Chapter 1: The Weight Beneath the Skin
The world wasn't fair. Jason learned that before he learned how to tie his shoes.
He sat in the corner of the school cafeteria, his tray untouched. The mashed potatoes looked like they'd already been chewed. Laughter echoed across the room, bouncing off walls like cruel ricochets. Most of it wasn't aimed at him—not today—but enough glances slid over his round frame to make him feel like gravity itself had turned against him.
"Whale's gonna sink the bench again," one voice said.
Another: "Bet he eats his feelings for dessert."
Laughter.
He didn't flinch. He never did. That's what they wanted—to see the reaction, the crack. But inside, something did flinch. Something small. Something soft. Something that had flinched a million times and was now curling into itself like a wounded animal.
Jason wasn't dumb. He knew he was different. Too heavy, too quiet, too… broken. Since the night his parents died in that fire, he hadn't cried once. Not because he didn't want to. He just couldn't.
Because deep down, he knew something was watching.
The fire had no cause. No faulty wiring. No gas leak. Just a house swallowed whole in an instant, with two bodies turned to ash and a boy standing outside with not a single burn.
Jason remembered the smoke. He remembered the voice—not loud, not soft. Just... there, like a whisper that came from inside his own shadow.
"This was the only way."
Now, at 13, he lived with his aunt in a town that had forgotten him. His room smelled of old books and regret. Posters of heroes—cartoonish, muscled, smiling—faded on his walls. He never touched them anymore.
One night, the voice came back.
It happened in the silence between dreams. His body was asleep, but his mind stood awake in a room that didn't exist—a space that was all black, except for a mirror.
He stood in front of it. But the reflection was wrong.
The boy in the mirror wasn't overweight. His eyes glowed faintly. A symbol, like an inked eclipse, pulsed on his chest.
"You're the one," the voice said.
"The weakest among them. The perfect beginning."
Jason couldn't speak. His mouth moved, but sound wouldn't come. The mirror shattered.
Out of the darkness stepped Black.
He didn't walk. He appeared, like reality bent to make room for him. A figure wrapped in a cloak darker than night, faceless but felt—like pressure on the chest, like a storm before the thunder.
"I marked you before you were born," Black said.
"I killed your parents because they feared what you'd become."
"Now... I give you your true name."
Jason felt the pain before he saw it.
Something burned into his chest—hot, cold, alien. A mark that glowed deep purple, then vanished beneath the skin.
"From now on, you'll suffer."
"You'll be weak. Mocked. Hunted. Hated."
"Until you break."
"And when you do… I will return to collect the pieces."
Then, silence.
Jason woke up screaming. His shirt was soaked in sweat—and blood. A symbol shimmered briefly on his skin, then vanished like mist.
No one believed him when he told them. The school counselor said he was acting out. His aunt thought it was nightmares. But Jason knew the truth.
Something had chosen him.
Something that wanted him to be broken.
And deep inside, for the first time, something answered back—not in fear, but in defiance.
"If you want me to break," Jason whispered, staring into the dark corner of his room, "then you'll have to watch me become stronger than anything you've ever imagined."