894 years after the War of Light and Darkness

  In a small rural village, hidden among endless fields and dense forests, there lived a small but close-knit family. Their house, modest but cozy, was always filled with warmth and love.

  Marvo was the only child in the family. A small, sweet boy with brown eyes and dark hair, he grew up kind and affectionate. Always smiling, he reached out to people, genuinely rejoicing in every new day.

  His mother, a kind and caring woman, worked as a saleswoman at the local grocery store. She knew all the residents of Eltwood by name and always found kind words for each one. Marvo's father was a military man — a strict but fair person. Despite his frequent departures, he always made time for his son, teaching him important things: how to hold oneself with dignity, how to be honest and strong.

  Their life was simple, yet happy. However, no one knew what trials awaited little Marvo ahead…

  When Marvo was only two years old, war came to their home from the east, from Rivenor. The shadows of warfare spread across the country, and with each passing day, the world around the family became increasingly unstable. Marvo’s mother, trying to hide her anxiety, continued working at the store, but there was pain in her eyes. Marvo’s father, a military man, was soon sent to the front lines. Spending long months apart, he would visit the family only occasionally, coming home for a couple of days to see his son, who barely remembered him.

  Each such visit was not only a joy for Marvo but also a bitterness. He tried to get to know his father, tried to understand why he left so often and why everything felt so strange: his mother no longer smiled, and sometimes, she remained silent, as if waiting for everything to change again.

  His father came home with eyes full of exhaustion and unsaid words, and each time he left, he left an emptiness in their home. The years passed, and Marvo grew accustomed to the fact that his father had become more of a symbol than a real person with whom he could talk or spend time.

  It was 899 when Marvo turned 7, the war took his father. He was killed on the battlefield, and his body never returned home. The family went through difficult times, and despite attempts at consolation, the loss of his father was a huge blow for little Marvo. He barely understood what was happening, but he felt the disappearance of one of the most important figures in his life.

  By the year 900, the war finally ended. It was a long-awaited yet terrifying event, bringing joy but also leaving many incurable wounds, both in the country itself and in the hearts of those who had survived its horrors.

  The ancient lands, once prosperous, were now consumed by hunger and poverty. The streets of the city were filled with despair. Everywhere, there were remnants of destruction, and the air was thick with the smell of dampness and decay.

  Marvo witnessed how the world around him had changed. Meanwhile, having lost his father, he increasingly realized how much he had lost. But there was another moment in his life that changed everything — the death of his mother.

  Marvo's mother, who had endured the grief of losing her husband, soon fell ill. The doctors could not find the cause of her illness, and after a few months, she passed away. This happened on December 23, a day that marked the definitive end of his childhood.

  Hunger and abuse became some of the harshest trials in little Marvo's life. The people he had been renting a room from kicked him out onto the street, unwilling to care for a child who could no longer pay rent. Marvo found himself alone, completely alone, in a world where there was no protection or care. The winter was harsh, and he often ran through the streets with empty hands, like other children his age, searching for any scraps of food, even if it meant digging through garbage. Sometimes, when hunger gripped him, he would just sit on the ground, staring at tiny pieces of bread. It was the hunger of the soul, when there was no room for hope, when in the eyes of passersby, he saw only indifference. The ability to survive, as it turned out, became the first lesson he learned in this world.

  Sometimes his hands were covered with bruises and cuts. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept peacefully. Sleep was not so much a rest as it was a simple way to disconnect from a reality in which there was no room for happiness.

  But then, one day, at that very moment when he was ready to completely give up and fall into the abyss of despair, she appeared — Inna. A woman whom Marvo did not know, and perhaps, she did not know him either. She offered him help and took him in. At first glance, her actions might have seemed strange or even naive in this world. But in that moment, for Marvo, it became the light at the end of a dark tunnel.

  He didn’t know what would happen next, but for a while, his life came to a halt. Inna wasn’t just a woman who took him into her home. She became something more to him — almost a symbol that there was still room for kindness in this cruel world. But could she replace everything he had lost? And what would happen to him when she found out what had happened to his family?

  Marvo couldn’t answer these questions, but looking at Inna, he suddenly felt that not everything was lost. And maybe, just maybe, his life hadn’t ended on the streets of the city after all.

  After Marvo arrived at Inna’s house, his life began to change, though not for the better. The apartment where Inna lived was old and dilapidated. The furniture was worn, and the atmosphere was neglected, creating a depressing feeling. Still, at first, Inna tried to care for Marvo. She treated him like a younger relative, in some ways even like a son, for which he was deeply grateful and began calling her “aunt.”

  However, her husband, who had lost his arm in the war, could not remain the same. His disability deeply altered his personality. He became dependent on alcohol, and his issues with it grew more and more apparent. During these moments, he lost all connection to reality and began venting his frustration on those around him — on Inna as well on their daughter, and of course, on Marvo. Marvo remembered times when Inna’s husband came home drunk, reeking of alcohol, and would start shouting, demanding that everyone remain silent, not move, not breathe too loudly. During these moments, Marvo would sit in the corner, trying to avoid drawing the attention of this man. He knew that any movement or word could lead to punishment. He did everything to avoid being noticed, but even that didn’t always help.

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  This was a consequence of his inner pain and despair, and although he initially tried to remain neutral toward Marvo, his attitude worsened with each passing day. He became a person who felt indifference toward Marvo, and eventually, contempt.

  Inna’s daughter, who was a little older than Marvo, did not welcome his arrival into their family. At first, she was cold towards him, then outright hostile. Her attitude toward Marvo only worsened when the family began to fall apart under the weight of internal tension. She considered him an outsider, something unnecessary in the family.

  At first, Inna truly tried to protect Marvo. She attempted to shield him from her husband’s cruel treatment and made several efforts to improve the relationship between him and her daughter. She considered him a family member, and in her eyes, he was primarily a boy who needed care and attention. However, as time passed, watching her husband and daughter reject Marvo, she began to lose strength and hope for change.

  With each passing month, Inna became more resigned to the situation. Her husband continued to drink, growing increasingly aggressive, and her daughter, in turn, refused to accept Marvo as part of the family, rejecting him at every turn. Inna, exhausted from the struggle, simply stopped intervening.

  Over time, Inna indeed became colder toward Marvo. Her life, consumed with caring for her husband and daughter, fully absorbed her, and her attention to the boy gradually faded. She became focused on survival, working and receiving a subsidy for her husband, and her own struggles and hardships left no room for caring for the child. The home she shared with her family became a place where Marvo was essentially forgotten.

  Inna, weakened by the constant struggle, no longer tried to involve Marvo in family matters or care for his education. She had no time to teach him anything or help with his development, and no one in the house showed any interest in explaining things to him. Marvo, left alone, was forced to learn by himself.

  When Marvo turned almost 10, he became even more reliant on his household duties. With each passing month, the list of chores he had to do grew longer. He cooked, cleaned, washed dishes—everything that adults usually do. But for him, it became not just a responsibility but a part of survival.

  He had no right to refuse work, because punishment would follow if he did. Inna and her family didn’t see him as a person, but rather as a tool for fulfilling all the household needs. If Marvo failed to complete tasks or did something wrong, he was met with humiliation and cruel words, being accused of ingratitude. He was often told he was worthless, and he felt helpless in the face of this unrelenting cruelty.

  He became part of the decor, an invisible shadow that simply existed in the house to please everyone, and perhaps this status of a servant or slave became his only way of staying alive and avoiding even greater anger. In this house, his personal space and freedom were taken away, and he became a slave to routine and duties that he could not escape from.

  Months passed, and then years. Marvo became more and more withdrawn. He thought he had found salvation, but instead, he found only pain and humiliation. However, for him, it was still better than the hunger he had endured on the half-empty streets.

  Over time, he began to view his hatred as something inevitable.

  It hurt him when he went outside without permission or when he took another piece of bread during lunch; punishment immediately followed. Everything he did seemed wrong or inappropriate in the eyes of their "family." For example, when he drew a picture with a simple pencil, he was scolded, as they believed he was wasting paper.

  But the most painful part was how his birthday passed. He didn't expect anything special, but even what he was given — a dry cinnamon bun that had been sitting on the table for days — didn't bring him any joy. It had the words: "Happy 12th birthday." That was all.

  The only thing that made him happy at this age was that, when no one was home, he could quietly sneak into the daughter of Inna's room and take her school books. This was his real salvation, even if temporary. He would read for hours, devouring pages without thinking about what he could have done for others during that time. He liked solving complex math problems. Though much of it was unclear to him, he still enjoyed the process and loved contemplating numbers. Chemistry, in particular, fascinated him. Chemistry was strict and logical, and there was something comforting about it. When he figured out chemical reactions, he felt like a scientist who could influence the world, even if just small parts of it.

  He was especially drawn to experiments, even those he read about in old books, where seemingly ordinary substances turned into something completely new. Marvo loved how chemistry explained everything around him, from the color of metals to the smell of substances. He sensed not just logic in it, but beauty as well. When he read about molecules, atoms, and how particles interacted with each other, he felt that the world around him became a little more understandable.

  But it was only through History that Marvo realized that this world was actually much more complicated than he had seen. After reading about the system of five worlds, he learned that long ago, the world of humans had been different. There had been no magic. It appeared only after the War of Light and Darkness — the battle between angels and demons who could not share power among themselves. They fought for centuries until their war shattered the world into pieces. Marvo read about this, and images began to form in his mind. He saw lightning flashing across the sky, wizards hurling fiery spears, and the earth trembling under their power. He imagined himself among them.

  But one detail especially intrigued him. Years after the war, the deviants appeared. Deviants were as different from each other as the sky is from the earth. Their abilities were unique, as if the universe itself chose who would receive which power. Some could become invisible, and thus, untouchable. Some could move objects with the power of their minds, while others could change their appearance, or even transform into a beast.

  He wondered what it was like to feel that power within oneself, to control it, to hold it in his hands.

  He dreamed of becoming strong. Not for power, not for glory, but simply for the ability to fight back. So no one could humiliate him anymore, punish him for an extra piece of bread or for washing a plate wrong. He wanted to incinerate this house, erase it from the face of the earth, turn it to ash along with all the grievances, pain, and fear.

  But he was just an ordinary boy. He had no magic, no gift, no power. The only thing he had left was patience. Patience to endure everything that came his way, patience not to break, patience to wait for his chance.

  But time was always scarce for him. He couldn’t immerse himself in books as he wanted. As soon as he got lost in the pages, someone would return home—and then he had to hurriedly close the book, carefully place it back in its place, and make sure everything looked as it had before.

  Because if anyone noticed he had taken the books without permission, punishment awaited him. And not just a strict scolding—there would be beatings, reproaches, insults. So he learned to read quickly, snatching the most important pieces from the lines, absorbing knowledge in fragments, until he heard footsteps outside the door.

  Time didn’t stop for anyone, and it spared no one. It flowed indifferently, shifting from one day to the next, from one year to the next. The little boy continued to grow in this family, gradually forgetting what it meant to have his own desires, his own dreams, his own personal space.

  He lived as he was told, did what was required of him, endured everything that was thrown at him. The hope for change grew weaker, but deep inside, he still believed — someday, this world would change. And perhaps, along with it, his life would change too.