It was a cold, bone-numbing night. Snow drifted down in slow, silent death spirals, blanketing the Academy grounds in a veil of white that somehow made the world feel even more hollow.
Alex sat alone on a half-frozen bench in the middle of the Academy park, his body still, his breath visible in short, shallow puffs. The world around him was painfully quiet.....too quiet. Even the birds, what few remained this late into winter, flitted overhead like ghosts, their wings making no sound.
His eyes stared blankly at the falling snow, but he wasn't really watching, not anymore.
V had told him everything, about the System, its twisted "uses," the things it would allow him to buy, the death game he'd been shoved into, the dark entity behind it and the fifty other poor bastards trapped in it with him. It was a lot. Too much even.
And yet, his mind was... empty.
After everything, after the horror, the revelations, the way his life had been torn up and stitched back together with bloodied thread, he didn't even know where to begin anymore.
Two paths lay ahead of him. One drenched in despair. The other in defiance.
The first path? End it. Right here. Right now. Just... check out. Step off the ride and be free of it all. Free from the scars of his previous life, where "family" was just another word for pain, and free from the nightmare he was being dragged into now. Suicide, in all its terrible finality, almost felt like mercy.
But something in the back of his mind whispered doubt.
'What if he didn't die like he wish.'
Would death even work anymore? What if the entity just revived him? Or worse, reset the time of whenever he died he come back to a start point, what if it forced him to relive every trauma of his death, over and over again, like some sick dark joke?
'No... I'm not that misreable.' He shook his head slowly, remembering about a certain anime he used to watched about a guy getting send back in time all over again, that thing broke him but also made a better version of him.
'That guy life was truly misreable huh.' he shook his head as if trying to get rid of the though and yet, the thought refused to die, because their was always a possibility of what if.
Then there was the second path, the one that demanded he face it, head-on, no running, no cowering behind excuses, just endure, fight and survive.
That path held the promise of a second chance. A clean slate. No more fists from his step-father, no more of his step-mother fucking him, and no more of their children killing him. Here, he could grow stronger, rewrite his story, become someone the world would never dare hurt to again.
Someone who can stand against all odd.
But even that tasted bitter.
"Heh..." A dry chuckle slipped past his lips, cold as the wind biting at his skin.
'What's the point of this "new life" if I'm just another pawn in someone else's twisted game?'
Because Alex knew the truth. This path wasn't salvation, it was servitude. If he chose to live, he'd be nothing but a puppet dancing for an audience of one. The Entity's entertainment, a circus clown in an arena built from blood and screams.
'So what is it then… a circus clown or a free bird?'
He leaned back against the bench and tilted his head to the sky. It was a deep, devouring black, littered with a few tired stars. He raised a trembling hand toward them as if he could pluck one out, hold it and just..... if possible.... make a wish.
But even he knew that was nothing but bullshit.
He didn't believe in wishes, not anymore.
Unnoticed by himself, the soft white glow in his crimson eyes had faded. The spark of life that once lived in them dimmed, as if the weight of everything was finally sinking in.
"sigh..." he exhaled slowly, watching the mist vanish into the void like everything else in his life.
He stood up, brushing the snow from his shoulders. His eyes scanned the park one last time. The frost-bitten trees, the frozen pond and the empty silence.
'Funny... I used to hate the cold...the winter..... but...' he paused as if waiting his thoughts.. '..... now it's the only thing I'll miss.'
His lips curved into a faint, bitter smile.
Because somehow, in just one damned day, Alex had grown up.
And in the most fucked-up way possible… he was finally free of his past.
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Alex walked through the long white corridor of the Sleepers Building.
His steps were slow, dragging slightly, like his body had forgotten what purpose even meant. He was heading toward the cafeteria, it was out of habit, not hunger. As he soon reached he saw the sleepers eating talking among their friends. Food were being served by some staff members.
Roziel soon took a tray to serve himself, as he sit at the corner of the hall, the food steaming and fragrant smell was begging for him to eat or just take a small bite.
But even with the food right in front of him he just... stared blankly.
He couldn't bring himself to take a bite. His appetite had vanished, evaporated like morning frost under sunlight. And the most funny part about it?
It surprise him.
In his last life, he was given a single scrap of bread, a literal fucking scraps, half-rotten crusts thrown out by his bitch of a step-sister, who enjoy watching him suffer like he was some kind of fucking animal. Back then he would have to do a strip dance or has to get fucked like a whore just for a normal meal.
But now? Now, a full plate stared back at him and he couldn't even lift the spoon.
'How fucking laughable.'
In his past life he was nothing. A pathetic, half-starved, bruised child who wore suicidal thoughts like a second skin. A punching bag for his step-family.
And now?
Now in this new life he was someone with food, a bed, and a future, but it all tasted like ash.
He pushed the tray away and stood, leaving it untouched, just like his emotions. Some of the sleepers stared in his direction, talking while pointing at him but Alex just ignored them all, like he always do, after all to him they were all nothing but some extra whose main purpose was to be just a background characters and increase the numbers in a crowd.
His feet carried him through the white corridor without thinking, his mind was already somewhere else.
He considered visiting that Milf sword instructor. The one with thick thighs like tree trunks and a sharp glare that could shatter steel. But today she was gone, out of the academy for some business to attend.
'I wonder what was so important.' Alex thought hard after all, what was so important for her to leave with a dark expression her face.
Since he can't meet with that women, so instead, he dragged himself to the one place he could kill time without anyone disturbing him. Old Man Julius's wildness survival class.
When Alex enter the room he saw Julius reading a book, he warmly welcomed Alex, his one and only student, who in return just gave him a glance and said nothing.
The class went on as normal. Julius explaining to him about how to fight with nightmare creatures, how to make a bucket with sand and water, how to make a safe camp and many more things.
Alex also asked some question in which he was having doubts on, and Julius answer them all patiently.
Only at the end, when he saw the time of the class was about to end, did Julius speak calmly.
"It seems you've had a rough day," he said, staring at the ink glass. "But remember this, boy… Even a sword is only born after iron's been beaten half to death in the hottest red flame."
Hearing this Alex didn't flinch, he didn't reacted, he just sit still, arms crossed, crimson eyes hollow.
"And what if the iron was shit to begin with?" he said, voice deadpan. "What if it's breaks after the first swing?"
"...."
There was a pause. Julius looked at him now, really looked, with a flicker of surprise. He know that the student of his was not the negative personality type or atleast he has shown himself to be, but still he answer his doubt with the same calmness of a man who'd watched too many people gone insane.
"Then it breaks..." the old man said quietly, his voice sounded cozy. "But at least it tried to be something in the end, atleast it suffering was not... gone to waste."
He turned back to book he was reading.
"Give your all, Alex.... give it your all. But don't leave this world with the shame of not trying."
Alex said nothing. His expression twitch as he tried to say something but didn't have the words to, something in his chest ached too, as if he wanted to say how wrong Julies is...the old men didn't understand no one does..... no one, Expect for Alex and him..... alone.
He stood up from the chair as he turned around and left as the class was now ended. He was walking back through the snow-bright corridor with the quiet of someone not quite alive, not quite dead.
"Give it your all he said." said Alex loudly as he scoff at the words of the old men. That guy didn't know how hard Alex has tried, in his previous life he has tried and tried until he was forced to give up.
'It's always easy to say "try harder"... until they've crawled through what I've had to survive,' Alex thought bitterly, only for his train of thought to stop the moment he saw her.
A silver-haired girl stood in front of him, arms crossed like a damn statue carved from frost. Cold expression, glowing gray eyes. It was none another then Nephis, the infamous orphan of the Immortal Flame clan.
'The fuck does she want?' Alex's brow twitched as he frowned, tried to walk past her, but she moved in front of him. Alex looked at her before going from another way, but she then again move in his way, Right in his fucking way.
"...."
"....."
Their was a dead silence. Her eyes were unblinking and Alex was slowly losing his patience
His face said "What... do you want?". But his mouth stayed shut, watching her with the kind of expression you'd give a homeless men who was outside your house.
She didn't answer, Of course she didn't. Alex knows why it was the case.
'Fucking introvert and spineless bitch.'
And what felt like 30 seconds, Alex finally snapped at her.
"The fuck do you want, orphan brat?"
Alex didn't forget that he was one too, but he didn't care about any of that and of his orphan kind. Especially not for parasites like Nephis still clinging to play the princess part.
Nephis flinched slightly, her expression darken, At the insult and the venom behind it, her fist clenched tight. But she took a deep breath, like a calm Nun trying not to stab a drunk priest.
"…Fight me." she said with a quite whisper but also with a pause.
Alex blinked, not because of her words but because he wasn't even listening to her words. His gaze was focused squarely on her chest.
'What is that, C? No... maybe a D? Damn, can't tell with that jacket on-'
Seeing her still silence he said casually said, while scratching his ear.
"Huh? Speak up, titless brat."
Nephis face twitched hearing a new insult again. Those words which she spoke had taken everything out of her will to say it right at his face and their he is pretending to ignore her by saying that he didn't even hear her.
"I spoke… fight me-" She tried to say again but was again cut off, as Alex didn't even let her finish.
"First of all "Orphan" who starts a sentence with "I spoke", i already know that it's you who is speaking not your dead parents and your dead grandma or her fucking ghost."
GASP.
A loud murmur rippled throughout the crowd that has gather around them, which they were unknown too.
They were surrounded by the Sleepers who were bored, and don't have any way to pass the time, and when hearing about the clash of number 1 and number 2, they all come very quickly with their communicator ready to record.
In their minds their was only one thing going on 'The number one and two about to brawl? Hell yes, roll the cameras.'
Nephis stood still, her expression blank but her knuckles turned white with how much she was clenching them.
'Alright, time to end this circus.' Alex looked around as he know that he should turned away, before things get's messy. But then she spoke again.
"Why won't you fight me?" her voice was almost shaking. Not from fear but from restraint. She was trying her hardest to not jump at him for the insulting words he spoken to her.
Alex hearing twitch his eyebrow as he looked at the girl, who he know that can end his life in a single flash and worst off all he might not be able to see it.
And this same creature is asking why won't he fight her.
'Because powerful orphan i know your skills and i also know that i am not your match,' he thought bitterly but didn't let his show on his face.
But since the orphan princess has asked a question he had to answer, and that has to be Truthfully, But was Alex the type to answer truthfully. The answer is NO
He was going to twist his way around, like he always too and the pervious owner would have also done the same.
"Well here the thing, i can't fight you, after all. What's in it for me?"
Nephis blinked, as if caught off guard by this sudden question, she wasn't ready for this question.
But it seems like she as not the only one after all, the sleepers gather here were also surprised as none of them were ready for this question.
'Well that's what happened when you all watched too many movies.' thought Alex with a slight smirked after all, they all including Nephis though that he would have accepted the challenge of fight like he is some sort of movie or novel protagonist.
Author pov:{Which he is}
But they don't know that Alex was the type of guy to not follow the script written by someone, he like to create his own and if possible burn the original one too.
"…What do you wan-?" she asked slowly, but before she was able to complete her sentence fully.
Alex spoke, making her stunned again.
"What can you offer?"
This time Nephis didn't have any answers as she was silent and so was all the sleepers present their. Alex seeing that he has won the battle of words, he let out a victory scoff as he walked past her while bumping on her shoulder, letting the air burn around him.
But as the sleepers were making a way for him, their in front of him stood a pale blond haired little girl. She looked really innocent and helpless with her doll-like appearance, but when Alex saw her his eyes turned hatefull as she was standing in his way quietly and unaware of him. She was just existing which Alex didn't like.
'Bitch you come at the wrong time.' he thought as he know what he needs to do, so he picked up his new fresh target.
Alex walked up to her even thought he could have walked past her since their was enough space but still why walked past when you can just push the people around you
So he pushed her aside like trash she was as he said. "Out of the way, blind bitch."
"Ah—!" she let out a small yelped, hitting the white floor hard, limbs flailing like a broken doll. She clutched her hands tight, and Alex let out a smile when he saw tears falling out her eyes.
'Yes cry bitch, cry me a river.' Alex then stepped right over her, not even glancing down, after all who would looked at the trash they have thrown.
Soon he made his way towards his room, with a smile on his face, he close and lock the door. After all today he finally did something, that he always wanted to do.
'Like push that blind bitch.'
With these thoughts he lay on his bed as he slowly let the sleep consume him.