Morning began in São Paulo, but the air was heavy. In the heart of the city stood the newly built headquarters of the Ministry of the Manifested — a monolith of glass and steel, a symbol of power and fear.

Dozens of staff members waited in silence. Minister José, arriving directly from Brasília, had come to deal with an urgent matter.
“Good morning, Pedro.”
“Good morning, Minister. This way, please.”

The General Advisor greeted him at the entrance. His face, once handsome and symmetrical, was now worn; deep, dark circles carved into his white skin like permanent shadows. His pallor was so intense it resembled the cold stillness of a freshly laid corpse. His once carefully combed hair now fell in disarray across his forehead, slicked by the sweat of sleepless nights. Even his expensive, tailored suit seemed ill-fitting on his too-thin frame, as if the man was being slowly consumed by his own work.

José followed the advisor through the ministry’s corridors with a worried expression. No one in the Ministry of the Manifested had the slightest idea of the terror approaching. They worked with the calm of those who had merely awakened to live another ordinary day. Of course no one could know. The Minister had come to address a matter of utmost priority and secrecy. If such news reached the nation’s papers, panic would ignite, and calming the people would become nearly impossible. After all, who would believe the Nyrr were capable of such an atrocity?

Without wasting time, the advisor led the minister into the meeting room. The lights were dim, and a projector displayed a sequence of images. Photos gathered by investigators in a small town.

With each click, the silence grew more suffocating. Bodies torn in half. Streets drenched in blood. And at the center, the festival bonfire, transformed into a grotesque altar.
“This… this was the work of the Nyrr?” José asked, his voice trembling.

Pedro nodded.
“Yes, sir. We found just over a thousand bodies. But the town should have housed two thousand five hundred.”

The minister rose abruptly.
“You’re telling me the Nyrr took fifteen hundred alive?”

The silence that followed was confirmation he wished he hadn’t received. Pedro finally gathered strength to open his lips.
“We’re not certain, but it’s likely.”

In the ten years since the Sunless Day, they had never witnessed anything so grotesque. The Nyrr hadn’t merely attacked — this time, they had hunted.

Matheo opened his eyes with a start. His whole body burned, as if pierced by fiery blades. Gasping, he tried to rise, but a groan escaped him as the pressure of the bandages around his chest reminded him of his wounds.
“If you keep moving, you’ll tear them open again. And if that happens, there’s nothing I can do.” The voice was deep, firm.

Matheo turned his head and saw an old man seated nearby. White hair fell to his shoulders, and a roughly kept gray beard gave him a wild air. His eyes were a light brown, but something about them told Matheo they weren’t entirely human. There was wisdom in his gaze, but also a profound weariness.

Only then did Matheo notice the place. A simple house, built of wood… but not ordinary wood. The walls seemed alive, as if breathing. For a fleeting moment, he thought he was home, waking in his own room to the voices of his family in the distance. But the searing pain in his chest told him otherwise.
“So it wasn’t a nightmare…” He murmured, reaching for the bandage on his chest.

The old man watched him silently for a few moments before answering:
“No. It wasn’t.”

Matheo closed his eyes, and the memory cut through him like a blade: Marcela bleeding in his arms, his father stabbed, his mother and sister dragged away. He opened his eyes again, swallowing hard.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Lockless,” the old man said plainly. ”I sensed the Nyrr’s energy moving that night. When I arrived, all I found were corpses… and you.”

Matheo averted his gaze, breath short, hands trembling as they brushed the bandage.
“Why…”  his voice faltered. “Why did you pull me out of there? What happened? Where are Marcela, my mother, my sister?”.

Lockless remained silent, watching the boy with tired eyes. He had seen hundreds, if not thousands of battles. War orphans were the most common youth where he came from, and he knew there were no words capable of easing the boy’s pain.

The silence fell heavy as stone. Matheo swallowed back the scream stuck in his throat.
“They…” he whispered, his face turning pale “Marcela? My mother? My father? Tell me they… tell me they didn’t—”

The question died in a knot of despair. Tears came without warning. Rage followed, hot and sharp. Matheo lowered his face to his hands, still feeling Marcela’s warmth against his arms. Then he screamed. A scream of anguish that anyone within 5 kilometers would have heard. He struck the bed again and again. With each blow, a muffled roar tore from his lungs. His hand began to bleed.

Lockless intervened quickly. He couldn’t let the boy finish the work the Nyrr had started.
“Why did you save me?”  Matheo demanded, his tone mixing disbelief and accusation. “I have no power. I can’t do anything. Why me? Why drag me back to live through this? I should’ve died with them…”

Lockless tilted his head, weighing his words.
“Because I saw something in you others don’t have.” His voice was calm.

Disbelieving, Matheo reached to his chest and felt the necklace his parents had given him still there. The small wooden flame lay against his skin, but now it seemed to weigh a ton. He clutched it tightly, squeezing as if he could press his family’s presence back into himself. Lifting it to his face, the fury consuming him faltered for a moment. The coarse warmth of the wood wasn’t just an object: it was a living memory. The smell of morning coffee, Liriel’s laughter echoing across the wooden floor, Cássia’s soft hands fixing his hair, Antoine’s firm embrace, always so secure. If he focused deeply enough, he could almost hear, in that wooden flame, the steady beat of the hearts that had given him life — and the incomparable comfort of home.

His voice cracked into muffled sobs, and at last he stopped screaming.

Physical pain is simple. A blade through the chest burns, cuts, tears. Nerves fire, skin splits, muscles seize — but in time, the body numbs itself, and before long, consciousness fades. The end. But the pain consuming Matheo wasn’t like that. There was no numbness, no relief, no end. Each memory of his parents and of Marcela wasn’t a scar time might close, but an invisible blade stabbing him again and again. It was a fire that burned without consuming, eternal, doomed to rage. He knew — somewhere deep inside — that wound would never truly heal. He might learn to breathe with it, perhaps even smile one day, but the pain would always remain, hidden under the skin like a silent poison.

There is no cure for wounds carved in the soul, only the hope that one day they fade into silent marks.

It was a burden no training, no weapon, no defeated enemy could erase. The necklace in his hand was cruel and beautiful proof of it: memory and sentence. Eternal love and eternal loss, entwined forever in a wooden flame.

Matheo clenched his fists, the knot in his throat hardening into sharp resolve. He felt Lockless’s gaze upon him, as if seeking to console.
“I don’t want pity.” His voice broke, but stayed firm. “I want to know what happened, and I want strength to make it right. Even if I never manifest the Black Light, I’ll learn to fight, to wield whatever power I must, and I’ll hunt down every last Nyrr until I drain the final drop from them. If it means dying on the way, then I’ll die.”

Silence filled the room. Lockless studied him, intrigued. He didn’t reveal what he had truly sensed: a strange, almost imperceptible energy emanating from Matheo — something no other human possessed. Perhaps that was why the Nyrr had ignored him.

Matheo tried to stand but staggered. Lockless crossed his arms.
“If you leave like this, you’ll die before you reach the door. And even if you survive, the Nyrr won’t forgive a human wandering through their territory.”

Matheo’s face tightened. Suddenly, a faint white aura escaped his body. Weak, almost invisible. Only Lockless could sense and see it.

The old man’s eyes widened in surprise. Then he sighed, as if resigning to the inevitable. Rising, he stepped closer to Matheo and sat on the bed. He took the boy’s hand — the one clutching the pendant — with a gaze both gentle and resolute.
“What’s your name, boy?” He asked, eyes fixed on Matheo.
“Matheo.”

The answer came in a whisper, as if he had no strength left to form words.

“If it's vengeance you seek… then I will help you find it.” His voice grew deep, solemn. “I, Lockless, will train you to exterminate the Nyrr, every last one of them.”