The mirror lay fractured, bleeding scattered light onto the floor.
Elyon did not move.
He stood in the sparse light of the morning, bare feet pressed into the cracked tiles, the chill creeping upward like vines with the properties of frost. The mirror's hairline fracture, thin and delicate, had deepened overnight into a branch-like scar that split his reflection down the middle.
Half of the face staring back was young.
Was Flesh.
Was Tired.
The other half, though…
Was wrong.
Not in figure, but in presence.
The light bent slightly around it, the way heat shimmers off pavement, the way time slows at the edges of dreams. Something ancient stared back at him through that side of the glass — not a boy, not even a god.
It served as something,
A reminder.
A fragment of what the world once feared and forgot.
The mirror groaned.
Another crack appeared.
He exhaled, slow and steady, fogging the glass with breath that held the weight of centuries.
Then, quietly, he turned away—leaving the reflection behind, half-mortal, half-myth.
The hallway outside the dormitory was silent, painted in the stale glow of wall-mounted fluorescents and the gentle hum of an old TV in the next room. A cartoon played softly — colors flashing across the screen, but muted, like even joy had been filtered through grayscale.
He walked past sleeping forms bundled in worn blankets. Children, breathing in rhythm, some twitching in their sleeps from dreams.
He could feel each one.
Faint trails of emotion flickering off them like steam from a dying fire. Fear. Hunger. Hope. Grief.
All weak.
But real.
He paused by one boy's bunk, staring at the boy's clenched fists.
Anger.
That was,
Not violent, nor loud.
It was,
The quiet kind.
The abandoned kind.
Elyon's fingers curled slightly.
His divine resonance stirred again, but not in the air — in memory.
Not his.
Of the world's.
And it recoiled.
At the front desk, the nurse sat, rubbing her temples between sips of synthetic coffee. She didn't notice him approach until he was a shadow at the edge of her vision.
"Oh—!" She jolted, nearly knocking over her mug. "You startled me…"
Elyon tilted his head, examining her.
She couldn't meet his gaze for long. Something in it made her skin itch. As though the boy's eyes carried a weight no child should ever have to hold.
"Are you feeling alright?" she asked, voice softening. "Any… headaches? Nightmares?"
"No," he said.
She clicked her pen nervously.
"You gave your name as… Elyon, right?"
"Yes."
"That's not... from a book, is it?"
He smiled faintly.
"It's what I was before names."
She stared at him.
The smile faded.
"It's okay," she murmured, mostly to herself. "Some kids like to… invent things after trauma. It's a way to cope."
He nodded.
But the nod wasn't an agreement to her answer.
It was just permission — to misunderstand him.
He wandered to the lounge, where the flickering TV cast colorful ghosts onto peeling wallpaper. A few children were already awake, half-watching, half-dreaming. One girl — small, with tangled hair and swollen eyes — sat cross-legged near a cold radiator, hugging a stuffed animal that had lost one eye and most of its stuffing.
She looked at him.
Not out of curiosity that is prevalent at her age,
But with recognition.
Not because she recognised the face, but out of feeling.
He sat across from her without a word.
They stared.
Not at each other.
Through each other.
Her sadness pulsed, slow and full — the kind that doesn't cry, doesn't ask, doesn't scream.
The kind that remains.
His system responded.
[Emotion Detected: Abandonment]
[CROWN MEMORY: Fragment 003 Stirring...]
[Access Denied. Vessel instability exceeds threshold.]
[Warning: Emotional Contact Surpassed Passive Absorption Limit.]
A spike of pressure split behind his eyes.
The room dimmed, only slightly — like a bulb somewhere inside him flickered.
He blinked.
And for just a second, he wasn't looking at the girl anymore—
He was in her memory.
A porch light turning off.
Rain hitting a small umbrella.
A stuffed animal dropped in mud.
A woman's back turning away.
The sound of a car door closing.
And then Silence.
He gasped.
The mug in his hand — thin ceramic and already cracked — shattered against the floor.
Everyone jumped.
The nurse rushed in.
But before she could speak, Elyon stood and walked out.
Shards crunched under his heels as he left.
Outside, the city pulsed beneath a pale winter sun.
The streets wore cold like an armor. Buildings loomed — tall, colorless, efficient. Everything was clean, orderly, dull. Nothing screamed. Nothing sang.
Emotion had not been removed.
It had been regulated.
Drones patrolled overhead, their blue eyes scanning every face, every step, looking not for criminals — but for anomalies. Movement outside standard pattern. Speech too loud. Expression too sharp.
Billboards flickered to life as Elyon passed.
"Emotion is a Choice. Choose Stability."
"Anger is Not Strength — It's Infection."
"The Crownless Live Longer."
He paused.
That last one.
The Crownless?
The word buzzed in his mind like a name he almost remembered.
His hands clenched into a fist,
And the concrete beneath his feet pulsed once.
He crossed an empty plaza. An enormous metal sculpture stood at its center — a man without a face, hands covering his heart, head bowed.
Beneath it, a plaque:
"In Memory of the Fall — When Emotion Burned the Sky."
Elyon stared at it for a long time.
The wind picked up, cold and dry, curling around his shoulders like judgment.
"They made history forget me."
His voice was low, but the statue heard it.
And so it cracked.
A thin fracture ran down its leg.
And so he left.
By afternoon, he found himself beneath an overpass, where broken things gathered — graffiti, trash, whispers. He sat on a crumbling bench near a vending machine that hadn't worked in years.
Around him, the city exhaled in electric sighs — exhaust pipes and announcements and bootheels on steel.
He closed his eyes.
And let go.
Not control.
Not awareness.
Just letting go.
And the world poured into him.
A thousand tiny threads of grief.
Loneliness.
Jealousy.
Love denied.
Hate swallowed.
Joy never spoken aloud.
The noise wasn't loud, infact a little faint.
But still it was suffocating.
[System Notice]
[CROWN RESONANCE SPIKE]
[Emotion Embodiment Path: Wrath — 1.1%]
[Stabilizer Not Found]
[Containment Failed. External Sync Initiated…]
The rusted bench beneath him groaned.
Then split.
The vending machine's screen blinked. The metal face warped inward like it had tasted fire.
Elyon opened his eyes.
His irises burned faintly — just for a second.
A child across the street stopped crying.
And smiled.
The moment passed.
But the world had felt it.
Not consciously.
Not yet.
But something deep beneath the foundation of the system—
Trembled.
By the time he returned to the shelter, the sun was bleeding into a rust-colored horizon.
He passed a cracked mirror in the hallway.
This one didn't shatter.
It simply went dark.
Refusing to reflect anything at all.
He touched it gently.
"One day," he whispered, "you'll remember my face."
Inside his room, the other children were asleep.
He lay on the cot, eyes open to the ceiling.
And for the first time since his return—
He felt a flicker of fear.
Not for himself.
For the world.
Because it wasn't ready.
And his crown… was still broken.
To be continued...