THE FIRST STRING

The first thing you learn about immortality is that it tastes like sand. Not the pristine kind you find on tourist beaches, but the gritty, ancient stuff that's seen civilizations rise and fall. The kind that gets everywhere – in your teeth, under your nails, in the depths of your immortal soul.

I spit, watching my saliva sizzle on the scorching desert sand. My tongue feels like sandpaper against cracked lips. Even after four centuries, you still wake up with morning breath. There's something cosmically funny about that – being powerful enough to reshape reality but unable to fix basic hygiene without a toothbrush.

My skin is a living canvas of bruises, patches of purple and yellow that heal and reform in an endless cycle. A breathing Pollock painting that tells the story of my latest fight. Victory never looked so beautifully brutal.You want to know how I got here? How I went from street rat to god? Buckle up. This story's got teeth.

****

Rewind to Star City, 20 BC. Back when the streets were a neon-drenched nightmare and dreams came to die in back alleys. The kind of place where orphans either learned to survive or became another statistic. No in-between.

I was seven when I made my first kill. Not proud of it, but survival doesn't care about pride. The guy was trying to "recruit" younger kids for his operation. I stuck a rusty piece of rebar through his neck. Messy. Inefficient. But effective. That's when I learned my first lesson: the world is full of monsters, and sometimes you have to become one to stop them.By twelve, I had a reputation. The other street kids called me Ghost – not because I was stealthy, but because I might as well have been dead. No emotions. No attachments. Just pure survival instinct wrapped in skin and bones.

That's when Aahan found me.

I was in an alley, blood on my knuckles and someone else's tooth embedded in my fist. Three guys had tried to corner me. Emphasis on "tried." Two were running away, and the third... well, he wasn't running anywhere ever again.Aahan materialized from the shadows like he was part of them. Tall, bald, wearing robes that looked like they belonged in a museum. His voice was gravel wrapped in silk, power hidden beneath serenity.

"You possess a remarkable tenacity, young one."

I spat blood at his feet. "Fuck off."

He didn't even blink. Instead, he did something worse – he smiled. Not the predatory grin I was used to seeing on adults. Something sadder. More genuine.

"I can show you a different path," he said. "Knowledge. Purpose. Power."

I laughed. It sounded like broken glass. "What's the catch? There's always a catch."

His eyes gleamed with something ancient and terrible. "Everything."

I should've run. Any street kid with an ounce of sense would've bolted. But there was something in his eyes – a promise of something more than just surviving. So I followed him.Stupid? Maybe. But as they say, hindsight's 20/20, and I'm still alive. So maybe not that stupid after all.

Aahan's monastery made boot camp look like kindergarten. Hidden in the mountains, a place where reality itself seemed to bend and twist. First day there, I saw a monk walk up a wall. Another pull water from thin air. A third turn invisible.

I puked my guts out that first night. And the second. And the third.

"Pain is just weakness leaving the body," Aahan would say, his face an emotionless mask. "Again."

So I did it again. And again. And again. Training was brutal. Imagine having your body torn apart and rebuilt daily, your mind stretched until it nearly snaps, only to wake up and do it all again. We started with the basics – meditation, martial arts, energy manipulation. But I wanted more. Always more.

****

Years passed like water through fingers. My body changed, hardened. Where there used to be ribs showing through skin, now there were muscles like steel cables. Scars became my roadmap, each one a lesson written in flesh. The other students feared me. Good. Fear keeps you alive. Keeps you sharp. But it wasn't enough.

One day, sparring in the courtyard, something changed. My opponent was some hotshot monk-in-training, all ego and no finesse. He came at me like a bull – all fury, no focus. Amateur.

That's when I felt it. Power. Raw and untamed, bubbling up from somewhere deep inside. Like magma, like rage, like every suppressed emotion I'd ever had. The ground started shaking. The wind howled. Reality itself seemed to bend around me.

Aahan appeared between us, his eyes blazing with something I'd never seen before. Fear? Disappointment? Both?

"Control," he hissed, fingers digging into my shoulder. "Without control, you're nothing but a weapon waiting to backfire."

But I'd tasted it now. That rush. That power. That feeling of being more than human. And I wanted more.

That night, I made my move. The restricted section of the monastery's library was supposedly impenetrable. Good thing I'd spent years studying the guard rotations, the ward patterns, the ancient security systems. The scrolls I found there... knowledge dripping from every page like honey. Poisonous, intoxicating honey. Secret techniques. Forbidden arts. The true history of power. I learned that the monastery was just a front. The real power lay with the Fellowship of the Mystic – a secret society pulling the world's strings from the shadows. And Aahan? He was one of their top players.

Stolen story; please report.

Star City called to me again. Its neon lights, its dark alleys, its underground fighting rings – a perfect testing ground for my newfound abilities. I left under cover of darkness. Aahan's disappointment followed me like a shadow, but I didn't care. I had bigger plans.

Back in Star City, I became something new. A ghost story. A whisper. A puppet master pulling strings from the shadows. They called me The Marionette – cute name for someone who could make reality dance. I built an empire on broken bones and shattered dreams. Every victory in the ring, every corporation brought to its knees, every politician dancing to my tune – it was all just a step. A means to an end.

But Aahan couldn't let sleeping dogs lie. He tracked me down, cornered me in my own territory.

"You've lost your way," he said, sadness etched into every line of his ancient face.

I laughed, the sound echoing off the warehouse walls. "No, old man. I've found it."

Our fight was beautiful. Brutal. Teacher versus student. Father versus son. Past versus future.

Aahan struck first, his movements fluid as mercury. A palm strike that could shatter mountains. I barely dodged, feeling the air crackle where his hand passed. The wall behind me exploded into dust.

"You always telegraph your opening move, old man."

His response was a barrage of energy blasts, each one a miniature sun. Purple, blue, crimson – deadly fireworks in a warehouse disco. I danced between them, my own power rising like a tide of darkness.

"And you still dance like a puppet," he growled, hands weaving patterns in the air. Reality rippled.

The floor beneath me turned to quicksand. The ceiling became a storm of razor-sharp stalactites. The walls grew teeth. Classic Aahan – turning the environment itself into a weapon. I laughed, pulling on my strings. The warehouse danced to my tune. Stalactites became butterflies. Quicksand hardened into glass. Wall-teeth shattered into diamond dust.

"I learned from the best," I sneered, launching my counterattack.

Shadow strings shot from my fingers, each one sharp enough to cut atoms. Aahan deflected them with his forearms, each impact sending shockwaves through the building. His skin glowed with protective runes, ancient magic keeping him from being sliced to ribbons.

We clashed in the center of the warehouse, fists and feet moving faster than thought. Each punch carried enough force to level city blocks. Each kick could split the sky.

I caught his roundhouse with my forearm. The impact shattered every window within a mile.

He blocked my counter with his knee. The floor cracked beneath us.

"You had such potential," he grunted, breaking my guard with a palm strike that felt like being hit by a freight train. I tasted blood. "You could have been great."

I spat crimson and smiled. "I already am."

The fight escalated. We weren't just throwing punches anymore – we were throwing pieces of reality itself. Aahan conjured a dragon made of pure energy. I turned it into origami. I summoned a tsunami of darkness. He parted it like Moses. The warehouse became our canvas, our arena, our tomb. Physical laws broke down around us. Gravity took a coffee break. Time decided to be a suggestion rather than a rule.

"Your power is hollow," Aahan shouted, his voice echoing across dimensions. "Built on stolen knowledge and broken trust."

His next attack was pure light – a beam of concentrated holy energy that could vaporize demons. I caught it with my bare hands, feeling my skin blister and heal in rapid succession.

"No," I growled through gritted teeth. "My power is built on truth. The truth you tried to hide."

I turned his light into shadow, twisted it, sent it screaming back at him. He barely managed to dodge, but the blast caught his left side. The smell of burned flesh filled the air.

The tide turned. My shadows found the gaps in his defense. My strings wrapped around his limbs. Reality itself bent to my will.

"The student becomes the master," I whispered, pulling the strings tight.

Aahan's last attack was desperate. Beautiful. A nova of pure power that could have leveled the city.

I walked through it.

Each step burned. Each breath was agony. But I kept walking, my shadows eating his light, my strings strangling his power.

When it was over, Aahan lay broken at my feet. His life force ebbed away, and with it, all his secrets poured into me.

His dying words were barely a whisper: "You've... doomed us all."

I smiled, tasting victory and blood. "No, old man. I've freed us."

Standing over Aahan's body, watching his last breath fade into the stale warehouse air, I smiled.

Blood dripped from my knuckles, each drop hitting the concrete like a metronome counting down to revolution. The student had become the master, but this was more than just a changing of the guard. This was the first domino in a chain reaction that would reshape reality itself. I could feel Aahan's power coursing through my veins, mixing with my own like oil and water – refusing to blend, creating something new, something dangerous. My shadow stretched across the floor, dancing without light, moving without purpose. The strings of fate trembled at my fingertips, begging to be pulled, waiting to be twisted.

His memories flooded my mind. Secret meetings in hidden places. Ancient rituals performed under starless skies.

The Fellowship of the Mystic, playing their games of power and control. I saw their faces, learned their names, understood their fears.

Every puppet has its weak points. Every string can be cut.

Maelstrom, master of elements, hiding his insecurities behind storms and earthquakes.

Torque, the telekinetic terror, whose grip on power was as fragile as her grip on sanity.

Veil, weaver of illusions, whose greatest deception was convincing himself he was in control.

And Chronos – the immortal, death's blind spot, the universe's most persistent headache.

One by one, I'd hunt them down. Not just for power, not just for revenge, but for something greater. Something they were too afraid to attempt. The complete rewriting of reality's rules. Why play by the book when you can burn it and write your own?

I flexed my fingers, watching reality ripple like water. Shadows danced across the walls, forming puppets that mimicked my movements. In the corner, Aahan's blood began to move, drawing patterns that shouldn't exist in this dimension.

Their power would become mine. Their knowledge, their abilities, their very essence – all tools in my grand performance. Every defeat would make me stronger. Every absorption would bring me closer to my goal. The world wasn't ready for what I was about to unleash. And anyone who dared to stand in my way? They'd learn why whispers of The Marionette sent shivers down the spines of those who knew better. They'd understand why even the darkness feared my shadows. In my theater of cruelty, everyone plays their part – willing or not.

After all, in my world, free will is just another string to pull. Reality is just another stage to set. And everyone, from the highest god to the lowest mortal, dances to my tune. Whether they want to or not.

Hunting season. Open season on the Fellowship of the Mystic.