I remember the first time I felt like life was already testing me, though I hadn't even taken my first breath yet. I was born in a governmental hospital on October 12, 2009 — premature, fragile, and weak. Everyone around me worried I wouldn't make it. But somehow, I survived. That was my first victory, though no one asked me if I wanted it. My father celebrated my recovery as if I were a miracle, a tiny warrior he had waited for. My mother… not so much. Her family's disdain was obvious, even if I couldn't understand it at first. I would learn about it later, in painful ways.
Before I was born, my father had lost his job abruptly, leaving the family in uncertainty. For a while, it was my mother who carried us. Then, after my birth, my father found work in the defense ministry. He worked tirelessly, pouring every ounce of himself into keeping our family afloat. And I, even as a child, could see it all. I watched him, absorbing every lesson without realizing it. His wisdom, his honesty, his quiet magnetism — everyone seemed drawn to him. He wasn't just a father. He was my standard of what a man should be.
I, of course, was nothing like him. I was loud, restless, and reckless. Kindergarten me was a menace: biting a teacher's arm over an umbrella, picking fights with older kids, and stumbling into trouble as if I were magnetized to it. I got beaten countless times. I didn't care. I was curious about the world and I wanted to taste every corner of it, even if it hurt.
But growing up brought harsher lessons. I was bullied, humiliated repeatedly, and the isolation of being different weighed on me. Then came the coronavirus. My father -my anchor- fell gravely ill. The fear of losing him shook me to my core. Watching him fight, seeing him cling to life — but he survived. He fought through it, and his recovery gave me strength.
But what broke me more than anything was what I discovered about my mother. She cheated, and the marriage that held my family together finally collapsed. My parents divorced, and the foundation of my life cracked wide open. Home didn't feel like home anymore.
The home I had known, the one I thought was my safety, crumbled. I became self-centered, deceptive, untrusting and observant, not out of malice, but as armor. The world had shown me too many truths too early: trust could be a weapon against you, and kindness often cost more than I could afford.
My life wasn't any kinder. I was humiliated, bullied, and left with no real friends to rely on. So I turned inward. I found solace in fiction — in anime, in stories that let me escape a world that refused to forgive weakness. Among all the shows, one captured me entirely: Magi. I watched it endlessly, waiting desperately for a third season that never came. When the wait became unbearable, I dove into the manga itself, page by page, as if the inked words could patch the holes in my life. Those stories became my refuge. In them, I saw worlds where heroes rose against fate, where power and courage shaped destiny. I envied them, longed for them… and sometimes, I prayed that somehow, I could be part of something bigger.
I never got my crush. I never found the friends I wanted. I didn't get a happy, carefree youth. But what I did get — what I clung to — was the instinct to survive, to observe, and to adapt. And in those quiet hours, reading about Aladdin, Alibaba, and Sinbad, I began imagining what it would be like to exist in their world, to carve my own story among the dungeons, magic, and destiny they lived.
Little did I know, my wish wasn't just fantasy. Little did I know, the day would come when the world of Magi wouldn't just be on my screen or in inked pages. It would become my reality.
And as I sit here, remembering all of it, I realize how all those years — the fear, the betrayal, the isolation — were preparing me. Preparing me for a world where strength isn't just admired, it's demanded. Where cunning, observation, and survival aren't just traits, but necessities. Where I will finally have the chance to be the hero who would bring a change that he always dreamed of becoming a reality.
The world I knew is over. And the world of the fiction is now my reality.
To be continued