He Who Shouldn't Have Been

He was never welcome, not even before birth. An intruder in a womb that didn't bleed, that simply emptied itself to expel the mistake.

The Nephilim took women, teaching them sorceries and enchantments, and from among all those forbidden arts was born the scourge of the embryo, a chant meant to extinguish life before the first cry. But in him the spell failed, and instead of killing him, it left him marked.

No one sits beside him, no one offers him food, no one touches him.

Dogs growl at him with their tails between their legs; cats hiss and arch their backs before fleeing. Even flies avoid landing on his skin. Not out of malice, but instinct.

That is why the sparrow he holds in his hands is the only thing that has not fled from him. It is still, cold, with its wings spread between his scaly fingers and its tiny legs dangling, stiff. It does not fear him. It cannot fear him. And Garav looks at it without sadness, without disgust, without anything.