"HE’S A DEMON!"
"A BEAST!"
"KILL HIM!"
"KILL HIM!"
Star’s head thrashed from side to side as nightmares plagued his sleep. Flashes of his demonic self, the sealing ring, and Dante raced through his mind, mixed with the screams of people who had once looked at him with hope.
Then came the image of his claws tearing through Elder Mousack.
And there were blood.
So much blood.
Star jolted awake with a wild gasp. His chest rose and fell frantically as sweat poured down his face and soaked his clothes. Yet the voices refused to leave. Even awake, he could still hear them, as though they had burrowed deep into his mind.
"Demon!"
"Beast!"
"Monster!"
Each word struck harder than the last, reopening wounds that had never truly healed.
Star pressed both palms tightly against his ears, desperately trying to shut the voices out.
"Please..." he whispered, his voice breaking. "Please, stop..."
But they only grew louder.
"Kill him!"
"Kill him!"
His shoulders trembled violently. "I didn’t..." he murmured, tears gathering in his eyes. "I didn’t want any of it..."
Immediately, he spotted the golden ring fixed tightly around his finger.
Goosebumps spread throughout his entire body as he realized this wasn’t just some random nightmare.
He couldn’t piece everything together yet, but what little he remembered was enough to send tears streaming down his face.
He had let his father down. And his mother. The entire Seven Kingdoms. He was meant to become their protector, yet somehow, he had become the very thing they feared.
A demon.
Someone cursed to die by the very people he was supposed to protect.
He continued sobbing when—
"We have to do it now!"
Star flinched at once as he heard the voice. He quickly wiped the tears from his face with the back of his sleeve and held his breath, listening.
Another voice answered almost immediately. "Those boys already figured out we’re kids, Zu! And guess what?! They’re right! I’m twelve, you’re fourteen, and what makes you think kids are much of a threat?!"
Star frowned slightly. "Kids...?" He slowly turned his head toward the window.
Whoever these people were, they sounded about his age, and for reasons he couldn’t explain, that realization eased his racing heart ever so slightly.
That, however, was when he finally realized where he was.
It was inside what looked like an ancient cabin. At least, the constant creaking of old wood made that much obvious. He was lying on a dull, worn couch.
Star rose to his feet and quietly walked toward the window.
Outside, he saw the two arguing.
"And who is foolish enough to believe that the Night Raiders... the dangerous and heartless Night Raiders, are just a bunch of kids?!" Zuru threw back.
At that, Sarah calmed down a little. There was an uncomfortable amount of sense in what he had just said.
But just as she was about to respond, she caught a glimpse of Star’s face at the window.
Star saw that she had noticed him and immediately scampered away.
In his haste, he stumbled into the table at the center of the cabin. He fell, and the table toppled over with him.
Groaning, he quickly hid behind the fallen table, trembling slightly.
Then he heard her voice.
"I think he’s awake."
The next instant, the door of the little wooden house burst open and Zuru came storming in.
"Fallen Star!" Zuru called excitedly before he had even stepped fully inside the cabin.
His eyes immediately darted toward the worn couch where they had left Star sleeping. It was empty.
He froze. "Sarah..." he called, his voice suddenly losing all of its excitement. "He’s gone."
Sarah appeared in the doorway behind him and calmly looked around the room.
"Zu," she sighed, tiredly. "Did you even bother looking?"
"Of course I..." Before he could finish his gaze fell upon the overturned table. Just beyond it, the shadow of a frightened boy trembled against the wall.
A grin immediately spread across his face. "Oh, come on, Fallen Star. You don’t have to hide," Zuru teased with a chuckle.
Star frowned. "Fallen Star?" He whispered to himself. "When did I become Fallen Star?... Or have people already learned how badly I failed and now call me Fallen Star?" His heart ached at the thought.
"Let him be, Zu," Sarah said immediately, pushing Zuru aside.
Gently approached the table and crouched down.
"Hey there," she said softly, her voice warm and reassuring, as though speaking to a frightened animal she didn’t want to scare away. "It’s okay. We’re the ones who helped you."
"Yeah," Zuru chimed in. "Even after you crashed through our tent full of food and gold."
"Shut up," Sarah snapped at him before turning back toward table.
"You see? Don’t mind my brother. He’s a pain in the ass. A dumb pain in the ass."
"Hey!" Zuru protested immediately. "I’m standing right here."
But Sarah only laughed, causing Star to smile despite himself, but he remained hidden behind the table.
"I’m Sarah, by the way," she continued.
"What’s your name?"
Silence settled between them.
Star didn’t answer.
Sarah exhaled. "Just know that you safe... Okay?"
Yet Star said nothing, he remained crouched behind the table.
But just as Sarah was about to give up—
"I’m Star." He finally answered.
Zuru’s eyes lit up. "OH MY GOD, SARAH! I WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG! HE REALLY IS A STAR!"
Sarah too seemed astounded for a while, but then Star frowned.
"Not a star... just Star... that’s my name."
Zuru’s excitement immediately crumbled. "But you fell from the sky," he grumbled. "Urgh."
Sarah ignored his emotional breakdown and focused on Star.
"Come on, then. Why don’t you come out of hiding? We... we can be friends. I mean, you really don’t have to be scared of us," she added gently. "If we wanted to hurt you, we would’ve left you unconscious on the beach."
"Although..." she continued with an amused glance toward her brother, "I can’t promise my brother won’t annoy you to death."
"Saraah?" Zuru groaned, causing her to snicker lightly.
Star smiled, but he hesitated. His instincts told him not to come out. But it wasn’t like he had anyone else. Well, they were kids around his age, and they had helped him. Besides, he wasn’t planning to stay behind the table all day.
With his mind made up, he slowly crawled out from behind the table.
Sarah’s face lit up with a warm smile. She studied him quietly for a moment: His clothes were torn, his face pale.... even crawling seemed to require effort. Yet despite all of that, he still carried himself with an odd kind of dignity she couldn’t quite explain.
Sarah smiled gently. "Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?"
Star forced a smile, his face turning crimson. "Th-thank you for helping me recover," he murmured without meeting her eyes.
"Oh, it’s fine," Zuru replied with a dismissive wave. "Honestly, you did most of the recovering yourself. The way you devoured all that food last night, it was like you’d never seen food before."
Star blinked. "I... ate?"
"You did more than eat. You attacked the food." He held his chin. "It actually made me think you really were a star. Maybe a hungry one."
Star had no memory of any of it, which somehow made the situation even more embarrassing.
"But now that you are Star but not a star..." Zuru continued but paused abruptly, a sharp gasp escaping his lips.
"Sarah... did you just hear that?"
Sarah let out a tired sigh. "Here we go again."
Zuru grabbed both of his cheeks dramatically. "...Now that he’s Star but not a star! Isn’t that an epic rhyming? Huh? Huh?"
Only the echo of his voice answered him. He glanced down at them.
Sarah had lowered her head in disappointment, while Star simply stared at him blankly.
Zuru sighed. "Yeah... apparently, you’re both below my level of wisdom."
Sarah frowned. "Zuru, just finish what you were saying."
Zuru shook his head in disappointment.
"Fine." He smiled and puffed out his chest proudly. "So now that you’re Star but aren’t a star," Zuru continued, causing Sarah to slap a palm against her face, "you’re going to have to start paying for the food you eat like the rest of us."
Star felt awful. His entire life, he had never had to pay for food. He simply ate whenever he wanted. Call it perks of being a prince.
"But how do I do that?" he asked, lowering his head shamefully, "I don’t have any money."
"Oh, the answer is quite simple," Zuru replied arrogantly.
"We... STEEEEEAL!" he roared, throwing his hands dramatically into the air.
Sarah’s head slumped in embarrassment, but Star only blinked repeatedly.
"Steal?" he repeated.
"Of course," Zuru replied.
Star’s brows furrowed. "B-but isn’t that—"
"Amazing right?" Zuru cut in sharply. "As a matter of fact, we’re heading out now. And since we’re doing this during the day instead of at night like we normally do, we’ll need all the help we can get."
His voice softened into something almost sinister. "So what do you say, Star?" he coaxed. "Going to join us?"
Star looked from Zuru to Sarah, almost expecting one of them to laugh and admit it was some strange joke.
"...You... you really steal?"
"Professionally," Zuru corrected proudly.
Sarah closed her eyes. "Universe, Please come and take back your son." She mumbled, sounding thoroughly ashamed.
"What?" Zuru protested. "We’ve been doing this for years."
Star couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Kids like them were thieves. And now they wanted him to join them. How could they even casually take what belonged to other people and actually be proud of it?
Sarah noticed the troubled look on his face and immediately understood the battle taking place inside his mind.
"Look, I know we just met, and you have no reason to trust us," she said. "But the world isn’t kind, Star. People don’t care how good you are. Make one mistake, and they’ll turn on you."
She lowered her eyes. "We’ve learned that the hard way." Then she glanced at Zuru. "Besides, we mostly steal from rich people. The kind who have more than enough while others have nothing." She shrugged. "So if you want to do good, then taking from them isn’t such a bad thing."
Star lowered his gaze. What affected him wasn’t Sarah’s attempt to justify stealing.
It was what she had said before that. ’Make one mistake, and they’ll turn on you.’
That was his story.
He knew stealing was wrong. He had been raised to believe that. Yet Sarah’s words had touched something inside him that he couldn’t ignore.
"But..." Star said quietly, his eyes fixed on the floor. "What if the guards come?"
"Pff, Guards?" Zuru shrugged without the slightest hint of concern. "Then we run."
"And... what if something goes wrong?"
"Then we run faster," Zuru replied with a grin, as though it were the most obvious answer in the world.
"Zu, you’re not helping," Sarah scolded, shooting him an annoyed look.
Zuru frowned dramatically and pointed a thumb at himself. "Excuse me? I’m the eldest here. Helping is practically my specialty."
Sarah rolled her eyes and ignored him. She stepped closer to Star, her expression softening once more.
"We’re not asking you to become like us overnight," Sarah said gently, "we’re asking you to survive."
She offered him a small smile. "Look, you thanked us for saving you... Then let us keep saving you."
She glanced around the tiny cabin before looking back at him. "I know we don’t have much, and maybe we’re nothing like the people you’ve known before. But we’ve survived this long."
She turned toward Zuru.
Zuru met her eyes for a brief moment before giving a quiet nod.
Together, they looked back at Star.
"If you stay with us," Sarah finished softly, extending her hand toward him, "you’ll survive too."
Star stared at the hand stretched out before him. His heart grew heavier.
This was wrong, and painfully enough, he knew it.
Still he could refuse... Just thank them and simply walk away.
Maybe, he had nowhere to go...
No idea where his next meal would come from...
But at least he wouldn’t have to betray everything he had been raised to believe.
He opened his mouth to decline, when...
"Demon!"
"Monster!"
"Kill him!"
The voices came crashing back. His breathing faltered.
He had spent his whole life trying to be perfect. Trying to become someone worthy of protecting everyone. Yet all it had taken was one mistake. Just one... And everything had disappeared.
Everything and everyone.
Not even one of them had looked back.
Star slowly lifted his head.
Then calmly he took Sarah’s hand.
"Who are we robbing first?"