Riyan's POV
The orphanage room smelled like industrial bleach and mildew.
Twenty-two rooms total. Mine had four iron-frame beds with thin mattresses that showed springs through the fabric. Scratched linoleum floors. Single window with bars. Pale green paint peeling off concrete walls.
Three other boys shared the space. They were at dinner. I'd said I wasn't hungry.
I sat in the corner between my bed and the wall, knees pulled to my chest.
Mom's face kept surfacing. Her smile at breakfast three days ago. Pancakes. She'd made pancakes.
Then the other image. The one I couldn't stop. Her throat. The blood spreading across the carpet she'd called "cheerful."
My hands were shaking again. They hadn't stopped since that night.
Dad's voice in my head: "I've got you, buddy. Won't let go until you're ready."
But he had let go. Because he was dead. Because someone with a knife had—
My chest seized up. Couldn't breathe right. The air in here was too thick, too heavy with bleach fumes and the smell of too many unwashed bodies in too small a space.
The shadows in the corner were moving wrong.
I looked up.
A figure stood there. Dark. Indistinct at first, like smoke given shape.
Then it solidified.
My face stared back at me.
Not exactly mine—older maybe, sharper—but the same bone structure, same dark hair, same features I saw in mirrors. Except wrapped in something that looked like liquid shadow, constantly shifting, never quite solid.
"Furia," I whispered.
She'd been appearing since the second night. Always in darkness. Always when I was alone.
I knew she wasn't real. Knew my brain was broken, making things up to fill the hollow space where my parents used to be.
But she felt real.
Her arms wrapped around me—solid, warm, impossibly strong for something made of shadow. She pulled me against her chest and the darkness enveloped me completely.
It should have been terrifying.
Instead, it felt safe.
"I'm here," she whispered. Her voice was mine but layered, deeper. "Always with you, Riyan."
The tears came. Hot. Ugly. My whole body shook with sobs I'd been holding back for days.
She held me tighter. Possessive. Like she'd physically fight anything that tried to take me away.
Her hand stroked my hair—the exact way Mom used to when I couldn't sleep. The mimicry should have been wrong but I was too starved for comfort to care.
"They're gone," I choked out between sobs. "They're dead and I—I couldn't—"
"Shh." Her fingers traced patterns on my back. Soothing. Constant. "I know. I know, my Riyan."
My Riyan.
The possessiveness in those words was absolute. Not comforting. Not maternal.
Something else. Something that claimed ownership in a way that felt both wrong and desperately needed.
I buried my face in her shoulder—solid shadow that smelled like nothing and everything—and cried until exhaustion dragged me under.
Third Person POV
Furia held the sleeping boy in arms that shouldn't exist.
She'd manifested from his fractured psyche three days ago, born from trauma and desperation and something older that had been waiting for exactly this moment.
She looked down at his tear-stained face. Mine, she thought with fierce satisfaction. Finally mine.
Carefully, she lifted him. Carried him to the thin mattress and laid him down. The iron frame creaked under the weight.
She leaned close. Her face—his face reflected darker—hovered inches above his.
Then she kissed his forehead. Soft. Lingering. Her identical face hovering too close, her smoke tracing his features too greedily
"Sleep, my love," she whispered against his skin.
She straightened. The shadows around her intensified, becoming denser, heavier.
Then she looked up.
Not at the water-stained ceiling. Through it.
Her gaze pierced through plaster, through the orphanage roof, through the sky itself. Beyond reality. Into something else.
The air in the room changed. Gravity shifted sideways for half a second before snapping back. The temperature dropped twenty degrees in an instant. Frost formed on the window bars.
Her face—Riyan's face twisted by shadow—contorted into an expression of such raw, cosmic hatred that the walls themselves seemed to recoil.
"ELYRIA."
The word tore through dimensional boundaries. Not shouted. Something worse. A declaration that carried weight reality wasn't meant to support.
"YOU BITCH."
The shadows around her erupted outward in a pulse of pure malevolence. The iron bed frame bent. Cracks spider-webbed across the ceiling. The window glass didn't shatter—it simply ceased to exist for a moment before reforming.
Riyan slept through it all, held in whatever protective cocoon she'd wrapped around him.
Her form began unraveling. Dissolving back into the darkness she'd come from.
But her presence lingered. Heavy. Possessive. A promise and a threat woven together.
She'd found her anchor. Her beloved. Her Riyan.
And whatever Elyria had done—whatever cosmic crime had earned such hatred—would be answered.
Eventually.
For now, she had a broken boy to remake in her image.
The shadows swallowed her completely.
The room returned to normal. Cold. Bleak. Smelling of bleach.
Riyan slept on, unaware that something ancient and terrible had just claimed him as its own.
READER Q&A CORNER
Question Time, Dear Readers!
Who do you think Furia really is? Is she merely a figment of young Riyan's traumatized mind, or something far more sinister... or perhaps divine?
What's the connection between Furia and Elyria? That final outburst revealed deep hatred. What could have transpired between these two mysterious beings?
How will this childhood trauma shape the current Riyan? We've seen glimpses of "Nemora" emerging during the Hotel BlackMoon infiltration. Are Furia's influences still present?
Theory crafting time: Could Furia be connected to Riyan's transmigration? Did she play a role in his death and rebirth into the world of "Saint's Odyssey"?
Drop your theories, predictions, and thoughts in the comments below! I read every single one and love seeing your brilliant minds at work!
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— Lone Raut