Max drifted through the crowded hallways, the noise of children ricocheting off the walls in chaotic rhythms. When the final bell released him, he slipped outside into the schoolyard.
Always to the same place.
His refuge.
The one corner where he could still think.
He crossed the yard and settled beneath the old oak tree, its broad branches casting a cool halo of shadow that swallowed the heat and muffled the world's noise. Here, Max could breathe again.
He opened the small lunch bag his aunt had packed. But before the first bite reached his lips, the taunts arrived right on schedule.
"Hey, Max!" a boy called from within the crowd of students.
He stepped forward, towering over Max, eyes sharp and grin wide. The voice belonged to a tall boy, bulky for his age, freckles scattered across a smug expression meant to provoke. Trouble clung to him like a shadow.
"Gonna ruin the football team's luck again with your curse? Maybe cheer for the other guys this time. We might actually win!"
The boy snorted, and the group around him burst into giggles and whispers. Max's jaw tightened. He refused to look their way.
He took a slow bite of his sandwich, knuckles whitening around the bread.
Outside, he looked distant. Unfazed.
Inside, heat curled and tensed. Shame bit deep. Anger flared hot.
Tears pricked, but he swallowed them down. They would never see him break. Not here. Not now.
The bell ended the day at last. Max didn't linger. He was the first to leave, footsteps quick and sharp, as if he could outrun the voices chasing him.
After his parents' deaths, Max had come to live with his aunt Claire. He was still a minor—too young to live alone, too fractured to want to.
His walk home carried him through the center of town, where the War Memorial stood in solemn stillness.
A vast grey monument etched with the names of those lost in the war against the Shadow Demons.
The last bouquet at its base had already wilted.
Max stopped, as he always did.
His eyes traced the rows of names until they found the two carved deepest into his heart.
Lila Carter.
Marcus Carter.
His mother.
His father.
He touched the lettering with trembling fingers.
Since the accident, he hadn't cried. Not once. Not even in the quietest hours. He wouldn't allow it.
Strength was the only armor he had left.
Every day he brought flowers.
Every day the pain stayed the same.
A wound the world insisted on reopening.
Today, he lingered longer than usual.
Until the pressure in his chest swelled too big to contain.
Max turned and ran.
Ran back to Claire's warm little home.
She met him at the door with a gentle smile, arms open, offering simple comforts—tea, a biscuit, a softness he didn't know how to accept.
"How was school, Max?"
"Um… fine," he mumbled, dodging her gaze and the truth behind her question.
Before she could press further, he slipped upstairs. His room greeted him with familiar stillness.
Max dropped his bag beside the old oak dresser and stepped onto the small balcony.
This was his sanctuary. A place where the world's noise dimmed to nothing and the shadows felt kinder.
He settled into the hammock and pulled a faded photograph from his pocket.
A younger version of himself stood between his smiling parents. Three faces shaped by sunlight and hope that the world had since stolen.
The setting sun stained the sky in bruised violets and molten gold. Max gazed upward as the first stars pierced through the twilight veil.
"I wish…" he whispered, voice trembling with longing. "I wish there was a way to change everything."
A breeze stirred, rustling the treetops like distant whispers, carrying the faint scent of rain and something older—something he couldn't quite name.
For the first time in many nights, Max let his thoughts drift toward the impossible.
Past the clouds.
Past the boundaries of the world he knew.
Somewhere, he imagined, there had to be more.
Something beyond the whispers and stares.
Somewhere he might finally belong.
He lay there until the air turned cold enough to nip at his fingers. Max stepped back inside, closing the balcony door with gentle care.
He sat at his desk and began his homework, the pages filling slowly, each line a small escape from everything he carried.
Minutes slipped by. Then an hour. Then two.
He barely felt the time move.
Later, when he returned downstairs, Claire sat curled on the sofa with a bowl of buttered popcorn, an old action movie flickering across the screen in bursts of orange light.
"Want to join me?"
Max gave a faint smile and shook his head.
"I've seen that one too many times. And I'm tired anyway. I'll grab something to eat and head upstairs. Maybe play that new game I bought."
He stretched theatrically, grabbed a few cookies from the jar, and retreated to his room.
He powered on his console and loaded a multiplayer game.
He picked a sorcerer—always his favorite. Someone who wielded power. Someone people feared, not mocked.
For an hour, he roamed another world—vast, strange, brimming with magic. There, he wasn't Max Carter.
He wasn't "the cursed kid."
He was someone else.
Someone impossible.
But the yawns thickened.
The screen dimmed.
And eventually, Max shut the console off, letting darkness settle around him.
He slipped into bed.
For a moment, he stared at the ceiling.
At the shadows shifting faintly across it.
He breathed out slowly.
And at last, he let sleep claim him.
If Max had stayed awake for even a moment longer…
He might have noticed the faint shimmer gathering at the edges of his room.
A glow like dust suspended in moonlight.
A promise.
A warning.
A beginning.