Everything I have ever done, they call cruel.
I have heard it whispered in doorways, spat in alleys, murmured as if I weren't standing there at all. Their words became a constant gnawing: Why would God give me this life, as though I were some mistake stamped in flesh. I fought their insults the only way I could, by refusing to fall apart, by clinging to a childish hope that somewhere a hero might descend from the sky and pull me out.
But hope, too, they called cruel. For I was conceived in cruelty, and so, in their eyes, everything that followed could only be the same. I was a child, confused, unarmed, and I could never understand why the world met me with such unrelenting hatred. Every day I prayed, because that was what I had been told might help. I prayed to every god I'd ever heard named, my tongue shaping their syllables like keys that might unlock a door. I prayed for a morning when someone, anyone, would reach out and clasp my hand. For a day when the eyes that pinned me like insects would soften or turn away, or, if heaven was feeling generous, look at me with awe. That day never came. And that is how I learned that the stories were lies. That there are no superheroes overhead, no angels poised to sweep down and snatch a child from the jaws of misery.
Except, someone did come.
Not to save me. To stay with me.
To melt the loneliness of the cold, locked room. My sister would slip in whenever her own tears betrayed her. I would force a smile, not out of courtesy, but because I knew. I understood the ache in her chest like it was my own. In comforting her, I was, in some quiet way, comforting myself. It was selfish, perhaps, but it was the only thing that brought me light. She became a small, flickering goal: if I could grow into the man I needed as a boy, perhaps I could rescue the pathetic little Michael who had once been me. But even that small mercy was denied.
I was never granted the time to grow.
One day the earth cracked open. The world that despised me splintered like rotted wood. The adults who had wronged me lay sprawled in death. Those who had stared at me with venomous eyes no longer possessed eyes at all. The world that hated me shuddered and gasped its last breath.
And what, then, was the point of surviving?
Why keep breathing when the end had already uncoiled its black wings? A messiah might have been chosen, yes, but people died anyway. The edge kept crawling closer.
I fell in with a band of men, at first I believed them merely a ragged fellowship of survivors. They found me when I was a breath away from a demon's teeth, and a rough hand pulled me toward what they called safety. I was older by then, but not wise. Fifteen is still a child, no matter how you dress the number. Cruel, I called them later. But cruelty is only part of the truth. They were desperate men who had married themselves to a brutal creed. Each day I watched as a child was burned alive, and each day I wondered, when would it be me? Why was I standing still, letting this nightmare continue?
And then it sank like a stone in my gut.
I was weak. Fifteen or not, the trembling Michael I had always been still lived inside me. Yet weakness, oddly, kept me useful. I learned to move quietly, to hide children in the cracks of their notice. Some I managed to save. They thanked me with wet eyes and shaky smiles. One girl, braver than the rest, stopped me. "Why me?" she asked. "Why not my friend? Why didn't you save her?" I had no answer. I possessed neither the power to tell the truth nor the strength to change it. The next morning she returned, carried in the arms of a man. Limp. Ash-pale. They said she had taken her own life. He laid her at the pyre, and they burned her with the same cruel devotion. Her ashes spiraled into the sky, and something in me broke loose. My legs moved of their own accord, carrying me toward the man who bore her back. My hand closed on the grip of my gun, though my heart rattled like a cage of frightened birds. "Did you kill her?" I asked. If he said yes, what then? Could I really pull the trigger? But he only shook his head. His eyes, God help me, were gentle. "She killed herself." he said. And in that moment, the cruelest truth of all revealed itself. There was sincerity in his eyes.
From there on, i understood what i am.
I was only two inches taller than the children i sought to rescue.
So i put up with everything they've asked me to do. When they told me to fetch them water, i did so. When they asked me if i wanted to kill, i would softly refuse in hopes they won't force me. — When i saw my sister, they told me to die.
When that gun was pointed at me, i thought to myself; What did i do? What did i ever do for things to end like this ? I.. I haven't done a thing yet.. I don't wanna die yet.. So despite knowing how much much sir Lucy weighed in comparison to my worthless life, i wished to all Gods that they'd take him instead of me. I selfishly wished that he'd die instead of me.
I thought i was wishing in the depths of abyss. I thought it would be Gods that will intervene if they were answered, but no. No superhero came down, no God helped us, the messiah simply rose, and proved right infront of us why he is the one who was entrusted of the world.
He smiled.
And walked up in the shadows of unknowns, despite the inability to predict if maybe they'll torture or do worse. Nobody else catched it but me, but that entire time, his conviction stood still like a wall. He never once looked back. As if he reassured us that he will be back.
He didn't do shit, he was clearly weak, and fragile, he didn't even look like a man. He looked like a soft and careful lady. But that didn't matter, because he spoke up and chose to confront the one thing i dreaded.
How admirable.
You can almost believe that a man can fly.