What Lies Beneath

Prologue

Fire and ash rose from the rubble, the lives of all that once lived here gone forever. The frigid rain could not best even the embers of the black flames that ached to touch the heavens and deliver the souls of all it had touched.

This tiny, forgotten village was its first conquest, but the death magic bound flames only craved more.

As it is now, the village would be remembered only by its destroyer and his creations, and it would only be thought of as the unmarked grave of their childhood innocence they so desperately clung to.

In time, nature would take over the land, and this would become a place of solace for his eldest creation, who was not truly his creation at all. For his oldest creation was not a creation, but rather his younger brother whom he'd put back together after the death magic ripped him apart.

Their story was not meant to be happy.

It was not meant to be happy, yet they strived for it anyways.

Icarus, who flew too close to the sun, had his wings melted away so that he would crash and burn, and Zeref who brought his baby brother back from the dead would be stripped of his own life in a way far worse than death.

But this is not "their" story, for there has not been a "they" since the day the younger escaped, breathing his last breath.

This is the story of the younger brother, who bore a fate far more horrifying than the elder's.