He never liked to talk about his past, not because it was too bloody or too glorious, but because it was neither. It was full of failures, not the kind that left scars on the body, but the kind that left cracks on the soul.
He once tried to keep peace between two factions at war. He believed words could weigh more than blades if spoken right. But he spoke too late, too softly, too clumsily. The peace he carried in his chest was nothing compared to the hatred in their hearts.
That day, when the rivers ran red, he told himself peace was not a dove but a glass bottle. It could be lifted high to catch the light, but the moment it slipped, it shattered into edges sharp enough to cut your hands.
Later, he swore he would protect his companions on a long march across hostile land.
He was the one who volunteered to keep watch at night, the one who promised to stand last if ambushed. And when the ambush came, he froze. Not for long, just a few heartbeats. But a few heartbeats was enough for one man to fall, then another. He fought after that, desperately, like a man drowning.
But the guilt never forgave him. He remembered how they had trusted him, how their eyes had softened when he said, "I'll keep you safe." He learned that protection is not about promises, but about carrying the weight of those who cannot lift it. And he had failed to lift.
When he tried to lead, he failed again. His voice cracked under pressure, his orders came late, sometimes even wrong. People called him selfish, not because he hoarded food or treasures, but because he was afraid to admit weakness.
He wanted them to believe in him, even when he couldn't believe in himself. That lie was selfishness too, because in the end, it cost more than honesty ever would have.
Failure followed him like a second shadow. He failed to comfort the grieving, because his words sounded empty even to his own ears.
He failed to endure silence, filling it with nervous talk that broke fragile bonds instead of mending them. He failed to love properly, to give without asking, to stay when it was hard.
The anxiety grew inside him like a rust. Every choice was a blade with two edges. If he chose peace, blood was spilled. If he chose war, more blood was spilled. If he stayed silent, others called him weak. If he acted, they cursed him for the consequences.
The rust gnawed deeper, and he began to think maybe life was not about choosing right, but about failing less visibly.
Sometimes he dreamed of a garden where he could sit among lilies and forget the world. But when he woke, he remembered that lilies wilt fast. Peace is fragile. Beauty dies quickly.
His hands, once white with hope, had dirt under the nails now, and no matter how much he scrubbed, the stains never left.
Yet, the strange thing was this, even with failure wrapping him like chains, he kept walking. Not because he believed he would succeed next time. No, that illusion had long burned away.
He walked because to stop meant admitting the failures had won completely. If he kept moving, even if everything shattered again, there was still the small chance that one act, one word, one step, might leave behind a crack of light instead of another wound.
He was a man who had failed at peace, failed at protection, failed at leadership, failed at love. But he was still alive. And that meant failure had not yet finished with him.
Perhaps, in the very act of failing over and over, he was carrying something larger than peace itself. Perhaps failure was not the opposite of peace. Perhaps, it was the soil in which peace might someday, painfully, grow.
He wasn't meant to be a savior, but people always looked at him like he could be. That was the cruelest part.... the expectations. He never asked for them, but they came anyway, sticking to him like thorns under the skin.
When he wandered this broken, ruined world, two old souls found him. They weren't his blood.
Yet they called him Grandson. A word heavier than diamond. They gave him a place by the fire, a corner of their food, and a fragile kind of warmth that didn't fit with the ashes all around them.
For a while, he almost believed he could belong. He carried water for them, fetched herbs, sat through their slow stories of "better days." He never corrected them when they mistook him for family.
But when the famine struck, the world took its payment. He failed them too.
One night, the man who called him Grandson couldn't rise from the ground. His body had shriveled into brittle twigs, his voice thin as air.
The other, the woman, begged him to save her husband. He tried. He crushed roots into paste, forced them down the man's throat, whispered desperate words like charms but no miracle came.
The man's last breath was ragged, but he smiled. "Don't cry, Grandson. You'll make me think I lived longer than I should."
The woman died two weeks later. Not from hunger, but from loneliness.
She stopped eating, stopped drinking. She only watched the sky. When she fell silent one morning, he shook her body until it bruised. She never opened her eyes again.
He buried them both in the sand with his bare hands. And as he did, he realized: the title of "Grandson" was heavier than he thought. It wasn't love alone. It was responsibility. He had failed to bear it again.
Life is like a Book of stories where after turning a page we can't turn it back.
It became a pattern. Wherever he went, he failed in ways that cut deeper than swords.
In a crumbling city, he tried to save a boy caught under stone. He lifted until his arms bled.
By the time he freed the boy, the child was gone. His tiny hand slipped from his, limp as clay. The townspeople cursed him. "Too slow. Too weak. Why pretend you could save him?" He didn't argue because they were right.
Once, he had the chance to kill a raider leader who terrorized the outskirts. He had the knife in his hand, the throat exposed. But he hesitated. Just for a moment. In that hesitation, the raider turned, disarmed him, and left with a grin.
A week later, he heard screams from the village nearby. All dead. All burned. His knife was there in the ashes.
Peace, protection, leadership all words that turned to dust in his hands.
He started seeing failure as a living thing, following him.
When he closed his eyes, he imagined it as a faceless figure walking beside him, whispering. Sometimes the whispers said, "If you hadn't been born, they would have lived." Sometimes, "Every smile you bring will turn to tears. It always does."
The more he walked this ruined world, the more he began to believe the figure wasn't imaginary. It maybe was the truth of him.
He carried symbols of this truth without meaning to.
The rope he once used to tie logs for fire. He now carried it coiled at his belt, though it had saved no one.
A cracked cup, useless, because he had failed to bring water before it dried.
Two beads from the woman's necklace who called him Grandson, worn like prayer stones, though he no longer prayed.
Everything on him was a reminder of failing.
He grew obsessed with small details.
Every bird flying south looked like it was mocking him for staying.
Every broken statue seemed like a mirror of his own soul.... beautiful once, now rot.
Every shadow stretched longer than it should, as if the world itself was pointing at him.
He kept walking. Not out of hope. Not even out of strength but because his failures felt incomplete. Something in him demanded to see how much lower a man could fall.
The strangest thing was, sometimes people still followed him. They thought he looked steady, quiet, dependable.
They thought his silence was wisdom. But he knew silence was only fear of speaking wrong again. He wanted to shout, "Don't trust me, I'll only ruin you!" But they never listened. They saw in him what he could never see in himself and so, once again, they died for it.
After losing the two who called him Grandson, he never let anyone call him by a title again. Names became heavy, unbearable. He told strangers nothing of himself. He wanted to vanish, to exist without attachments.
Because names meant bonds, bonds meant expectations, and expectations meant failure waiting to happen.
Sometimes, in the dead of night, he caught himself whispering "Grandson" under his breath, as if the word itself was a ghost curling around his ribs.
He wasn't a monster. He wasn't a hero. He was a man carved hollow by regret.
Peace to him was not a dove or a garden anymore, it was silence, a silence so deep it crushed every scream. Selfishness wasn't hoarding food, it was daring to breathe when others suffocated. Protection wasn't standing tall, it was failing to stand and watching others fall first.
In the ruins, where sand and ash blurred together, he walked on. His story wasn't finished, but it had already told its theme:
failure was his only true companion. He still kept walking.