He Who Watches Time Burn

Miles nodded once and led him across the yard to the arena.

Two older boys stood waiting. Their uniforms were clean. Their eyes were dull.

"No weapons," Miles said. "No instruction. Trust your instinct."

Michael stepped forward, body screaming in protest. The first boy charged. Michael moved too slowly. A blow caught him across the chest and sent him to the ground.

"Again," Miles said from the sidelines.

Michael stood. He fought. He fell. He stood again.

The second boy slammed into him like a wall. Michael tried to counter, but his movements were too controlled, too trained. Pain bloomed across his ribs. He coughed, staggered, and rose again.

Miles never raised his voice. His disappointment was in the silence that followed each fall.

"There is no mercy in combat," he said once. "Only the mercy you claim through skill."

By the time the final round ended, Michael could barely lift his arms. His shirt clung to his back with sweat and blood. Miles dismissed the others and approached.

"You endured," he said. "Tomorrow, you improve."

He turned and walked away.

That night, Michael could not lift his fork. Elsie cut his food and placed the plate within reach. She said nothing. She left a cloth soaked in mint and lavender beside his bed.

In the dark, Michael opened his journal. He did not write words. He drew a small line in the corner of the page—a mark for survival.

He would rise again tomorrow.

Two years passed. Despite the coldness of the house and the violence that came with every lesson, Michael found a sliver of warmth in the quiet presence of the nanny who fed him. She became the single constant in his storm-swept life. Her name was Elsie, a middle-aged woman with silver threads through her dark hair and gentle, weathered hands that smelled faintly of chamomile. She never pressed him to speak, never scolded, and never seemed surprised by his silence.

There were days when she'd leave a warm roll wrapped in cloth beside his journal, or hum old lullabies while tending the garden just beneath his window. On his twelfth birthday—a day no one else remembered—she handed him a piece of honeycomb candy wrapped in soft parchment, with no words, just a wink.

In the rare moments when they sat together, she'd tell stories about her youth growing up on a farm, or about a cat she once raised that disappeared into the forest but returned every spring. Michael never replied with much, but his eyes told her enough. And in return, she shared silences that didn't hurt.

Meanwhile, the foster parents kept distant and clinical. They would appear unannounced, standing over him with arms crossed, nodding at bruises like they were medals.

"He lacks aggression," the father once muttered to the trainer.

"Too much restraint," the mother added. "Emotion dulls instinct." She was the single anomaly in that place of bruises and orders. Quiet, gentle—not out of fear but out of deliberate kindness. She never flinched at the marks on his arms, never asked questions that cornered him. Instead, she brought meals with a soft word, hummed old lullabies while cleaning dishes, and once—even once—left a blanket folded at the edge of his bed during a particularly bitter winter night.

Michael never thanked her. Not directly. But he began to wait near the kitchen when he knew she'd pass by. He listened when she talked about nothing in particular—flowers she once grew, a brother lost in war, stories that meant everything to her and nothing to the cold walls of that house. And on the worst nights—when blood stained the edge of his shirt or his body throbbed with the ache of training—she would meet his gaze and offer him something warmer than medicine. Presence. She was the only one who spoke softly, who offered him seconds without being asked. Her eyes didn't judge—just watched, patiently. Over time, Michael began to open up. Just a little. He never told her everything, but he answered her questions with more than nods.

His foster parents remained distant, like overseers observing a project rather than raising a child. They rarely came home. When they did, it was to ask the trainers for updates, to evaluate his progress with sharp, businesslike eyes, then disappear again behind the veil of meetings and travel.

Still, under the pressure and cruelty, a foundation was being laid—one of strength, precision, and silence.

Years wore on.

But just before one morning, without ceremony, everything came undone.

He was summoned to the sitting room, where the rare presence of both foster parents cast an immediate chill. They stood flanking the nanny, who looked confused, maybe even frightened. The mother held a long, thin dagger—polished, ceremonial.

"You've grown stronger, Michael," the father said, eyes unreadable. "It's time for your final trial. Remove the obstacle. She knows too much. And you... need to prove you feel nothing."

The boy stood frozen. The words struck him harder than any blow he'd received. Cold trickled down his spine. A sickness rose in his stomach—not of fear, but of betrayal, of something sacred being violated. The nanny had been his one quiet corner of the world, and now they wanted to shatter it. His fists clenched, not in readiness, but in grief.

His eyes darted between the dagger, the woman who had once wiped soup from his chin, and the puppeteers who had raised him like a weapon.

His chest tightened. Breathing became difficult.

A moment stretched. A lifetime.

And then time stopped.

No breath. No wind. No movement.

A moment before, his hand had hovered over the dagger. Then—nothing. The world froze. The chandelier's crystals caught the light mid-glint. His foster father's mouth hung open, mid-sentence. The nanny's fearful expression locked in place like a portrait.

The silence pressed in around him, heavy and absolute.

Michael stepped back, his own breath sounding too loud in the void. He looked down at his hands—steady, even as his heart thundered in his chest. For the first time, the world wasn't screaming. It was listening.

He moved through the room. Touched the edge of the blade. Touched the shoulder of the woman who had never struck him. Who fed him. Who asked nothing.

He couldn't do it.

Tears welled in his eyes, hot and unfamiliar. Rage bubbled behind them—not at her, but at them. At the house. At the sick mockery of love they had built around him. His knees buckled, and for one long minute, he knelt there beside her, sobbing into the folds of her skirt while the world remained frozen in mockery of peace.

And then time resumed.

He dropped the dagger.

When motion returned, he stood already apart from them. But they knew. Somehow, they always knew.

There were no second chances in that house.

He was taken. Dragged from his room in the dead of night, stripped of name and comfort. Days passed in a cellar where light dared not enter. Food was rare, water colder than steel. Voices whispered from the floor above—indifferent, clinical.

He became a prisoner of his own refusal. Bruised. Broken. Unbent.

When they released him, there were no more trials. No more dinners. No more nanny.

One morning, without ceremony, his meager possessions were tossed into a plastic bag. The door was closed behind him without a word. A caseworker's number had been scribbled on a note tucked in his collar.

"No progress," read the file. "Unteachable. Withdrawn. Cold."

The orphanage took him in.

A forgotten place—its walls stained with damp air and old memories. Birthdays came and went without candles. The scent of bleach clung to every hallway like a second skin.

And that's where the story stood, with him wondering why they even left him alive.