PETALS OF FATE

🌹 Prologue – The Night of the Spider Lily The city streets smelled faintly of rain and metal that night. Liliana Alvarez “Lily” to her mother when she was alive, “Spider Lily” to herself now ,walked home from the hospital, her footsteps soft on the cracked pavement. In her hand, she clutched a spider lily she had plucked near the gates, crimson petals trembling in the wind. Her body was tired, weak from another round of tests. She was only sixteen, but already the hospitals knew her name by heart. Cancer had been her companion for years ..an invisible shadow clinging to her lungs, her skull, her bloodstream. Still, she clung to little things. Flowers. Stories. Hope. That was when the silence of the night shattered. Gunshots. Six in rapid succession. She froze, the spider lily slipping from her fingers and falling onto the dirt. Her heart slammed against her ribs as she saw him a boy, no older than nineteen, sprinting down the street like a wounded wolf. His shirt was soaked with blood. He staggered, stumbled, yet somehow kept running, even as his breath came ragged and wet. Lily’s scream died in her throat. Fear locked her bones. She could only watch as the boy rushed past her, not even noticing her presence. Her flower was crushed beneath his foot, red petals scattered like drops of blood. The men chasing him slowed, scanning the street. One barked into a phone. “He’s close. Demian Lee. Shot six times, still moving.” That name lodged in her memory like a splinter, though at that moment it meant nothing. Demian. The hunters vanished into the alleyways, but Lily’s feet moved of their own accord, following the faint trail of blood. She found him collapsed behind a dumpster, his face pale, his breath shallow. He wasn’t wearing a mask. His face… sharp, beautiful, terrifying in its brokenness. Blood streaked down his jaw. His eyes flickered open — steel-gray, full of rage even while drowning in pain. “Stay away,” he rasped, trying to push himself up. “Don’t… touch me.” She should have listened. But her chest ached at the sight of him. Pride and death didn’t mix. “Shut up, you dummy,” she whispered fiercely, her hands trembling as she pressed against the gushing wound in his side. “You’re dying, and you still have pride?” For a second, he stared at her like she was insane. Then, against his will, his lips twitched in the faintest, bitterest smile. She dialed emergency services with shaking fingers. When she tried to leave, his blood-slick hand shot up, gripping her wrist. “Who… are you?” he whispered. His voice cracked with more than pain. She hesitated. The night was too heavy for names. Instead, she pulled her hand free and walked away, leaving her crushed spider lily behind. But she wasn’t the only one who found him that night. Marco Santori ,a quiet, timid boy with messy dark hair had been walking home from cram school. He saw Lily fleeing the alley, and curiosity dragged him closer. His breath caught at the sight of Demian crumpled in his own blood. At first, Marco thought he’d stumbled upon a murder. He almost called the police, but something in him ,pity, perhaps, or the sharp loneliness of growing up without a father ,made him stay. He dragged the boy into the shadows, called for help, and when no one answered, he lied. At the hospital, he gave Demian’s name as his own. He even stole clothes from his own closet to give the dying stranger. When Demian finally opened his eyes days later, Marco was there. The boy’s gaze burned like fire, cold and sharp, a warning to stay away. “What are you doing here?” Demian demanded, voice still hoarse. Marco swallowed his fear. “I saved your life. That’s what I’m doing here.” Demian sneered, but in his silence there was something dangerous acknowledgment. From that day, the boy who had been bullied by a masked tyrant at school, unknowingly became the savior of that very same monster. Neither Marco nor Lily ever spoke of that night again. She buried it with her hospital visits. He buried it with his own trembling loyalty. And neither of them realized they had saved the same boy — a boy the world would one day know, fear, and whisper about only as Mask Boy. Two weeks later, Lily collapsed in school, blood staining her textbooks. Brain tumor. Stage three. The halls filled with whispers, but one pair of gray eyes followed her fall in silence. Demian Lee …the same boy she had once called a dummy ,stood at the edge of the crowd, guilt flickering in his chest like a flame he refused to name. And for the first time in his life, the monster felt powerless.

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