My name is Sorrow.
And my life? A cruel, never-ending joke.
If fate was a writer, mine was a sadist scribbling in blood.
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I was born in 2010, an only child. My parents weren't rich, but they loved me. Dad smelled of oil and metal every night when he came home from the workshop. Mom's bread filled our small kitchen with a warmth that could chase away winter.
If the world had left us alone, maybe I would have been happy.
But the night I turned twelve, everything broke.
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The rain was heavy, blurring the world into streaks of grey. My mother's humming was low, almost lost under the wipers scraping across the windshield. Then — too fast — headlights bloomed ahead. Tires screamed. Metal groaned and tore like paper. Glass shattered into a thousand cutting stars.
When I woke, the world was gone.
I could smell antiseptic and blood. I reached for the sheets and felt they were stiff, dry in some spots, damp in others. My left arm — gone. My legs — bruised but intact. My eyes… nothing. Both destroyed.
My father hadn't survived.
A week later, my mother followed him.
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My grandparents took me in, their voices soft, hands gentle. They described the world I could no longer see — the color of the sky at sunset, the sway of the trees, the warmth of tea on a cold night. For a short time, I felt safe again.
But safety is always borrowed.
One year later, they were gone too. Both taken by sickness in the same winter.
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That was when the rot set in.
My uncle took me in because no one else would. His house was loud with laughter — just never for me. His wife hated me for the food I ate, the space I took up. His children copied her cruelty.
The beatings started early — a slap for spilling water, a punch for walking too slowly, a kick just for being in the wrong room. Sometimes my uncle joined in, his heavy hands turning my world into bright flashes behind my ruined eyes.
At sixteen, a construction accident crushed my leg. The amputation was above the knee. My uncle said a prosthetic was "too expensive."
At seventeen, the doctor told me I had cancer.
And it stayed with me for ten long years.
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The disease burned me from the inside, leaving me too weak to stand for more than a few minutes at a time. My body wasted away, my skin clinging to bone. But my uncle, aunt, and cousins never stopped hitting me.
Sickness didn't make me untouchable — it made me easier to hurt. I couldn't fight back, couldn't even lift my arms to block a blow. The bruises became permanent, a shifting map of violence across my body.
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When my uncle finally threw me out, I thought I had already lived through the worst.
I was wrong.
The camp on the edge of the city felt like a chance at survival. At first, they gave me scraps, let me sit by their fire.
Then the routine began.
The men beat me every single day. A shove, a slap, a kick to the ribs. Sometimes a pipe across the back.
The women… they were worse.
Every night, they came. Their hands rough, their voices taunting. I couldn't see them, but I could hear the cruelty in their laughter, feel the way they treated me as less than human. The humiliation was worse than hunger.
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By thirty-two, I had nothing left to give.
And then Jerry came.
I heard him before I felt him — the drag of boots, the lazy tap of a bat against his palm. His words were low, muttered insults that dripped contempt.
The bat swung.
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The first thing I felt wasn't pain — it was temperature.
The back of my skull hit the ground. Liquid spread under me, soaking into my clothes. Warm at first, almost comforting, then cooling as the night air crept in. My blood.
It was strange — warm enough to lull me toward sleep, cold enough to keep my body shivering. The sensations fought each other, and my mind swam between them. My heartbeat thudded slow and heavy, each pulse pushing more heat into the dirt.
I wanted to move, but my limbs wouldn't answer. My fingers twitched weakly in the slickness beneath me. I knew if I let the warmth win, I wouldn't wake up again.
And for a moment… I didn't care.
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Cold stone under my cheek.
Warmth on my skin.
At first, I thought I was dead.
Then I opened my eyes.
The world hit me like a hammer — colors, shapes, light. The sky above was impossibly blue. Leaves swayed overhead, veins sharp against the sun. A river ran nearby, its ripples catching light like silver scales.
A laugh tore out of my chest — wild, uneven, almost hysterical.
I stood. Both legs. Both arms. No pain.
I stumbled to the river and looked down.
A stranger stared back — pale hair, storm-colored eyes, skin untouched by scars. Strong. Whole.
I touched my face, my chest, my arms, half-afraid the image would dissolve.
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Then came the pain — not in flesh, but deep in my soul. Like my very being was being pulled apart and sewn back together with fire. My vision burned white.
Memories poured in.
A boy's first steps. His first harvest. The orphanage's cold stone halls. The smell of wet soil after rain.
Then shadows. Voices in the dark. Hands gripping too tight.
I fell forward, retching into the river.
The boy's name was Sorrow. Sixteen here — thirty-two in mine. And now… we were one.
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The Kingdom of Raila. One of five continents — Dragon, Turtle, Tiger, Bear, and the wasteland called Hell.
Magic existed here. Monsters roamed.
In my pocket: seven copper coins and an old identification card. Barely enough for bread.
For the first time in decades, I could move without pain. See without doubt. Breathe without fear.
This life — our life — would be different.
No suffering.
No cruelty.
No tragedy.
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