The rain battered against the cracked windowpane, soft enough to be ignored but steady enough to leave a hollow noise in the tiny room. The fluorescent light overhead flickered intermittently, casting thin, ghostly shadows across the floor. Kaelash leaned forward in his chair, his fingers curled tight around the worn mouse as he stared at the screen.
Another death. Another pointless, senseless ending.
The game's final cutscene played without mercy, bleeding pixelated tragedy into his exhausted mind. The so-called "Hero" of the story — a soft-eyed boy with too much forgiveness and not enough spine — knelt before the villains who had destroyed everything. And what did he do?
Forgave them.
No justice. No revenge.
Only pretty words and a promise to "heal the broken world."
Kaelash's throat burned with bitterness.
He slammed the mouse down hard enough to make the desk shudder. The cheap wood vibrated under his palm, but he didn't care. His breathing came fast and uneven. Not because he lost — he could accept loss — but because the game had wasted hope.
He pulled back in the creaky chair, rubbing his eyes hard enough to see stars explode behind his lids. Around him, the room remained still: blank gray walls, a single dying plant by the window, the clock's dry ticking.
It wasn't much. But it was his.
He opened his eyes and stared at the ending credits rolling across the screen.
The names blurred together, meaningless.
Kaelash exhaled slowly, tasting the bitterness clinging to his teeth. The story had been promising — at first. A kingdom suffocating under corruption. Innocents crushed under noble boots. Bandits ruling the roads. A system where the powerful preyed on the powerless.
He had wanted to believe. Wanted to see a hero who understood that some things could not be mended with apologies.
But no.
At the final moment, the hero knelt.
Begged.
Forgave.
Kaelash's lips twisted into a scowl.
Revenge wasn't just about anger. It wasn't about cruelty. Revenge was hope — the only kind left when the law failed, when prayers went unanswered. It was the desperate belief that wrongs could still be made right, even if by fire and blood.
Without revenge, the broken stayed broken. The dead stayed forgotten.
He leaned closer to the keyboard, the light from the monitor painting deep shadows across his face. His fingers danced rapidly, opening the game's support page. He didn't just want to leave a bad review — no, that wasn't enough.
He would drag the game into the light it so cowardly avoided.
The cursor blinked, waiting for his input.
Kaelash inhaled deeply, steadying his hands, and began typing.
---
> "To the developers —
I want you to know that your game is a betrayal.
Not just to storytelling. Not just to players. But to the very idea of justice itself.
You created a world full of rot, pain, and injustice... and then taught us that forgiveness was the only answer. That the ones who slaughtered, raped, and stole should be given another chance, without punishment.
You spat in the face of everyone who has suffered real loss.
I was interested in this game because I believed — I hoped — that you understood pain. That you would show a story where the oppressed could rise up, where evil would face consequences.
But instead, you told us: 'Endure. Smile. Forgive.'
You are wrong.
Sometimes, revenge is the only torch left in the dark.
And to deny that... is to kill hope itself."
---
He stared at the words for a long moment. His chest ached in a way that had nothing to do with anger anymore. It was deeper. Older.
Kaelash thought about the alleyways he passed every morning on his way to work. The homeless men huddling under stained tarps. The police turning blind eyes to violence. The advertisements promising salvation if you just bought one more thing.
He thought about the stories he read in the news — another predator walking free because of "lack of evidence." Another scammer building a fortune on broken backs. Another child disappearing without justice.
And here, in a game where dreams could be reshaped, where worlds could be rewritten...
they chose mercy over justice.
Of course it made him furious.
Of course it broke his heart.
He added more to his report — paragraph after paragraph — not in rage, but in cold, exacting detail.
Pointing out every wasted opportunity. Every betrayal of narrative promise. Every cowardly retreat from consequences.
When he finished, the submission box blinked once, and the message was sent into the void.
Maybe no one would read it. Maybe it would be buried under a thousand other voices.
But it didn't matter.
Kaelash had spoken his truth.
---
The clock struck midnight.
A low hum filled the room, almost inaudible beneath the rain. Kaelash shut down the computer and stood, stretching sore muscles. The neon glow of the city bled through the window, smearing color across the walls like bruises.
He grabbed his worn-out jacket from the back of the chair and slung it over his shoulders. Work awaited — another thankless overnight shift in a warehouse where dreams went to die.
As he walked toward the door, he caught his reflection in the mirror: tired eyes, hollowed cheeks, a man shaped by disappointment but not broken by it.
Not yet.
He paused, one hand on the doorknob, the other brushing the pocket where his keycard rested.
Maybe he shouldn't care so much about a game. Maybe it was stupid to bleed so much emotion into fiction.
But fiction mattered.
It showed people what could be — or what should be.
It was supposed to offer hope.
And hope... wasn't forgiveness.
Hope was knowing wrong could be answered.
Hope was the belief that scars had meaning.
He stepped out into the night.
---
The city greeted him with cold air and the thick, wet smell of gasoline. Neon signs buzzed overhead, advertising places that offered empty happiness — fast food, cheap dates, expensive lies. Kaelash shoved his hands deep into his jacket pockets and started walking.
His boots slapped puddles, sending ripples across the fractured sidewalk.
Cars hissed past. Distant sirens wailed like dying beasts.
Above, the towering spires of corporate headquarters blinked their sterile lights, indifferent to the ants crawling below.
Movement surrounded him — people rushing nowhere, machines grinding unseen, the endless pulse of a city that devoured dreams by the hour.
Yet Kaelash moved through it like a ghost, unnoticed, unimportant.
And that was fine.
The world didn't need to see him.
Not yet.
---
He passed the corner where an old woman sold wilted flowers from a broken bucket. Passed the alley where two teenagers exchanged something dangerous in trembling hands. Passed the billboard that promised "a brighter future" if you applied for debt you could never repay.
The world was broken.
No pretty speech could fix that.
He tightened his fists inside his pockets, feeling the nails dig into his palms.
He knew revenge was dangerous. It could twist good men into monsters. It could leave behind more ashes than answers. It was messy. It was cruel.
But it was also necessary.
Not always. Not for everyone.
But for the forgotten.
For the trampled.
For the abandoned.
Revenge was a fire in the dark — ugly, but bright enough to show the way.
Without it, how many cries would go unheard?
How many wrongs would remain rotting under silence?
Kaelash stopped at the crosswalk, waiting for the light to change.
Rain ran down his hair, his nose, into his collar.
In the glass of a darkened storefront, he saw his reflection again — blurred, ghostlike.
A man out of place.
He wondered, briefly, if he had missed his chance.
If the world could still be changed.
If the scars he carried meant anything at all.
The light flicked green.
He crossed.
---
Somewhere deep inside him, a part of Kaelash stirred — a part that hadn't moved in years.
A part that remembered stories where villains faced their reckoning.
A part that dreamed of a world where justice wasn't a fairy tale.
Maybe this wasn't the world where such things could happen.
Maybe this wasn't the time.
But if there was ever a chance — even the smallest crack in fate — he would take it.
Not for glory.
Not for revenge alone.
But because the world deserved better than forgiveness without change.
Because sometimes the only path to healing was through fire.
---
Tonight, Kaelash was just a tired man walking to a miserable job in a dying city.
But tomorrow?
Tomorrow, the story could be different.
All it would take... was a spark.
---
Thank you for giving Crown of Ash a chance.
This story is a slow-burning journey — one built on layered emotion, inner conflict, and a world where justice is buried beneath ash. It isn't just about revenge, but the cost of it. The path may begin in frustration and darkness, but it grows into something far deeper.
I ask for your patience in the early chapters as the world unfolds, the pain deepens, and the true fire begins to burn. If you stay, I promise a story that will challenge, break, and perhaps heal you in ways unexpected.
Every chapter matters. Every silence means something.
And in the ashes, something greater waits to rise.