"Ashes of Crestfall: The Rise of Aaron San Agustin"

But as he closed his eyes, memories long buried began to stir—memories of a night two years after his enlistment, when the desert winds carried the smell of gunpowder and burning metal.

He had just returned to base after a successful mission. Dust still clung to his uniform as he sat on the edge of his cot, removing his boots with aching hands. The barracks were silent except for the low hum of the overhead lights.

His phone buzzed. An overseas call. Aunt Colleen.

He answered quickly, expecting her usual quiet words of worry and love. But her voice trembled with something different—fear.

Through the crackling connection, he heard her sobbing. Words spilled out between gasps for breath.

Earlier that day, black-suited men arrived at their mother's old house on the edge of Crestfall. Neighbors whispered they were from the city, with tinted cars and unfamiliar accents. They ransacked the small wooden home, throwing clothes and old prayer books to the floor, smashing picture frames as they searched for something—someone.

When the neighbors gathered, too afraid to intervene, the men left as quickly as they arrived, tires screaming against gravel roads. That night, Colleen went to check on his mother.

She found her lying lifeless on her bed, rosary clutched between thin, trembling fingers.

The doctors said it was a heart attack. Quiet. Immediate. But the neighbors whispered otherwise. They said she died of fear. That seeing her home violated, her past threatened, shattered what little strength she had left to keep breathing.

He sat in silence in that desert barracks, listening to Aunt Colleen's sobs echo through the cheap phone speaker. Around him, soldiers slept soundly, unaware that his entire world had just shifted underfoot.

That night, he didn't sleep. Instead, he sat awake under dim fluorescent lights, staring at the sand-coated floor, rage burning quietly through his veins. He remembered every humiliating day of poverty, every silent prayer he heard her whisper, every time she told him it was enough to simply be alive.

But it wasn't enough.

Because while he had been fighting wars overseas, another war had taken everything she had left.

When he returned to Crestfall after his service ended, he never spoke of that night. Not to Aunt Colleen. Not to Lucas. Not to anyone. Instead, he buried it deep under duty, training, and the cold discipline of a soldier. But tonight, as he lay on his thin mattress, the memory seeped through every crack in his mind.

The old grief pulsed heavy in his chest. But mingled with it was something sharper—unyielding resolve.

Because tomorrow, when he stood before her grave, he would not only carry flowers or whispered prayers. He would carry a vow.

That whatever those men came searching for, whatever shadows moved against their family—he would find it.

And when he did, he would no longer be the powerless boy hiding behind his mother's faded skirts.

He would be the man the world learned to fear.