It was cold. Diego was hiding in a dumpster. 

He was hungry. But there was nowhere else he could hide right now. He couldn't outrun the members of the gang looking for him. 

So there, he just tried not to move, so his trembling wasn't overly loud. But he could hear them passing by. Meanwhile, he could only hold his tear and pray his stomach didn't betray him. 

But pray for whom? He was merely a penniless orphan. Homeless, he worked for those angry people because they at least allowed him to eat something sometimes. 

Where else would he go? There were scary people everywhere. And those angry people at least didn't put on a mask. Or so he thought. 

Yet, here, he was framed for something he didn't do and hiding for his life. But he wasn't a saint or naive, so he knew better than hoping to talk his way out. He rarely talked anyway. Talk to whom? 

"TOLD YA!" Diego heard someone yelling as they pulled him by his hair out of the dumpster. 

--- 

Diego thought that maybe he had survived. But he didn't remember much about his last few days, and he didn't want to remember it either. 

But when he couldn't wake up as he stayed in this sleep paralysis state, anger took over him. 

'WHY?' 

However, his body didn't respond. Not did the hunger pass. And this cold was still here. 

Yet, he didn't know where he was. 

He could barely see shadow pictures from time to time, like snapshots from an old and failing camera. But his hearing and smelling pierced his brain with an unimaginable force. 

He felt that he stayed in this state for an eternity, but eventually, something changed. 

Diego felt a sharp pain, cutting his flesh. And his body moved automatically in self-defense. 

He could hear crackings and the smell of people. Then, the visceral smell of blood. He knew how to identify that from the time spent on the streets. 

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

He felt overwhelmed. But not about the noise or scents, but because this agonizing raw anger consumed him. He didn't feel like himself. 

However, soon a sense of satiation drowned his mood, a high like he had felt never before. 

Hysteria took over him and blurred his senses even further. Left was only the desire for more and more. 

This event wasn't the only time. 

After every high was this insatiable hunger. Spending days or weeks drove by anger to barely feel a few seconds of satisfaction and bliss. 

This cycle kept going like a curse as it slowly ate Diego's sense of self. 

Numbed, just a vague sense of nightmare was left. 

An eternity until it wasn't. 

As he finally stopped in place someday, Diego felt everything become numb, even the hysteria and anger. At the moment, he just felt cold, 'dying,' he remembered. 

< "...New Year..." >

But a few spoken words lit a spark punching his mind back. He wanted to see what it was.

< "A New Year for us!" > 

Diego used all he had, forcefully, even the anger he hated to move enough and try to see. 

He eventually squinched so much that he conjured a flash image in his mind. 

What he saw was a snapshot of a shabby firework show. 

Many distance memories rained down on him, those of all the times he saw something similar. He didn't like fireworks as it was always so cold when watching them. But this image felt like thunder and cut through his mind. 

'I... want... summer.' 

He was still Diego. 

< "I am a monster, myself, but I don't think I can understand your pain." > 

< "Would I despair in silence? Leaving no marks behind?" > 

< "Would someone refine me into an artifact? Maybe some medicine?" > 

'The smell of blood.' 

< "Maybe you don't care about that. Maybe you only want to live." > 

< "I wonder if it is worth it. Do you think it is? To live, to suffer, to ask, to seek, to wander, to wonder. To die." > 

< "Sorry. I can only send you off. I don't know who is the fucker who is sending us here with those fucking memories, but I will try to keep those. AH... How ironic of me, such hypocrisy." > 

Somehow, Diego's mind became sharp as he approached death. He could hear someone blabbing about too much stuff. 

< "What I treasure the most... Am I wrong to think you have nothing worth keeping? That, maybe, you can be born somewhere else, but without all this baggage of dying, killing, and tragedy." > 

Like summer falling into him, Diego felt warm sinking into his body. 

< "For you, that may keep on living. I can't save you. I seek, but I don't have answers either. Chained I am, but you may live. If you retrieved this, I took the karmic bullshit. And for this new year, I only hope you can build memories of a life worth keeping. So, happy new death." > 

Ironically, at that instant, as he heard his death sentence, Diego felt melancholic. 

In those few seconds, life came back to his body. An unimaginable amount of comfort took over him. But he didn't fear it. 

His emotions slowly faded, but Diego wanted to smile. Because this was the first time that someone responded to his prayers.