Omen didn't look up once as he left the Seven Elemental Sect.
Not at the gates, the disciples or even the floating platforms that laid around the place in display.
No, the boy's head stayed bowed.
His white hair stuck to his face, soaked with sweat and blood as his eyes kept bowed from the world.
Every step sent pain shooting through his body, his ribs, back, chest, face, and arms.
His skin burned where Drake's fists had landed and his muscles screamed where boots had crushed him into stone.
But Omen didn't slow down.
He didn't limb or care to stop.
He just continued walking faster and faster towards home.
Like he was running from something that lived inside his own chest.
People passed him, some looking at him with disdain.
But the ironical part was that not one of the people who had seen him be beaten care to defend him.
No one said a word.
Steel roads and glass towers came into view. Holographic billboards advertising sect trials, military recruitment, and cultivation pills.
All of it felt distant to the boy, like noise underwater.
By the time Omen reached his building, his robe was stained red and grey, dust and blood mixed together. His fair hands were shaking, jaw locked so tight it hurt to breathe as he pushed inside.
Looking at the tidied place with his swollen, black eyes, Omen walked forward to the furthest room to the end of the 2 bedroom house.
Pushing inside, the boy shut the door behind him.
Without a single word, Omen removed the loose band holding his long, white hair and slipped out of his black robes, showing a very lean figure that lacked any real strength.
The boy rushed straight to the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind him. He didn't turn on the lights or even look at the mirror.
Turning the shower on at full, as cold water crashed down on him like rain from a broken sky.
He stood under it, his hands gripping the wall, shoulders shaking as the water soaked his hair, his face, his pride, and his wounds.
Blood ran down the drain, but with tears following right behind it.
"Ha-hah-haaa…"
His knees weakened as the boy slid down the wall, hitting the floor hard.
Water poured over his face as his hands grabbed his head tight.
Omen didn't even know when his fingers had started digging inside his head
"Why. wh-why?!!" He screamed out loud, veins popping out on his veins as his body trembled.
The words spilled out fast, tangled, and broken.
His chest tightened as sobs tore out of him, the boy still trying to suppress the sound, but the pain inside him had nowhere to go anymore.
It was only now that Omen had realized that it wasn't the heavens or gods who had given up on him, but he himself had chosen to give up on himself all this while.
When he had the chance to fight back and improve, he had chosen to give up and wallow in sorrow, all while his sister took care of him.
When the boy finally received a method to grow stronger, he put it aside, believing that maybe things would change on their ow after he went to the Seven Elemental Sect after this long.
'The problem…is not with the world but me myself!' The boy thought to himself as tears continued streaking down his eyes.
All that remained was rage and shame tangled together inside his chest.
Drake's voice continued echoing in his head as Omen realizes that if he had taken the Reverse Cultivation Sutra more seriously, then he wouldn't have been here.
"I'm nothing…" The words he had said back then burned inside his brain as he slammed his fist into the wall once.
Twice.
Thrice-
Pain flared through his knuckles, but it didn't matter, he welcomed it. It was better than the emptiness.
The water kept pouring as time passed.
The boy didn't know if it had only been a few minutes or maybe longer.
When he finally turned the shower off, his body felt heavy, even weaker.
His clothes clung to him, soaked through, but what one would have failed to notice would be his avid, almost alive eyes.
'I refuse to give up on myself anymore!'
'Fuck it, I don't care if the Reversal Sutra is some dark or forbidden text' The boy thought, not even looking at himself.
He didn't need to, after all
The boy already knew what he'd see.
Omen opened the door and stepped out into the apartment and froze.
Stella was there, standing in the living room.
Her bag was on the table, her outer jacket was off. She had clearly just gotten back.
The girl's eyes widened the moment she saw him. "Brother?" Her voice broke the moment she took a look at his state.
The bruises and the shaking hands.
The water dripping from his hair and clothes onto the floor.
She rushed to his figure, trembling.
"What happened?" she asked, panic flooding her eyes. "Who did this to you? You're bleeding, Omen, you need a healer, we need to call the-"
"Don't." His voice was low, flat and cold.
The boy lifted his head slightly, his black eyes meeting her hazel ones.
Omen's eyes were swollen, his lip split and tears still clinging to his lashes.
"I'm powerless," he muttered to himself more than Stella.
"I can't fight. I can't stand for myself or even protect anyone." His sister face tightened, her eyes watering as she hugged him tight.
"Omen, that isn't true…"
"I need to go somewhere," the boy interrupted, taking a step back as he looked straight at Stella's eyes. "And you're not coming."
The girls eyes widened in shock as she looked up at her brother. "What?"
"You don't need to wait for me," Omen sighed. "You don't need to worry about me or even try to fix me. This is my problem."
Anger leaked into his voice now, not explosive, or loud, but sharp and bitter.
"This weakness is mine."
The girl tried to step closer, tried reducing the distance between her cold eyed brother who had started to scare the shit out of her as she tried consoling him.
"You're hurt, brother. You're not thinking straight. Whatever happened-"
"I am thinking straight," the boy snapped, his wet robe still clinging onto his skin as he clenched his hands into fists.
"This world doesn't care about anyone, Stella. It never did. And I'm done pretending it will."
"Omen…I'm scared for you." For the first time, the almost 19 year old boy looked at her properly.
His sister who had grown to be 5 foot 3inches, same white hair as their mother's, fair skin and eyes as fiery as Grimwald, their father-
It made him realise how much he had missed all these years wallowing in the past.
The care he should have taken of his sister never came to be, among the two of them, it was always Stella who had to act mature and handle the house.
'Not anymore.' Omen thought as he rushed back to his room, refusing to say a single word to Stella before he came back stronger as he left without another word.
***
Inside Omen's room,
An 18 year old boy was shuffling through his stuff at the single bed placed at the far end of the wall, just beside the headlamp.
He wore a wet black robe, his white hair held by a loose band.
Omen realized that he had to be quick before Stella barges her way in as he scurries through his things.
As for his room, it was small.
A single bed pushed against the wall, a desk in the extreme left of the entrance and a few cupboards to the right.
After a few moments of searching, his fingers finally brushed against wood.
He pulled out the huge wooden box, old and dusty with a single letter carved at the lid.
"M."
He quickly opened the hood and took out the skull, with a broken crown studded atop it.
Carved with strange symbols that looked more like scars than writing.
This was the inheritance left by his parents, and Omen decided that it was high time he left it sitting by.
And just as Stella's figure became visible, the door hinge breaking apart as she kicked the lock open, Omen willed himself to return to that darkened plain.
His hands trembled as he lifted it, staring into the hollow eye sockets.
"Take me back."
As the figure of his loving sister started dissolving like washed paint along with his surroundings, Omen had only one thing to say.
"If this world only respects monsters…then I might as well became one."
***