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PROLOGUE — "My life was perfect… until it wasn't"
If someone had told me a few years ago that my life would turn into a cosmic tragicomedy, I would've laughed in their face.
I had everything under control.
Or well… I thought I did.
My life, even though it started in an orphanage, wasn't sad at all. Quite the opposite: I lived better than at least 80% of fully functional adults. Three meals a day, clean dorms, fast Wi‑Fi, new devices every once in a while, decent clothes, and even birthday parties. Honestly, it felt less like an orphanage and more like a luxury hotel sponsored by a guilt-ridden millionaire grandma.
Except it wasn't a grandma.
It was the director.
And he definitely didn't make his money legally.
But let's go step by step.
I grew up believing my life was pretty normal, all things considered: study hard, get good grades, prepare myself to become a great cardiologist, eat well, sleep well, and live as a premium orphan. The director used to tell us all the time:
> "My children, you won't live the life I lived. I'll do whatever it takes to give you a decent future."
And he meant it.
He really did.
He funded any career we wanted: medicine, voice acting, dance, acting, psychology, art, accounting… If you sounded confident enough, he'd pull out his wallet like Santa Claus with diabetes and work-induced stress.
For years, I thought he was a saint.
Turns out he was a saint—
just from organized crime.
When I was twenty-four, the orphanage was shut down.
And not because of leaking roofs.
Money laundering.
Drug trafficking.
Frozen assets.
Goodbye financial support, goodbye scholarship, goodbye career.
And there I was, freshly twenty-five, watching my entire life disappear like someone had deleted my save file mid-game.
No house.
No degree.
No stability.
What I did have was an unofficial certificate in
"Surviving Life with Questionable Dignity."
One day, exhausted, defeated, and holding a résumé about as useful as an umbrella in a hurricane, I found myself standing in front of the sea. I was tired—emotionally broken—and breathing felt like an Olympic sport.
I won't lie.
I thought about giving up.
But then I remembered the director's words before he died:
> "Live however you want… don't let others decide for you.
Mistakes don't define you, Ana.
You choose your path."
I took a breath.
Wiped my tears.
Told myself I could still change my life—that maybe not everything was lost.
And right at that moment, just when life decided to give me a tiny ray of hope…
BAM.
A shove from behind.
Not a light push.
Not an accident.
NO.
A FULL-ON, DELIBERATE SHOVE—THE KIND THAT SENDS YOU STRAIGHT TO THE OTHER SIDE.
The air left my lungs as the water swallowed my thoughts. As I sank, I managed to think the clearest, most honest, most visceral sentence of my entire existence:
> Son of a b— 🖕🏻
If life was already absurd…
that shove was proof the universe has a sense of humor.
A bad one.
I didn't know who pushed me.
I didn't know why.
I didn't know anything.
All I knew was that my story—my painfully comedic disaster of a life—had just gotten a whole lot worse.
What I didn't know yet…
was that the culprit wa
s an idiot furry prince who would later swear he was my savior.
But that part comes later.
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