The MC stood there, his body frozen with dread as he watched Rade, the small boy dragging the weight of his dead sister behind him. Each step was a struggle, every movement a painful reminder of what had been lost. Rade's frail shoulders barely supported the limp body, his sister's legs dragging lifelessly across the dirt.

The boy's face was an empty canvas, hollow eyes staring forward, devoid of hope, devoid of life. His sister was gone. Her laughter, her warmth—gone. And yet, Rade clung to her with desperate hands, refusing to let go, as if his sheer will could pull her back to life.

The MC hovered in the air, silently watching, his own chest tightening with a mixture of helplessness and guilt. This isn't what I signed up for... he thought bitterly, but the thought felt shallow, out of place. This was beyond plotlines, beyond shitty missions. It was... life. Or death. Or something far worse, a space in between, where despair became a living, breathing thing.

Rade's small, trembling hands clutched at his sister's body as he finally reached their broken-down home on the outskirts of town. It wasn't much—a house that had barely survived time's cruelty. The roof was caved in, the walls crumbling. But for a boy like Rade, it was enough. Enough to shield him and his sister from the rain. Enough to call home.

He gently lowered her to the ground, her body slumping against the worn wooden wall, and then he sat beside her. The silence that followed was deafening. The only sound was the wind, soft and gentle, as if it, too, was mourning.

MC swallowed hard, his throat dry as sandpaper. Do something. Help him. But how? He couldn't touch the boy. Couldn't change the script. He could only watch, like the voyeuristic ghost he had become, powerless to do anything but observe the boy's world collapse around him.

Rade's tiny frame shuddered. He rested his head on his sister's cold lap, as if pretending she was still alive, still able to comfort him, still able to run her fingers through his hair like she used to. His small hand rose to his head, patting it softly in an imitation of the way she used to soothe him. And then, his voice—a fragile, broken thing—began to sing.

"Hush, little baby, don't you cry… Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird…"

The words barely escaped his throat, cracked and hoarse. The MC winced, feeling a deep, aching pain in his chest that he hadn't known he was capable of feeling. He watched as Rade sang the lullaby, the same one his sister had always sung to him when their bellies were empty, when the world was too harsh. It was a whisper of a song, filled with longing, with the futile hope that maybe, just maybe, this was all a dream.

But it wasn't a dream. She was gone. The only light in his world had been extinguished, leaving behind a chasm of darkness.

Rade's sobs grew louder, more guttural, until they morphed into something raw and primal. He screamed. He screamed so loud that the universe should have broken under the weight of it. Every ounce of his pain, his anguish, his hopelessness was poured into that scream, as if he could tear open reality itself with the sound.

The MC hovered above, tears blurring his vision. Fuck. This. He clenched his fists. What was the point of having "Plot Armor Genius" if it couldn't stop this? What good was a system if it let a kid suffer like this? What had he done to deserve this level of misery?

Then, just as suddenly as the screaming began, it stopped. Rade sat in silence once more, his small fists digging into the dirt beside him. His voice, now barely a whisper, trembled with a mix of rage and despair. "I'll make them pay. A hundredfold. A thousandfold… I'll make them all pay."

The MC's stomach twisted. He could hear the weight behind those words, the dark determination in the boy's voice. He's lost everything. And when someone loses everything, they become capable of anything.

Rade laid his sister down on the ground, his hands trembling as he began digging. There were no shovels. No tools. Nothing but the raw determination of a boy who refused to leave her lying in the open. His small fingers clawed at the earth, nails cracking, blood smearing across the dirt. He dug, and dug, and dug. Hours passed. The sky shifted from the black of night to the pale light of dawn. The boy kept digging.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

MC floated above, watching every agonizing moment. It was like time had slowed down, like the universe wanted to prolong the suffering. What kind of twisted story is this? He wondered. What kind of sick, twisted author writes this kind of shit?

Finally, the grave was deep enough. Rade placed his sister's body inside, wiping his eyes with the back of his dirt-streaked hand. For a moment, he stood there, staring at the broken body in the ground. Then he disappeared into the house and returned, holding a single, delicate white flower—just like the one he had placed in her hands before.

Kneeling beside her, he placed the flower in her hand once more and gently folded her fingers around it. Then, slowly, painfully, he began to cover her with earth again.

By the time he finished, the sun was fully up. The grave was nothing more than a mound of freshly disturbed soil, but to Rade, it was everything. It was the final resting place of his last family member, the last piece of his heart.

Rade stood over the grave, his lips trembling. "May you live well in heaven... and I... I'll join you soon."

No. The MC's blood ran cold. No, no, no. Those weren't just words of sorrow. They were a declaration. A final decision. He's not planning on living.

Rade turned and walked back toward the house, his steps slow and deliberate. The MC followed, heart hammering in his chest. No… He can't be—

The boy emerged from the house a moment later, a knife gripped tightly in his small hand.

Fuck. Fuck, no. The MC's mind spiraled into sheer panic. He's going to end it.

His hands twitched, and then—red. A red flash exploded in his vision as a system window popped up.

Caution: The protagonist of this world, Rade, is in danger.

Plot Armor Genius activated.

Time froze. The knife hovered inches from Rade's throat, the boy's small hand trembling as it inched closer. No. Not like this.

The MC's breath was shallow, panic taking over. What the hell do I do now?

The world had frozen, like a photograph suspended in time, yet the MC's mind raced, heart pounding like a drum inside his chest. How do I stop him? The knife was still inches from Rade's throat, the boy's small, trembling hand wrapped around the hilt. Damn it.

He looked around the room. It was dead silent, and time itself had ground to a halt. The air was thick, frozen mid-breath, and yet he could feel his pulse hammering as if the universe had singled him out, given him this terrible responsibility.

He had seconds—no, less than that—before time resumed. How the hell do I get through to him?

The MC darted through the room, rifling through anything and everything, but all he found were broken pieces of furniture and old, abandoned belongings. Useless. Completely useless.

"Fuck!" he yelled into the void. His voice echoed in the suspended silence, the only sound in this frozen world. There has to be something. He glanced back at Rade, whose small hand still hovered with that cursed knife in it.

There's always something, right? This is the part where the hero steps in and saves the day, right?

The boy's hollow eyes haunted him. There was no hero here—just a little boy who had lost everything, and a panicking, desperate MC who had no idea what the hell he was doing.

MC floated back over to Rade, hovering in front of the boy's face, searching for any glimmer of life in those eyes, anything he could latch onto. But there was nothing—just grief, despair, and resignation.

The system's red warning glared at him again:

Protagonist in immediate danger. Prevent or accept consequence.

Prevent or accept? What the hell kind of choice is that? He had no idea how to prevent it, but accept wasn't even an option. Not if it meant watching Rade die.

MC's hands trembled as he moved to Rade's side. He floated down beside the boy, his mind buzzing with panic. Think, you dumbass!

Suddenly, his eyes caught something—a small glass of water on the windowsill. Next to it, a pair of delicate white flowers—the same kind Rade had placed in his sister's hands.

The flowers. That's it!

The MC shot toward the window, his mind working overtime. If I can just make him see the flowers, maybe it'll break him out of this suicidal spiral. Maybe it'll remind him of his sister, of why he can't give up.

He grabbed a handful of dirt and worms from outside the house, carefully placing them atop the flowers. The plan was simple: attract the sparrows nearby, let them knock the glass over, and create a distraction—something to snap Rade out of his dark trance.

This has to work. The sparrows eyed the worms but flew away before even noticing them.

With everything in place, he resumed time, holding his breath as the world came back to life.

The sparrows flapped their wings, ready to move… but instead of noticing the worms, they flew away, completely oblivious to the carefully laid trap. The worms blended in too well with the flowers, unnoticed by the birds.

His heart sank as his plan crumbled in an instant.

MC cursed under his breath. Goddamn birds... what do I do now?

The knife was still in Rade's hands, inching closer to his neck. The MC's eyes widened in horror as he saw the cold, sharp edge of the blade nearing the boy's skin, his small hand trembling with grief.

No…

The sparrows had failed. The distraction hadn't worked. And now, there was nothing standing between Rade and his final, irreversible act.

The MC's pulse raced, every second feeling like an eternity as the knife came closer, closer to the boy's neck. His breath caught in his throat as the blade glinted in the pale light, so close now that the moment seemed inevitable.

Time was running out.

He had failed.

The knife hovered just millimeters from Rade's throat, and the world around the MC stood still once more—not in the frozen sense of time, but in the gut-wrenching realization that there was nothing more he could do.

And then, the knife moved...