The city didn't sleep; it rotted. And in one of its most infected pores, a back alley where municipal light surrendered to sticky darkness, a young man lay on the ground. Michael gasped in short breaths, each inhale a dagger of cold air in his bruised ribs. The taste of copper and defeat was a permanent fixture in his mouth. Beside his face, stuck to the damp asphalt, a few miserable cents glinted—the bounty for which a more veteran, desperate drifter had beaten him. The pain was a dull, omnipresent throb, but sharper was the cold. A subtle chill that had seeped into his bones, different from the urban winter; it was a cold that came from within, from the emptiness in his chest.
He rubbed his hands, rough and dirty, trying to coax out a shred of warmth. He had no coat. He had nothing. The repetitive, futile action made him close his eyes, and against his will, his mind dragged him into the past.
How had he ended up here?
Tattered images: a warm house, a mother with a tired but tender smile, a little sister laughing… and then, Johan's arrival. The new kid, the adopted one, with his easy charisma and bright smile. His parents' attention, his sister's camaraderie—everything had shifted, inch by inch, toward him. Michael, the blood son, became just another piece of furniture, one that was in the way. The arguments, the disappointed looks, the silence growing like a stain. And the day when Johan, with crocodile tears, accused him of something he didn't do… the door closing behind him. The abandonment wasn't a shout; it was a cutting whisper. "It's better if you leave, Michael. For a while." That while had turned into eternity.
(A single, hot, ironic tear traced a path through the grime on his cheek.)
A single, hot, ironic tear traced a path through the grime on his cheek. He wasn't crying from the physical pain, but from the betrayal that, years later, still festered. With a groan that wrenched his torso muscles, he pushed himself against the brick wall, wavered, and managed to stand. The world swayed. But something, a new and bitter spark, had ignited inside him.
I have to do something. This can't be all.
As he murmured those words, a name escaped his cracked lips, a ghost that still haunted him: "Dani… Where are you now? Everything went to hell when you left." He looked at the sky, a dirty, star-flecked rectangle between the tall buildings. He found no answers, only an indifferent immensity. His plan was simple, desperate: leave the city. Go to the countryside, where maybe the air didn't smell of decay and failure. He began to walk, limping, each step a small, painful victory.
His path took him from the urban sewers to the edges of less shattered neighborhoods. It was then that he passed a lit bus stop. A group of schoolgirls, with impeccable uniforms and laughter like crystal bells, saw him.
"Look, a hobo!" said one, pointing a finger, her eyes shining with innocent cruelty. "How pathetic. Isn't he too young for that?"
A boy in the group, with a challenging smile, took his half-full soda can. "Here, trash! You need it more than I do!" The can spun through the air and hit Michael on the shoulder, spilling its sweet, sticky contents over his already filthy clothes.
"Ha ha ha! Loser!" another jeered.
Michael didn't stop. He didn't look up. He just clenched his fists inside his torn pockets and kept walking. Each insult, each laugh, was another brick in the wall of his determination. He didn't hate them; he filed them away. They were part of the world he had to survive.
The hours crawled by. The city began to yield, tall buildings giving way to lower apartment blocks, then to industrial warehouses. Hunger, a fierce and familiar beast, twisted his guts. A loud growl, *Grurrrp*, broke the night's silence. He stopped, leaning against a wall.
"Okay… um," he mumbled to himself, his voice hoarse from disuse. "I wish… I could change everything."
It was then that he felt it again. The cold. But this time it wasn't subtle. It was an ice blade that ran down the back of his neck, making the hair on his arms stand up. He looked up.
The only light in the alley, from an old lamppost with a cracked cover, began to flicker erratically, casting spasmodic shadows. *Click… zzz… click…* The darkness seemed to grow denser, more solid. And then, from the deepest patch of shadow across from the light, a child emerged.
It was odd. His clothes were simple, a bit old-fashioned, but clean. His face was pale, almost translucent in the flickering light, and his eyes… his eyes were too serene, too ancient to belong to a child. Michael felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the night's chill. Something eerie hung in the air.
"Better keep moving," he thought, forcing his legs to move. He passed by the child, avoiding his gaze.
Until a voice, clear, cold, and perfectly audible despite not being a shout, stopped him dead.
"Michael. Do you wish to change your future?" asked the child.
Michael turned slowly, his heart beginning to gallop against his aching ribs.
"My… future?" he stammered, bewildered. "How… how do you know my name?"
The child took a step forward, and the lamppost light stabilized for a second, illuminating his small smile. "I know everything, Michael. I know who you are. I know why you ended up lying in that alley, licking your wounds for pennies. I know the taste of abandonment in your mouth. And I know that, if you continue on this path, you'll end up a nameless number on a winter police report." He paused, letting each word, precise as a scalpel, sink in. "How would you like to change it?"
A dry, rough laugh burst from Michael's lips. "Heh… hehehe…" The laugh grew, becoming a hollow cackle that echoed in the empty alley. "Hahaha! Is this a joke? Are you messing with me, kid? Who sent you? Was it some prank from those assholes at school?"
"'Kid,' huh?" The small being's smile froze.
And then, the world stopped.
The wind, which had been whispering between buildings, coalesced. It didn't blow; it materialized, coiling like a silent tornado around them, lifting papers and dust in a hypnotic swirl. Michael screamed, but the sound was stolen by the wind. The lamppost light exploded in a blinding flash and then went out, plunging them into absolute darkness for two seconds that felt like an eternity.
When perception returned, Michael was no longer in the alley.
He was standing at an impossible intersection. Beneath his feet, smooth grey paving stones. Before him, three identical paths stretched toward a misty horizon. There were no buildings, no streets, no trace of the city. Only lanes of unreal, vibrant green grass lost in the fog. The sky was a vault of deep purple, starless.
"What the… hell…?" Michael managed to babble, terror choking his voice. The cold was now total, penetrating—fear made climate.
In front of him, unmoving, was the child. But he no longer seemed like a child. He was a point of absolute stillness at the center of the surreal panorama.
"Who are you?" Michael yelled, taking a step back.
"I am Xix," the entity replied, and its voice was no longer that of a child, but a chorus of echoes coming from all directions. "And I will grant you what you desire… if you achieve victory."
Before Michael could ask "what victory?", the wind went mad again. But it wasn't blowing. It was *showing*.
All around him, as if projected onto the mist, *thousands of images* from his life appeared. There was his first birthday, the cake, his mother's smile. His first day of school, fear and excitement mixed. His sister's birth, the small, noisy red bundle that filled his heart. And then… Johan. The arrival, the false smiles, the slow erosion of his place, the final lie, the door closing. Every moment of happiness, every instant of pain, paraded before his eyes at a brutal speed—a painful reminder of all he had lost, of the injustice he had swallowed in silence.
The hatred, a poison that had fermented for years, surged hot and bitter in his throat. "Are you… the devil?" he asked, his voice trembling but charged with a new rage.
Xix slowly shook his head. "No. But I can offer you something no devil would: a real chance. A fantasy life, power, a way to rewrite your destiny from scratch. An arena where your will to survive will be your greatest weapon." He extended his small, pale hand. "The question, Michael, is not whether you deserve it. The question is… do you have the courage to grasp it, knowing the price is a battle without end?"
Michael looked at that hand. He looked at the paths opening before him. He remembered the cold of the alley, the taste of blood in his mouth, the schoolkids' laughter, the door closing. He saw, in the lingering flashes, Johan's satisfied smile.
He was no longer afraid. He only had a hungry, voracious need to change.
With a jerky movement, as if tearing himself from the edge of a cliff, he stretched out his hand and grasped Xix's. The contact wasn't with skin, but with a cold, electric energy that shot up his entire arm.
"I accept," he said, and his voice no longer trembled. It sounded metallic. Resolute.
Xix's smile widened, but it didn't reach his eyes, which remained pools of abyssal serenity. "Well done, Michael. You have just changed your destiny. And that of many others." The energy between their hands intensified, and an intricate symbol—a glyph resembling a stylized cockroach combined with a broken sword—burned in the air for an instant before fading.
The fog swirled, the paths vanished, and the cold dissipated abruptly. Michael found himself back in the alley, alone, under the flickering lamppost. The night was still cold and dark. But something within him was different. A cold flame now burned at his core, a determination forged in abandonment and sealed with the supernatural.
Somewhere between the real and the impossible, on a plane where pacts that defy cosmic order are signed, a contract that should not exist had been sealed. A nameless god and his champion of survival were now bound. The path to the Grand Tournament of Munkai, paved with unimaginable adversity, had just received its most unlikely participant.
Michael, the boy nobody wanted, took a deep breath. For the first time in years, he felt he had a direction. A course that inevitably led out of the city and into the unknown. With the echo of Xix's voice in his ears, he began to walk, and his steps, once faltering, now resonated with a new and terrible purpose.