Riyan's POV
I came back to myself in the closet.
My hands were still gripping the baseball bat. I unclenched my fingers. They didn't want to move. The bat clattered to the floor.
The house was quiet.
I opened the closet door.
The hallway looked the same. Family photos on the walls. The carpet Mom had picked out last spring because she said it was "cheerful." Dad's jacket on the hook by the stairs.
Blood everywhere.
Dark pools spreading across the cheerful carpet. Drag marks. Handprints where someone had reached for the wall.
Mom was face-down in the hall.
I started toward her. Stopped. Started again.
My legs were shaking. Why were my legs shaking?
She wasn't moving. I should check—check for breathing, check for a pulse, that's what you do, that's what people do when someone's hurt—
But her throat. The wound in her throat.
I'd read enough to know. You don't survive that.
I looked away. Looked at Dad's jacket instead. He'd worn it yesterday to work. There was a coffee stain on the sleeve he'd complained about at breakfast.
Breakfast. That was this morning. Hours ago.
Mom made pancakes. She'd smiled when she set the plate down. "Eat up, baby. Big day ahead."
I'd said thank you because that's what you say. Had I meant it? Had I—
My chest hurt. Like something was trying to claw its way out.
I went to my room. Got dressed. Shoes. Jacket. My hands were shaking now too. Couldn't get the zipper to work right. Kept missing.
Finally got it.
Walked downstairs. Past Mom. Don't look don't look don't look.
Out the front door.
Then I ran.
Third Person POV
Riyan ran through empty streets at 4 AM.
His breath came in gasps that burned his throat. His legs pumped mechanical—left, right, left, right—even as they trembled with exhaustion.
Three blocks. Four.
A car passed, headlights sweeping across him. It kept going.
His lungs were screaming. His vision blurred at the edges. But stopping meant thinking and thinking meant—
The police station appeared ahead.
He hit the door so hard it banged against the wall.
Officer Roy looked up from his desk, coffee cup halfway to his mouth. "Riyan? What—"
"My parents." The words came out wrong. Too loud. Too flat. "Someone killed them."
Roy stood fast, chair scraping. "What? Are you sure—"
"At the house. Maple Street. He came in through the kitchen window." Riyan's voice was steady. Why was it steady? "He used a knife. Multiple wounds. They're not breathing."
Roy grabbed his radio, but he was staring at Riyan with an expression that wasn't quite right. Concerned but also—what was that? Unsettled?
"All units, possible homicide at 428 Maple Street. Need immediate response."
Two other officers emerged. They asked questions. Riyan answered each one with precise detail—approximate time, physical description, entry point, sequence of events.
One officer exchanged a look with Roy. Riyan saw it but couldn't interpret it.
They put him in a patrol car. Roy drove. No sirens.
"You okay, son?"
Riyan counted street signs. One. Two. Three. Numbers were safe. Numbers didn't have blood on them.
"Son?"
"Yes." The word came out automatic.
Roy's face in the rearview mirror looked worried.
Maple Street. The house. Still looked normal from outside.
Officers went in with guns drawn. Roy made Riyan stay in the car.
Through the window, he watched flashlight beams sweep the interior. Saw one officer stumble back out and vomit in the bushes.
Riyan's hands were in his lap. Still shaking. He tried to make them stop. Couldn't.
Mom used to hold his hands when they crossed the street. Her grip was always warm.
His chest hurt again. Worse this time.
Roy came back fifteen minutes later. His face was gray. "Riyan, I'm so sorry."
"Are they—" Riyan's voice cracked. He swallowed hard, tried again. "Confirmed?"
The clinical word felt wrong in his mouth but safer than the alternatives.
"Yes. We've called detectives and the coroner." Roy looked like he wanted to say more, but didn't.
Riyan nodded. Filed the information away. Useful.
His hands wouldn't stop shaking.
Later
St. Catherine's Orphanage. Old building. Twenty-three kids.
Twenty-four now.
The director explained rules. Meal times. Chores. School.
Riyan said "yes ma'am" when prompted. Sat with his hands folded in his lap to hide the trembling.
Inside, something kept trying to surface—something big and crushing that wanted to break through—but every time it got close, his mind would flinch away, redirect, count things.
Tiles on the floor. Twelve across. Sixteen down.
Books on the shelf behind the director. Thirty-two.
Breaths between each of her sentences. Three. Four. Two.
They gave him a bed in a room with three other boys. Clothes from donations. A schedule on yellow paper.
That night, lying in the dark with strangers breathing around him, Riyan stared at the ceiling and tried to think about nothing.
But his brain kept circling back. Mom's smile at breakfast. Dad teaching him to ride a bike last summer, hands steady on the seat, voice patient.
"I've got you, buddy. Won't let go until you're ready."
Riyan's throat closed up. His eyes burned.
The love was there. Had always been there. He'd just been too broken to feel it properly, too disconnected to express it back the way they deserved.
And now they were gone and he'd never—
The thought wouldn't complete. Kept hitting a wall and fragmenting.
He pulled the thin blanket over his head. Curled into himself. His whole body shook but no sound came out.
The boy from Maple Street was gone. The one who'd tried so hard to perform normal, to fake the warmth he couldn't quite generate naturally.
What remained felt scraped hollow. Carved out.
To hands that had held his even when he couldn't hold back. To people who'd loved him despite sensing something fundamentally wrong.
They were dead.
And he was hollow.
Author's Note:
This chapter concludes Riyan's traumatic backstory and establishes the psychological foundation for his current behavior. "Nemora" represents the death of his childhood self and the birth of something colder and more ruthless.
Content Warning: This backstory explains but doesn't excuse Riyan's sadistic tendencies. Trauma is an explanation, not a justification.
Reader Discussion:
How does this context change your understanding of Riyan's detachment? Can someone this fundamentally broken ever heal?
Power stones and comments appreciated!
- Your Author