When Cain looked up, everything was suddenly unfamiliar and strange. The soaring backs of adults were abruptly menacing, their faces smudged and misshapen as he missed his step and bumped into them. In a city filled with humans and demons, Cain’s distorted fears were never far from reality, and one moment had been enough to separate him from his parents.
Shaking off the querulous stares of the other people milling about in the early evening—the shadows gradually growing longer with the setting sun—Cain burst into a run, blindly hoping to find his parents waiting for him at the next corner. He could not possibly predict that they would never wait for him again.
Sheer coincidence, luck or fate brought him to a branching street, shops beginning to transition into dimly lit homes. But, he would surely consider what he heard and saw anything but.
When he heard the sounds of a struggle, he ducked behind a gated wall. He did not recognize the voices—angry and menacing or desperate and pleading. He did not recognize anything but his own terror, turning his blood to ice and his muscles to stone.
It was only when the people cowering on the ground began to scream that the truth dawned on him and he heedlessly leapt out of his hiding place with a wordless cry. His charge was fueled by a strength he didn’t know he possessed, but, in the end, it meant nothing. Three adults, demons, against one child--it was no match.
It was not fair, none of it was.
Cain felt red-hot pain tear through his arms as he was tossed to the ground as if he was no more than a rag doll, the injuries scrambling his mind. But, as the laughing attackers, the demons, became bored by their motionless quarry and assuredly left him for dead, he realized that there was a still worse pain.
He struggled to his feet gasping, stumbling and nearly falling. His foot, bare and freezing, his shoes lost in the frenzy, landed in a pool of something sticky and wet. That was when he saw what had become of his parents.
Red. Red. Red. It sprung in bouquets all over the twisted and deformed bodies of his mother and father, punctuated by white shards of bone and pink, soft, glistening tissues…
Cain fell to his knees and retched, heaving until his stomach was as empty as his aching chest. He hung his head, unable to face the remnants of his family, incapable of stomaching the truth.
Then, as he rose unsteadily, knees and hands now stained with blood, his mouth tasting of bile, Cain realized something else. It was his fault. His parents must’ve been going around asking strangers if they’d seen their son, and, by their misfortune, run into the worst consequences of all.
He clenched his fists tight, so hard his nails bit half-moons into the tender skin of his palms.
It should’ve been me, were the words running in circles inside Cain’s head. Fresh tears budded and streaked down his face, stinging salt and regret. It should’ve been me!
His head hung, and in the depths of his grief, his eyes flicked to the shards of a glass beer bottle lying nearby. Slowly, his eyes glazed over, he walked toward the broken bottle. But, as he reached down and was about to latch upon a sizable chunk of glass, his heart stuttered and he froze, his gaze fixed ahead of him, into the almost complete darkness of the labyrinth the city twisted itself into.
Even through his tears he could still see the carnage left by those who had attacked his parents and then him. Even while his back faced their bodies, the image remained fresh in his mind and burned into his retinas.
Cain recalled the swiftness of their attacks, the glow of their eyes slit with pleasure, and his arms sent out sharp spikes of fire from the deep gashes left in his skin.
They were demons. Not human. They were the newest inhabitants of the city, melding into the rhythm of the crowds and the revolving gears of the world.
“Demons…” Cain tasted the word—the first word he’d spoken since he’d called for his mother and father in the streets. It tore through his throat, a mere hoarse whisper. Yet, as soon as he spoke it, something settled deep into the boy and the shudder of change blew through his small body.
Eyes now lit and his mind set, he bent down and, with a moment of hesitation, he reached out and ripped shreds of cloth from the stiffening corpses. Quickly, he turned away and wrapped his arms with the makeshift bandages, letting out a sharp gasp when the cloth first touched the wounds. He winced and continued to tighten them.
And, with a shard of glass in his pocket and a heavy burden on his chest, Cain staggered off into the growing night.

“No!” a boy with dark blonde hair shot upright, his sharp hazel eyes flitting left and right. When he realized that there was no one around, nothing around, in fact, other than a couple of fat rats, he let out a deep sigh of relief and wiped the back of his hand across his forehead beaded in sweat.
It was just a dream. Another nightmare same as the rest, a dreadful loop replaying that night every time he summoned the courage to close his eyes.
Two years. That was roughly how long it had been since Cain had been left with no one to rely on but himself. And now, here he was, wading through the muck of the city, scrounging for leftovers to survive and sharpening his street skills for the unsavory situations that he inevitably got caught up in.
“Cain!”
Cain turned his head, the hand posed at the ready by his side relaxing as he recognized the smudged, round face of one of many orphans and riff raff that littered the streets and abandoned lots. The bright-eyed boy stopped and almost held out his hand to help Cain up when he stopped and pointed off down the way, where the narrow backstreet widened into a small plaza.
He noticed the other boy’s hesitation and knew the reason why. The last time the boy had touched him, checking on Cain while he was having one of his nightmares… Cain had reacted without thought, whirling on even an ally and scraping him with his fist before recognition set in.
It was one of the many reasons why the other children thought he was scary and why the adults regarded him with suspicious gazes. Cain didn’t mind. In fact he would’ve been perfectly fine if no one wished to approach him, but David, the cheery boy now smiling at him, seemed to be the exception, not shying away from him despite in instability.
Honestly, Cain wasn’t sure which he preferred—being completely avoided or dragged along whenever David’s keen nose sniffed out something new.
“Are you ready? If we hurry, we might be able to get leftovers from Toulouse’s first batch of bread!”
He nodded and got to his feet, following David with a last glance backwards, the images of his nightmare and his past never far behind.

David was right. Fighting other hungry denizens tooth and nail in the garbage bins for the rejects from Toulouse’s morning batches was worth it.
Even charred, slightly soggy on one side and with a slight metallic taste, when Cain bit into the still warm roll, the fluffy, honeyed interior was so delicious that he could almost forget the sharp stones digging into his back and the reek of urine and unwashed bodies that clung to most of the city and imagine he was warm and safe, in a place he could call his own.
His parents had by no means been wealthy, but they hadn’t been poor either. They did not live in a kind city, and crime was a common occurrence, yet his family had made do.
Cain could still recall the weekend excursions with his father to the park or sweets shop. He cherished these carefree scenes, clung to them desperately in fact, because, every day that passed those memories faded a little more and his eyes hardened against the reality of the world he lived in.
That was the first detail he’d noticed when he was first inducted into the life of a stray—the eyes of the people in the city. Before his parents’ murder, Cain had considered all those beggars and orphans he passed on the street as faceless, ghost-like strangers that he would never see again. Now… now he knew what was held in their eyes. Most of them had blank, almost hollow gazes. They were those who had lost all hope and now drowned in their own despair. Others had eyes that shifted and darted every which way, anxious and excited, constantly on the lookout for an opportunity to increase their chances for survival. They were the ones to watch out for, the ones who would steal your clothes off your body while you slept or stab you for an extra chunk of bread.
Cain had realized that these were the two main categories the city had produced in its inner recesses—the living dead and the desperate thieves. Yet, despite his accumulated knowledge of the slums and the entire city, Cain had a feeling that what was in his eyes didn’t match with either of these groups.
He didn’t belong in either and the children who whispered and the adults who watched knew it.
The boy finished the last of his roll and was licking his fingers clean when a disturbance rocketed the side alley where he’d come to temporary rest.
He leapt to his feet as the shouts grew louder and closer. In the distance he could see several shapes crowded and struggling, until one shoved hard and broke free.
Whoever it was, they were headed straight his way and the fingers of Cain’s left hand tightened around the makeshift weapon in his pocket. People screamed and hurried to get out of the way, pressing to the sides to avoid the path of the erratic figure.
But, in the sudden disorder, a small child, a girl of perhaps four, Cain guessed, was left staggering in the middle of the beaten path. There was no time to call out, much less leap into action as the running figure, clutching something to his side and his face covered with a hood, collided with the little girl.
She was clipped at the very least and she fell, but when, after a moment’s silence, she burst into sobs, Cain’s concern evaporated. It was inordinate to even bat an eye when someone got mugged or stabbed around these parts, but, in all the excitement, the girl’s predicament had seemed the perfect climax.
Yet, she was fine. Cain began to go on his own way- away from the crazy person, when, instead of passing cleanly by him, the figure who was so eager to barrel through all obstacles in his way, knocked into Cain’s shoulder.
Cain turned and at that moment the figure’s hood slipped from their head, revealing strangely feathered ears and glowing, golden eyes set into a young, male face. The man grasped his package tighter, but Cain paid no heed to the suspicious cylinder. Inside his head, alarms blared and his eyes narrowed for a different reason.
It was a demon. Nothing else mattered.
The young male demon tried to back off and continue his escape, but Cain’s arm twitched and he launched himself onto the demon with a cry of rage. His arm came up and a ragged dagger made of scrap metal and glass glinted in his hand before it came down, sinking into the struggling demon’s eye with a sickly squelch. One eerie gold light went out and a bloodcurdling scream came from the creature’s mouth, his gloved, but assuredly clawed hands scraping at his wounded eye as he tried to get free.
Cain snarled, his rage not yet abated and flicked his weapon for another slash at the demon beneath him when shouts abruptly erupted behind and around him. He abruptly found himself grabbed and yanked up by his arms.
Voices shouted authoritatively in his ringing ears, and even in his crazed state, Cain recognized the crackling of electric batons held at the ready.
“Stop! Stop struggling or we will be forced to incapacitate you!”
Cain’s shoulders ached in pain as he was held in a lock between two members of the police. Yet, he still kicked and screamed.
“What are you doing?” he yelled. “I’m not the one you should be stopping! It’s that! Get that!”
One of the men holding Cain interjected, “We don’t care about what sort of disagreement you were having, but it’s clear that you were the one attacking this man not the other way around!”
Cain’s head throbbed. None of this made sense, none of it… “No! He’s a demon! A demon! They need to be stopped! Demons need to be killed!”
He lunged forward, and the young demon on the ground squeaked and scooted further away, his hand covering the blood soaked socket where is maimed eye now lay.
“God damn it!” one of the coppers cursed. “Get that boy under control!”
Cain was still straining against his captors who had raised their stun batons when a hand suddenly landed on one man’s shoulder.
A lilting voice started, and said, “Now, now. There’s no need for violence, is there? He’s only a child.”
The officer turned with a frown. “Who are you…? Ah, never mind. I’m sorry, mister, but this is none of your business-“
Cain turned just in time to see the owner of the voice, a young man, but with hair that looked streaked with grey, take his free hand and in a blur efficiently hit the cop in the back of the neck. The boy almost missed the movement it was so quick and the cop collapsed with hardly a sound. Cain was still staring at the fallen cop, when he suddenly realized that the strange new man had dispatched the other one as well.
The man wiped off his hands, smiling and bent down next to the unmoving officer. “Actually, it is my business and I’ll be taking care of this boy now.”
As soon as he stood up, Cain glanced from the cops to the weird young-old man and back again.
“Is he… dead?”
“Having second thoughts only when they’re human? How scary!”
Cain shot the man a glare, who only smiled and continued. “No, all I did was hit a pressure point hard enough to knock him out. Unlike some, I don’t go around attacking and killing people!”
The man craned his neck to see the other three cops who were attending the wounded demon and placing him in cuffs and cordoning off the area.
“Ah! We better go before they notice their companions took a snooze.”
Before Cain could shoot the man any more dirty looks or let out a sound of protest, his arm was grabbed and suddenly they were the ones running away.
“W-where are we going?” Cain shouted.
His “savior” of sorts grinned back at him. “You’ll see!”

Cain sat awkwardly at a small, round table in the sitting room of a disconcertingly ordinary townhouse. Across from him, his rescuer bustled around in a tiny kitchen, whistling as he made a pot of coffee.
It felt wrong, and it occurred to the boy that it probably should’ve seemed unnatural not to be comfortable in the classic definition of a home. Had it been too long? He couldn’t help but wonder. Sometimes it took little changes to remind him how he really could never go back to how things once were.
Cain’s eyes remained fixed on the back of the young man, his head of silvery brown hair longish and tied back in a short ponytail, his shirt and vest spotted with grime. Could he trust him?
As if the man had heard his thoughts, he turned around and walked up to the table with a tray of drinks in hand. He set a steaming mug before the boy and smiled, “You’re safe with me, kid. My name’s Grey, pleased to meet you!”
Cain scowled and crossed his arms. “I’m not a kid.”
The man, Grey, tilted his head and blinked.
“How old are you? You can’t be much older than 10!” he laughed and Cain wilted in his chair.
“Eleven.”
“I see,” Grey exclaimed, apparently nonplussed by Cain’s reluctance.
“And how old are you?” Cain shot back, emboldened by the easygoing nature of the man, despite the fighting skills he’d displayed earlier. He actually leaned in a bit to hear Grey’s answer, curious about his strange hair color despite himself.
“Oh, you mean this?” Grey replied and pointed at his hair. “I was born with grey hair, weird huh? But, it gave me a sound enough nickname so I can’t complain.”
“Huh…” the boy trailed off and glanced at the mug still sitting by his left hand. He lifted it up and saw it was filled to the brim with milk, warm and frothy.
Across from him, Grey took a sip from his mug. “It soothes the nerves, makes it easier to sleep. You didn’t seem like the coffee type.”
“Hm.” With a final sniff of the contents of the cup, Cain took a tentative sip. The milk flowed down his throat and seeped into his body with comforting warmth. He quickly downed the entire mug.
As Cain was wiping his mouth, the man propped himself on his elbows and asked, “What’s your name?
The boy hesitated for just a moment, but figured Grey couldn’t do much with just a name.
“Cain.”
Grey paused, before giving him a small smile, seemingly surprised by Cain’s sudden compliance.
“Well, Cain, you sure got yourself into a nasty situation back there. What would you have done if the police hadn’t stopped you from attacking that young man?”
Cain stiffened and muttered something under his breath.
“What was that?” Grey probed, gently, yet firmly.
“He was a demon.”
There was a beat of silence, before Grey sighed and leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms behind his head. “And you would have finished him off…”
“They did something to you, didn’t they?” Grey suddenly said and Cain snapped to attention, muscles abruptly rigid. “Your parents? Did demons kill them?”
“How did you-?”
“Know?” Grey smiled, but this time it was tinged with bitterness. “I’m not psychic or anything. You just aren’t the only one. Many people have lost loved ones due to… misunderstandings with the other species.”
Grey suddenly struck out, grabbed Cain’s right arm and pulled down the sleeve in one smooth motion. A web of scars, raised and silvery, etched into his entire forearm, a brutal reminder of his own dance with Death. Cain yanked his arm away and covered up the scars, shooting daggers at Grey.
“The other arm’s the same, I’m guessing?” the young man asked casually, though his expression was serious and he seemed unsettled by the extent of Cain’s scars. “And, you don’t consider demons people either... of course you wouldn’t.”
He closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them again, his gaze was surprisingly intense. “Considering where I found you and your obvious hatred for demons… it wasn’t too hard to put together.”
Cain averted his eyes from Grey’s face, and turned away from his words which were too precise and personal.
“Even if demons have done this to other people you don’t know anything—about what they did, about me!” he choked out.
Thud!
The boy started when Grey’s fist hit the table, shaking it badly enough to cause their mugs to totter unsteadily. Grey was hunched over and, for the first time since the young man had first knocked out the cops, Cain felt a tingle of fear in the presence of this person he hardly knew.
When Grey spoke, his voice shook like the table had, “You’re right, Cain. I know nothing about you, and what I do find out is all up to you. However…I do know what demons have done and what they are capable of. I know that too well…”
Grey broke off then, took a deep breath and faced Cain. His pale green eyes were bright and hard, and Cain could not break free of their hold. For all the man seemed light-hearted and friendly, Grey was now showing the boy that he too had experienced his share of horrors and tragedies—his eyes contained enough regret and sorrow that Cain’s own troubles suddenly felt insignificant.
Even his righteous anger, the anger that he’d fed so heartily until now, quailed some under the new and strong presence of this man.
Cain’s hands curled into fists against his thighs and he glared down at his empty mug and his own shaking resolve.
“I can’t forgive them for what they did. I just… can’t!”
Grey’s expression softened.
“I’m not saying you should forgive them. Or even forget vengeance.”
The boy slowly raised his head, and in a moment of weakness, appealed to the man. “Then what? What are you saying I should do?”
Grey sighed and shook his head. “I’m not saying you should do anything. And I can’t tell you what path you should take, Cain.”
He pushed his chair back and rose from the table, but then Grey turned back and his expression was almost wistful.
“But… I believe that you should always remember and become strong.”
“Become... strong,” Cain echoed. Those two words filled his mind with a blinding light full of a multitude of possibilities he’d never considered before. Could he do that? Could he become strong—strong enough to need no one to rely on, strong enough to defeat the demons that ravaged his family?
Once again, Grey seemed to read the warring thoughts on Cain’s face. “I don’t know you and you don’t know me, but that can change. I’m willing to teach you what I know and I can tell that you have a lot of potential. You see, I’m a merchant for the underground market in this city, and in our business, we could always use an extra pair of hands.”
Cain’s natural inclination to distrust others, having been dulled by his thrilling rescue and the warm milk, returned in full force.
“How do I know it’s not a trick? You’ve helped me up to now, but…”
Grey didn’t grow angry like Cain had expected and braced for. Instead, he gave him a lopsided grin and held out his hand.
“Don’t you want to become strong enough to fight your own demons?”
The boy had no reply other than to take that hand and follow his new companion out the door onto a new battlefield, the feelings in his chest and the burden on his back heavier than ever before.