“You’re standing on the precipice of a cliff.

Step forward and smash into the ground below

or stay where you are and endure constant

mockery; the choice is yours.”

Childhood Period: Part One

–I don’t want to go to work, no matter what anyone says!

Lumina Greyrat - Volume I

I was a 34-year-old woman, unemployed, and living with my parents. I thought myself to be a pretty nice person, but my looks didn’t do me any favors, and I was scared to step on a weighing scale. I had more than a few regrets that were weighing me down just as much as the downpour of rain drenching my clothes.

Before this, I was your typical shut-in bum with zero working experience and had been leeching off my parents. But one day, completely out of the blue, they died. Being a shut-in meant I wasn't just going to drop everything and just go to my parents' funeral–Nor the family gathering.

It was shocking to be suddenly kicked out of that house afterward.

I was halfway through a BL scene in my favorite ero-game and had gotten tissues out and everything when my siblings barged into my room. They yelled at me, called me a “worthless hag,” and thrust a letter officially disowning me in my face. I was in shock. Really, what did I ever do to them? After saying that out loud, I got a fist to the face and my computer was smashed to bits. I cried out, I had all my files on there, so I couldn't just lose it like that.

I mustered up my strength and threw a punch at my brother. It didn't connect. They beat the crap out of me, and there was simply nothing I could do other than to blubber endlessly. After they decided they had enough, they threw me out of the house. It just wasn’t fair.

What the hell was I supposed to do now ?

I knew the basics, sure. Get a part-time job, earn some money, and stay somewhere until I’m on my feet again. But the chances of someone hiring me as I looked right now were slim to none. I didn’t have the money to spruce myself up enough to look presentable in the slightest.

Who was I kidding? My life was over.

“If only I could go back and do it all over again,” I said, looking up at the dimly illuminated night sky. Seriously, where did it all go so damn wrong?

I wasn’t always this shitty. I was praised as a kid for being intelligent to a degree, and I got my head stuck in the clouds when I became gifted at writing and coding. I went to a decent junior high, joined a writing club, and asked my parents for a computer so I could practice. I started a few writing projects, and my life was progressing smoothly.

It wasn't until high school, or the last year of it, when things went to shit.

I could never forget it even if I tried my absolute hardest to. One day, I was waiting in a lunch line alone when I saw someone cutting the line. I, for whatever reason, decided to give this guy a piece of my mind. I wasn’t particularly intimidating, but I felt like I could scare off some boy if I talked enough shit.

My parents had always thought less of me because of how underwhelming of a daughter I was to them. All of my siblings were prodigies, and I was an average person. I found myself taking out my anger on people that I viewed as less than me. I had talked down to many people just like him before, so what would be different this time around?

But as my luck would have it, this guy wasn’t just some boy, he was one of those real nasty upperclassmen. The ones with friends in all sorts of scary places. That bastard and his friends beat me up and took pictures of my body against my will, threatening to post them online if I didn't do what they told me.

I was forced to give up on my entire life savings buying them things and wore myself out doing errands and all sorts of shit for them. I had to scramble to make an excuse to my parents every time they asked me what had happened to my savings. One day, I had enough. I wasn’t going to let them walk all over me ever again. And that’s how it all blew up in my face.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

They posted the pictures online. I only found out after a heard people whispering all around me in class, and when a perverted-looking creep came up to me and asked if he could fuck me. My entire reputation was torn to shambles. My so-called “friends” wouldn’t go near me, and I started being bullied and called names nonstop.

I was completely isolated.

One morning, I just couldn’t get out of bed. I begged my parents to let me skip school just for that day, and they let me. But as time went on, that day turned into three, which turned into ten, until I had not gone to school for an entire month.

My siblings were the only ones who cared enough to attempt to talk to me. They persuaded me to go back to school, telling me that it was going to be okay. I caved in as the anxiety of letting them down loomed over me like a scribbled-over shadow.

When I eventually returned to school, I was overwhelmed by all of the responsibilities I had left to rot and was bashed by teachers and students alike. My clubmates hurled insults at me for not doing my work. My closest friends acted like they didn’t know who I was when I spoke to them.

At the end of the day, I was nearly sexually assaulted by one of the upperclassman’s friends. Even now, the memory of that thing touching me is as clear as a lucid dream. I barely managed to escape, and went to my room and tried to hurt myself. My brother found me in the middle of it and calmed me down enough to go to sleep.

I never went back to school after that. I tried to get back into coding, but it didn't stick. I didn’t have the motivation to keep going after my clubmates blocked me on all messaging platforms. Still, I developed an interest in niche hobbies thanks to the internet. Things like crochet and DND. Despite that, I gave up on all of them before they went anywhere. The second I saw somebody else do it better than I could, I dropped it. To someone like my parents, it likely came off across as me screwing around in my room like a child. In reality, I was locked inside my shell with nothing else to do during my time alone.

Well, that’s probably just yet another excuse. I probably would have been better off using my writing skills and doing something with it, maybe even serializing a web novel or posting a blog.

Instead, I laughed at others who genuinely made use of their hobbies instead of lazing around and going nowhere.

“This shit sucks,” I’d snort while making fun of their creations as if I had any room to speak about such a thing.

I wanted to go back to the education system, ideally the first year of high school, but when I thought of the events that had transpired, I shuddered and decided to put it off.

I sighed. Why hadn’t I ever bothered to achieve anything before now? I excused my lack of action by thinking, “It’s all because of other people. I never did anything wrong.” That didn't hold up very well 10 years later, nor 15.

If I hadn’t simply told myself that over and over, I could have–

It didn't matter now. No matter how much I thought about the past, it was there, set in stone, and nothing could ever change it. Lingering on it was never going to fix my problems.

In the middle of the downpour, I could hear people arguing. I wanted nothing to do with that. Especially not now.

“Look, Nanahoshi. Calm down and listen to me. I–”

“No, Shinohara, you know what you did and you’re not even apologizing!”

When I peeked across the corner, I saw three high schoolers in the middle of what looked to be a lover’s quarrel. There were two boys and a girl, dressed in the now-vanishingly rare tsume-eri jackets and a sailor suit, respectively. One of the boys was in a verbal spat with the girl, and the other boy was trying to break it up, but he was ignored.

I smiled self-deprecatingly to myself as I peered at the three. All of my previous relationships went nowhere and rarely lasted more than two months. I’ve had arguments with partners before, but they all ended with “Don’t talk to me again.” before they could get too heated.

Amid my reminiscing, I noticed something. There was a truck speeding right

toward the group of three students. Either the driver was drunk, or he had fallen asleep at the wheel. Both of the situations were equally as dangerous.

The kids hadn’t noticed yet.

“H-he…hey! Watch… Watch out!” I shouted, or at least attempted to. It’d been so long since I held a conversation that my vocal cords refused to cooperate with me.

I knew I had to help them, but I had no idea how. I didn’t have an inkling of a clue as to why I cared so much about a group of strangers I’d never met in my life. But, I had a gut feeling that I’d regret my pitiful existence even more if I didn't do anything.

I steeled myself to save them. The truck was speeding closer every second. In the worst-case scenario, I’d be turned into a smear on the side of the road because of this. I’d feel bad for anyone who would have to see that, but getting them out of harm’s way would at least provide me some solace after the wreck that was my life.

I staggered as I began to run. My lack of physical activity made my legs ache in pain. I cursed myself under my breath for not eating as much greens when I was growing up.

The boy who’d been arguing noticed the truck approaching and drew the girl close to him. The other boy had looked away and hadn’t spotted the truck yet. I grabbed him by the collar and yanked him behind me with all my might, then pushed him out of the vehicle’s path.

All that was left was the other two. Before I could think further about that, though, my eyes were blinded by the headlights of the truck. I’d tried to pull the boy to safety, but in doing so, I had simply swapped places with him. I didn’t have the body to pull it off without doing that.

The instant before the truck made contact, a light blossomed behind me. Time seemed to slow down. The pitter-pattering of the raindrops was deafening. For a moment, I thought my life was going to flash before my eyes.

My train of thought was immediately cut off as I was struck by a truck more than fifty times my weight and thrown against a concrete wall.

The air was forced out of my lungs, and I groaned, “Hurgh!”

I couldn’t speak or breathe, but I was still hanging on. I wasn’t dead yet, I told myself desperately.

However, the truck was still moving. I was pinned to the concrete, squashed like a tomato, and then, I was dead.