I woke up screaming, my lungs ablaze. Frantically, I looked around, trying to make sense of my surroundings. I was throwing about my hands and realised something, 'why were they so small ?' I thought to myself, my face was suddenly covered with faces that were huge, " wait ..... Why are they so big?" The question came again, but I soon realised that they were just normal, but I that had changed.
A silk-lined crib held me. Emerald curtains draped the windows, and a gilded family portrait hung on the wall. Everything had changed: maids in crisp uniforms, flames hovering midair without fuel, the very air humming with unfamiliar energy. Yet two things remained achingly familiar, my parents' faces.
Oh, hell, That bitch of a goddess, she actually did it !
Damn it. I'm a baby again.
A cold realization settled in. *This means they haven't started the cruel treatment yet.* Fine. I'd make the most of it.
For the first few years of this life, I was swaddled in love and attention. But now, I understood why that warmth had faded. The truth slithered out eventually.
My father, the Duke, had sired me with a concubine. My real mother died shortly after my birth. The Duchess—barren due to a cruel twist of fate—had tolerated my existence only because I was the sole heir.
I sometimes wondered if that was the similar reason they treated me that way back on Earth.
Then he arrived.
My half-brother. The so-called "miracle child." Overnight, I became invisible. Worse—a stain on the Von Aegis name. A stubborn smudge no one could scrub away.
Disappear. The word clung to me like a curse. Because that's what they wanted.
Assassination attempts became routine. Poison in my tea. A "hunting accident." A balcony railing that mysteriously gave way. Each time, my father would visit, his face as empty as his words:
"Elric. You got hurt again? Get well soon—and stay out of trouble."
No investigation. No punishment. The household treated it like clumsiness. Only the Duchess dropped the pretense, her disdain and murderous intent as sharp as the daggers her servants slipped into my room.
But the true horror wasn't their hatred.
It was the fact I survived.
Fatal wounds that should've killed me healed. Toxins that liquefied others only left me vomiting blood. Every time death came knocking, something—someone—slammed the door in its face.
Then, one night, I learned why.
As I lay on my bed unable to sleep, I felt myself falling.
"So it was you!" I snarled, thrust into a dreamscape of swirling mist. The goddess loomed above me, her smile dripping with smug satisfaction.
"Well?" she purred. "How do you like your new life? More… stimulating than you expected, isn't it? Don't worry, my little toy. I won't let you die so easily. No one is permitted to break my favourite toy when I haven't played enough yet. So don't even worry about survival, yours is guaranteed, and so is your pain. You haven't even begun to suffer."
I woke drenched in sweat, back in my bed, everything back to normal, everything but my heart: it was raging, and my pulse hammering. "You vile witch," I spat into the darkness. "What did I ever do to deserve this?"
The answer came in a surge of fury.
"You keep me alive because my suffering amuses you. You savor every scream, every wound, every shred of agony—because to you, I'm just a plaything. A puppet dancing on your strings of torment." My hands clenched. "But remember this, you bitch: pain is a blade that cuts both ways, if you can inflict it you most definitely can feel it. You may revel in my anguish now, but hatred like mine doesn't fade. It festers. It grows, just like a plague it destroys everything in it path. And one day, when your cruelty has forged me into something even you can't control, you'll learn what suffering truly means."
I stared out the window, my reflection a ghost in the glass. The compound of the mansion that wanted to devour me whole
"So enjoy your game while it lasts."
Yes you all for I will destroy you all when the time is right
Silence.
Then—somewhere beyond the stars—I swore I heard her laugh.