Several days had passed since Elias accepted Aethron’s offer.

  The world felt larger to him. Freer.

  Elias found himself enjoying his decision.

  He felt nothing — no guilt, no disgust.

  He remembered the problems of the world, but their weight no longer pressed on him. He moved through cities and countries like a shadow, tending to the marked.

  Everything worked exactly as it was supposed to.

  Elias did not question whom he killed, nor why.

  Days passed. The number of dead grew.

  There was no exhaustion, no pain. Only a distant sense of satisfaction remained in his memory — the belief that he was making the world a better place.

  ---

  Several years later.

  Another marking appeared… and something unexpected happened.

  At first, it was just another delivery of death. Elias shifted to the marked individual’s location. It was a café.

  He saw the target clearly — only a few meters away.

  The marked sat at a table, drinking coffee. A young woman. Pale. Frightened. She chain-smoked cigarettes and sat alone.

  Elias watched her in silence and waited.

  Usually, death was confirmed when the mark disappeared — that was when he knew he could leave. He could not see the mark, but he could feel it.

  Suddenly, the woman began to choke.

  Panic filled her eyes as she tried to call for help.

  The people around her remained blind, indifferent.

  Elias knew this was his task.

  With a quiet smile, he thought:

  *Another evil person.*

  Only then did the others notice. Chairs scraped back as people rushed toward her. Elias knew it was pointless. His presence meant certain death for the marked.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  One man stumbled. He reached for the table, failed, and fell directly onto the choking woman. Under his weight, she collapsed from her chair and struck her head against the edge of the table.

  It was the final blow.

  The mark vanished.

  ---

  Elias felt its disappearance and turned to leave.

  As he stood up, a sharp pain flashed through his head.

  And then he saw it.

  A fragment of memory — not his own.

  The vision was blurred, incomplete.

  The woman’s perspective.

  A moment from her past.

  He saw a man who had assaulted her.

  He saw her drive a knife into his chest.

  Then it was gone.

  Elias paused only briefly, dismissed the thought, and moved on.

  ---

  More years passed.

  Elias began to notice that he was absorbing the memories of those he killed. Their final emotions. Their fear. Their darkness. Their hatred.

  The marked died faster in his presence.

  And slowly, he realized something unsettling.

  Many of them had killed because they had no choice.

  “Aethron said I would feel nothing,” Elias whispered to himself.

  “Then why do I feel this hatred? This anger eating me from the inside? What is this feeling?”

  He shouted into the void and called out to Aethron, demanding answers.

  Aethron’s voice echoed directly inside his mind:

  “I do not have time for your problems. I am the sole overseer of this world. Do your job and do not disturb me.”

  Elias remained shaken.

  ---

  His body continued to move on its own, drawn toward the marked.

  Corpse after corpse. Memory after memory.

  The anger grew.

  And Elias began to understand that Aethron did not care who was marked — and who was not.

  Then Elias appeared before another target.

  A child.

  No older than twelve.

  *This is the marked one?* he asked himself.

  *A child?*

  The child sobbed uncontrollably, terror frozen in their eyes. Elias stood motionless and watched as life left the child’s body. Watched as it collapsed to the ground.

  This time, the memories were complete.

  As if they were his own.

  The truth unfolded: the child had been abused by their parents. Starved. Locked away. Cut off from the world. When the child learned they intended to get rid of them — to kill them — fear drove them to turn the parents against each other.

  The father killed the mother.

  The mother wounded the father.

  The child finished him.

  Not out of evil.

  Out of desperation.

  Something inside Elias shattered.

  Anger exploded.

  And with it, something far more dangerous.

  “I have to resist,” he whispered.

  ---

  **Narrator:**

  And so the man — now a messenger of death — Elias, a being without a name yet burdened with the memories of his former life, understood the first true consequences of his choice.

  He began to question:

  *Is this justice?*

  *Is this right?*

  With an empty gaze, he contemplated the reality he existed in, unaware that his power was quietly growing.

  He realized the world was not functioning as it should.

  And that he would have to take matters into his own hands.