what the Awakened man saw? Was this death? Was the cold making him see things?
Then—
[DoD bloodline detected.]
Danny’s breathing stopped for a full second.
DoD?
His eyes immediately, instinctively, moved to his arms, to the black markings there. He pulled up his sleeve with shaking chained hands. The same markings everyone in his village, everyone in the caravan, had called a curse, a bad omen. The black arrows pointing up his forearms.
Just normal tribal marks. Just ink. That’s what you told everyone.
Another message appeared, larger this time, and the air around him got colder.
[Echo awakening initiated.]
Danny stood completely still. He didn’t know what an awakening felt like. The stories said Awakened felt fire in their veins, or heard gods. He didn’t feel fire. He felt cold and sick and scared.
He didn’t know what was happening to his body. Was he dying too? Was the dead man’s curse on him now?
Then the final message appeared, bright enough to reflect in his wide eyes.
[Congratulations.]
[You have awakened.]
Danny was speechless. The broken sword finally fell from his hand into the snow.
He couldn’t believe his eyes. He stared at the words floating there, his breath making clouds that passed right through them.
He rubbed his eyes hard with his dirty hands, once.
The words remained, glowing.
He rubbed them again, harder, until his eyes hurt.
They were still there, patient, waiting.
Danny stared at the strange messages, his legs almost giving out.
"Am I... dreaming?" His voice was tiny.
He thought maybe he had frozen and this was a dream before death. So he slapped his own cheek, hard, with his chained hand.
Pain shot through his face, sharp and real.
"Ouch!"
He quickly covered his cheek with his hand, eyes watering.
He wasn’t dreaming. The cold, the pain, the blood in the snow - all real. And the strange words were still floating in front of him, unmoving.
Danny’s mind raced, faster than it ever had.
What is this? Why can I see it? Only Awakened can see this? What does awakening mean? DoD bloodline - what is DoD? Is that my family? Is that why they marked me?
A hundred questions, no answers, and the snow still falling on him.
Before he could think any further, try to touch the words—
"Kid!"
Danny froze, his whole body jolting.
The thin prisoner’s voice came from behind him, sharp and annoyed, cutting through the wind.
"Are you done yet? Are you just standing there playing in the snow?"
Danny quickly looked back over his shoulder. The man was standing near the small, struggling fire they had finally lit, waiting impatiently, waving.
Danny looked at the strange glowing messages again. They were still there, floating. But he couldn’t stay here staring at air. If the thin prisoner came and saw him talking to nothing, or saw the body...
"Sorry!" he shouted back, his voice hoarse.
He quickly turned around, his heart still pounding.
"I’m coming! I found water!"
Danny rushed back toward the body one last time. He couldn’t leave him open-eyed. Before leaving, he crouched down and gently, with a trembling hand, pulled the Awakened man’s frozen eyelids closed. The skin was ice.
For a moment, Danny stared at his face, now peaceful.
"I’m sorry," he said again, quieter this time, meaning it more.
Then he stood, grabbed the water sack with the reddish snow wiped off, and grabbed the coat and boots he had taken, and hurried back toward the others, his chains clinking loudly.
The strange messages faded as he walked, but didn’t disappear - they moved to the corner of his vision, like an after-image, waiting.
He didn’t understand what had happened. He had killed a man to survive, and the world had answered by calling him Awakened.
But something deep inside him, under his skin, under his normal black arrow marks, had changed. Something warm was starting to beat, like a second heart.
And Danny had no idea...
That his life had just begun to change with it, and that the snowstorm coming was the least of his problems now.