By the time Johan turned seven, he had ceased to be a child in any sense that mattered. He still wore the face of one. He was pale, angelic, with delicate features that made strangers call him beautiful. But behind that perfect mask, there was nothing. No innocence. No warmth. No humanity. His teachers saw him as a prodigy, a gifted boy with a mind far beyond his years. They praised his intelligence, his manners, and his remarkable ability to remain calm even under pressure. But they did not see what lay beneath. They did not see the way his classmates avoided his gaze, how their laughter died when he entered a room. They did not see how fear settled in their small, fragile bodies like an unshakable weight. Johan did not need to hurt them. He had learned something far more powerful. People could destroy themselves if you simply showed them how. And Johan was happy to show them. It started with whispers. A simple phrase here, a careful observation there. Johan never gave direct orders. He never told anyone what to do. He only planted seeds. "Do you ever wonder if your father loves your brother more than you?” he murmured to a boy named Elias, his voice soft as silk. Elias laughed. "That’s stupid. Of course, he doesn’t.” Johan only smiled. "Then why does he always ask about your brother first?” Elias had laughed again, but it was weaker this time. Less certain. And in the days that followed, he began to notice things he had never noticed before. The way his father patted his brother’s head first when he came home. The way his brother’s grades were praised while his were merely acknowledged. The way his father’s smile lingered just a little longer on his brother’s face. By the end of the month, Elias refused to speak to his family. By the end of the year, he had run away from home. No one knew why. But Johan did. He had only given Elias a single thought. A single question. And Elias had done the rest himself. Johan had noticed something fascinating. Fear was a delicate thing. It did not need to be loud, or violent, or even obvious. It could be quiet. Slow. It could slip into people’s minds like a whisper, growing roots before they even realized it was there. He tested this theory one day with a girl named Clara. Clara was strong-willed, always laughing, always leading the other children in games. Johan wondered if he could break her. He did not bully her. He did not frighten her directly. He simply said one thing. "I saw someone watching you from the woods yesterday.” Clara had frowned, unimpressed. "You’re lying.” Johan shrugged. "Maybe.” But that night, she could not sleep. She kept thinking about the woods near the school, the dark spaces between the trees. Had someone been there? Watching her? A few days later, Johan made sure to glance toward the woods while standing next to her. Just once. Just enough for her to notice."What?” she asked. Johan shook his head. "Nothing.” By the end of the week, Clara refused to walk home alone. By the end of the month, she refused to go near the woods at all. She had nightmares about eyes in the darkness. About hands reaching for her from the trees. There was nothing there. There had never been anything there. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that she believed there was. And in the end, belief was all that mattered. It was in moments like these that Johan felt something almost akin to joy. Not the kind that normal children felt—the innocent, bubbling laughter of happiness. No, his joy was something different. It was the joy of understanding. Of control. Johan had always known he was different, but now, at seven years old, he began to grasp what that truly meant. People were not individuals. They were threads in a web. And he could pull those threads in any direction he pleased. One thought. One whisper. One glance. That was all it took to unravel them. To make them question everything. To make them destroy themselves. He was not merely a manipulator. He was something greater. A puppet master. And those around him were not people. They were tools. Playthings. Pieces on a board that he alone could move. One evening, Johan sat alone in his room, staring out the window at the town below. The streets were quiet. A few lights flickered in distant homes. The world outside was small. Fragile. He had already shaped so many lives without effort. How much more could he do? How far could his influence stretch? There was no fear inside him. No guilt. No hesitation. The rules that governed ordinary people—the morals, the doubts, the emotions—they did not apply to him. He was something different. Something beyond human. A force of nature. Unstoppable. Unrelenting. And this was only the beginning. Věra had long since stopped trying to understand her son. She moved through life like a ghost now, her body present but her mind distant. She had tried, once, to hold onto the illusion of motherhood. But that illusion had shattered long ago. Johan did not need her. Johan did not love her. Johan did not love anything. And she knew—deep in her bones, in the quietest corners of her soul—that one day, he would leave her behind. Not because he was cruel. Not because he hated her. But because she was irrelevant. And somehow, that was worse. Johan was seven years old. And he already knew how to break people. He already knew how to bend them to his will. He was no longer merely a child. He was something else. Something darker. Something far more dangerous. He sat by the window, watching the world outside, and he smiled. Because he understood something that no one else did. This was only the beginning. And the world would only change from here.