Before the stars were born, a path was carved, but not all would dare to walk it.
Those were the words inscribed in the crumbling stone of the ancient monoliths. A warning, perhaps, or simply a forgotten truth from the lips of long-dead storytellers. For Iskar, they rang like a bell at the edge of his consciousness - chiming softly, persistently. There was always something chilling about the idea of a path preordained, a fate written into the marrow of one's bones. But what if that fate wasn't light or glory? What if you weren't made for salvation?
What if you were born to break things?
Fate is a terrifying concept. We paint it with gilded brushstrokes, calling it destiny or purpose, believing it to be something noble, even heroic. But Iskar had learned early on that not every path led to greatness, and not every story belonged to a hero. He was not a man of shining ideals. The villagers who muttered his name in hushed tones - Iskarian, though they preferred the more viciously clipped Iskar - knew that much well enough.
He was a villain to some, a myth to others. To himself, he was something far less poetic: a man walking a path carved long before the stars.
Stories had power. They clung to the corners of the mind, gnawed at rational thought like rats on grain. A monster didn't need claws or fangs to tear apart a man - it only needed the suggestion of fear. For Iskar, the stories were both a shroud and a weapon. Tales of his supposed deeds passed from tavern lips to trembling households, growing darker with each telling. There were whispers of a man who could step through shadows, whose voice could snare the very spirit from your chest. A demon disguised as flesh, they said.
He often wondered if they were right.
All monsters are mythological in nature.
It was what priests told their congregations as they lit candles against the dark. It was what parents told their children as they tucked them in at night. Monsters were convenient creations, birthed to explain the inexplicable. But what the priests, the parents, the trembling villagers failed to realize, was that monsters were real. They existed not on the outside, lurking in the forest or prowling ancient tombs, but within the human mind.
That was the secret they all refused to accept.
Iskar had seen it firsthand. He had seen ordinary men and women crumble beneath the weight of their own shadows, consumed by fears they could not name. He had seen warlords twist their minds into weapons of cruelty. He had seen the abyss reflected in their eyes - and he had stared right back. For to know the abyss was to walk its path. And Iskar walked it well.
As a boy, he'd stood at the edge of a battlefield, the air thick with ash and blood. He had not cried as others did; he had not fled. He had simply watched. That was his first lesson: to witness humanity stripped of pretense, naked in its chaos. And it was then he understood the truth:
Monsters weren't born. They were made.
But some of them, he suspected, had a head start.
It was no surprise then, when his name grew to be more curse than memory, when mothers taught their children to fear the dark because Iskar might be watching. He had become a story, a shadow given teeth. Yet there were days when even Iskar wondered if the moniker had outgrown the man. After all, what was he truly? A villain? A cautionary tale? Or simply a man who had dared to walk the path others feared to tread?
Iskar didn't seek to answer those questions. He had no use for philosophy or redemption. He had learned long ago that the world was not kind to those who lingered in introspection. The past was ash; the future was uncertainty. And the present - well, the present was his alone to wield.
Still, as he sat by the fire that night, its light flickering against the cave walls, he found himself staring into the flames as though they held answers. The forest outside was silent, the sort of silence that comes when the world itself is holding its breath. Something was stirring in the dark beyond the trees - he could feel it.
Iskarian, the cursed name, the monster men feared, allowed himself a bitter smile.
"Before the stars were born," he murmured to himself, repeating the old words, "a path was carved."
And monsters were the first to walk it.
