I remember the last day before our demise.
It was a sunny, scorching day—the kind of heat that boiled water by noon and turned nights as cold as a human heart. That orphanage had always been a strange pocket of warmth in a dead world, but that day it felt like a tomb.
I saw Elari. Maybe for the last time.
All the faces in the orphanage blurred together. They smiled, unaware of tomorrow's genocide. But I knew. The six months had passed. Tomorrow, they would come to kill us.
Last night, the doctor had burned my legs with heated metal. When I screamed, he spoke in his usual detached tone: "Do what you want now. But remember—you're the reason we'll die."
He wanted to send me to the test site again. Said I scored a perfect 100 on physical, but zero on mental evaluations. I wasn't ready. I would fail.
I didn't see him today.
Just children and cleaning bots, emotionless machines gliding silently through the hallways.
"I need someone to know this," I muttered.
A child overheard. "What do you want us to know?"
"Nothing. Just that the doctor won't come today." I brushed it off. They didn't need to be a part of this. But they already were.
I wandered the corridors, searching for someone—anyone—to share the weight of this truth. But their smiles were too precious. I couldn't ruin that warmth.
Why do creatures like us—capable of such evil—exist? Yet this orphanage had always been proof that even in misery, warmth could survive. Their laughter, their joy... it kept me alive. But today would mark the end of that warmth. And the beginning of the cold.
Then I saw Kael.
He was sitting beneath the dry, leafless tree. A corpse of wood. Just like him—expressionless, empty.
Me and Kael were opposites. I was the top performer; he was always last. I had people; he had silence. But Elari had connected us, somehow. She'd tried to make him laugh with stupid jokes, always failing, but never giving up.
I walked to him, tears in my eyes.
"Kael, listen to me."
We climbed to the terrace. I told him everything—the doctor's secrets, the sales, the military, the deaths... and how it was all my fault.
He listened.
Then asked, "So what do you want?"
"To escape. But if I do... she'll be gone. I don't want to leave her. I know it's selfish, but I don't want to die, Kael. I just... I don't want to be part of this. Why was it me? Why not anyone else?"
He stood, then said something that shook me:
"I'll save her. I'll bring your family back together. But promise me—you won't let me die."
I didn't understand what he meant, but I nodded anyway.
"Do you have a plan?"
"No," he said. "But people don't die until you forget them. I won't let her die if you won't let me die. You'll want to quit. But to save yourself and humanity, you'll have to face tomorrow."
"But I hate them. I hate myself."
"Then find the reason. That's your job."
His words made no sense to me. But they didn't have to. They were meant to make me feel lighter.
"You'll find it yourself," he said.
I woke to darkness.
Not just dark—pure void. No light, no warmth, only distant sounds. I activated the smartwatch. A faint glow emerged.
"Welcome, Kael. Check your role and tags. Register your name in the portal."
Kael. His name.
Is that what he meant?
The system asked for a nickname. I typed: "The outcast who lives in shame."
But I erased it. Too obvious. Too raw. I picked a string of random numbers instead.
Then came my role:
"The Burning Outcast."
You are an outcast burned by society's treatments. You can burn them with you, if you choose.
I was in a rocky place—no light, sharp echoes, still air.
A cave.
I had never seen one before, but I had read about them. Cold. Hollow. Old.
I thought of what to do.
Three options:
Join the previous group.
Find the other outcasts.
Stay alone.
I chose the last. I had already been sacrificed once. Why give them another chance?
Then I remembered something else:
"Find the Executioner."
Who is the Executioner?
The one who kills. But in a system like this, executions aren't random. They are political. Either the king dies… or the pigs.
That's it.
I needed to find someone who had killed—either a leader, or one of us.
But that wouldn't be easy.
Somewhere in this darkness, a hunter was waiting.
And I would need to find him before he found me.