As everything goes black a silent comfort wash’s over me, I open my eyes to find I’m standing on an unending body of water, looking up to search around there is nothing but darkness above and water below. My world suddenly spins as I find my world flipped upside down. Suddenly submerged in water with nothing but darkness below I swim up and up until I saw a shimmer of the surface. A light to guide me. My hand goes through followed by my arm, I close my eyes from coming face to face with the light to only open them a second later, I find myself stepping out of the light into a dark back street of a distant memory. There I watch myself an 8-year-old boy beaten and bruised looking for food in bins going from one to the next in the back-alley way. I remember it was that day I met Lily, she sat next to the last bin I was about to salvage through. She sat with knees to chest and a knife in hand, cutting off the bitten part of a ham and cheese sandwich. I watch like a ghost in my own memory with a throbbing heart.

When she looked up her eyes narrowed into a cautious glare as her hand tightened around her knife, worried she thought I was after her food I take a step back while still staring blankly at her hair, a pure whiteness with shoulder length straight hair, I unconsciously raise my hand to my left eye as I realized we both had something others didn’t. We had a unique trait that others shunned and cursed us for having. As I starred at her I found her staring back for the similar reasons I thought, yet as I approach with a gentle smile to say hi, I find her thrusting her knife up, giving me a parallel bloody ridge on my cheek stopping right before the bottom of my right eye with the blunt knife edge finishing by flying with the circular motion of her swing to end up resting by her side.

I froze in udder shock, wide eyed right before stumbling back with a “splash”, falling on my ass holding my cheek in my right hand as blood runs down my forearm arm from the wound. My brain freezes while the sound of dripping blood comes from my elbow as it trickles into a puddle of water under my feet. I see her walk towards me with eyes in a deranged daze. Realizing she isn’t thinking and only acting based only on what’s going through her mind I stumble to think of what I might have done, yet just as she stands before my fallen figure again, I watch from the side like a ghost to see a 12-year-old boy running to stop her.

I remembered this is where I first met her brother and my friend for life, Victor Shade the only one of us three with normal characteristics like long deep red hair he has always worn in a ponytail and to later grow into a man of intelligence with keen eyes and sharp facial features. He first grabs his sister’s wrist to restrain the blade she holds while yelling to call her back to the present. Finally, he snapped her out of a dazed state to only glance at me to receive a face full of shock followed by a knowing look on his face that says he knows what happened as he takes a step back to apologize on his sister’s behalf. He starts to explain my purple contacts bring me a unique look that makes her think of the nights, she went through which changed her hair from deep red to white while I looked down in a daze as I watched the water below turn color.

As the puddle swirls redder and redder, I stare down remembering last night was the night it happened, with a thunder storm raging while rain poured from the sky like a volley of arrows hitting my face. I appear watching my younger self as I stare my opponent in the eyes while standing in the ring. My third opponent straight that night still fresh, full of vigor and anger with an unbruised body I study her from under swollen eyes. Tired and exhausted I want to quite but knowing my dad would never let me collapse until given permission I force my tired wobbly legs to stand until it’s another night of fighting until no one else is willing to place bets with their child in the ring.

I was being raised in the ways of carrying myself through life by living off the money I make during ring fights just like my father who lives off the money from his illegal cage fighting. My cage is nothing but a shallow mud pig pen with an inner electric wiring which was powerful for kids getting thrown into and a thick wooden fence for the audience to lean on. In my neighbor’s pig pen, I fight tooth and nail to keep my undefeated score I’m so proud of.

That was the day I lost fighting a girl two years older than me. I can take a beating until my muscles start to fail me but when one lowers there guard just before victory to end up losing and having your record of unbeatable crushed by a girl who held you close enough to block the audiences view from the knife. She slipped it out from her sleeve and held it up against my gut when grappling on the ground. I was faced with admitting defeat or the fear of watching my insides slip out like a sausage production line. Anyone put in this ring is crazy enough to do anything unless you admit defeat.

I guess what hurt more was the look on my dad’s face of utter disappointment and anger however right before I got up, she leaned closer to me to whisper in my ear “That was for my brother and revenge for how you won against my brother with your teeth to his neck. He told me right before our father discarded his now fourth adopted son to the streets. He was my real brother who was found dead 1 year later stabbed in the gut for food the police said. Now I feel better knowing your dad’s reputation you’re going to be killed in anger or discarded too she said with a snicker and an odd smile’.

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

Realizing I’m in big shit when I get home today, I wished I never won against the fat kid that way, I wished I didn’t have to fight in here all the time. As emotions boil to the surface, men would have never known an eight-year-old could have this much emotion inside like a fierce ocean night with waves of emotions battering the walls of his stomach. As I see my end tonight, I resigned myself to accepting what’s going to happen and walked over to my father instead of making it worse by running. As soon as I tried to explain the knife part my sentence was cut off with a fist knocking me blurry mindedly to the ground. I laid still with no energy to move until I felt myself picked up and flopped over my dads’ shoulder. I sat in the car dreading when the silence would be broken when we arrived home.

I remember my first years in this pig pen, it was when I was four with scraped knees and elbows, I kneeled in the mud with tears in my eyes. My first fight was against a big fat 5-year-old who had experienced a couple fights, I felt it through his experience in the fact I hadn’t landed 1 punch while being pushed, dragged and sat on…. When I was about to give up, I looked up from my kneeling position to my opponents face and was about to say no more when I noticed my father in the back-ground scrunch his hand into a fist! I knew that means I’ll get punched for thinking of giving up after this and a dozen if I do it. I feel tired, helpless and as my chin trembled to hold back curling up crying on the ground I instead froze my face in a half determined and still half crying look as I slowly rise on one leg at a time until I slowly step towards the big boy…My mind twists and churns with thoughts and fear of my father as I stared into his neck like a predator about to make a kill, my eyes glaze over with the concentrated stare past the point of looking at the boy but at something I’m going to do.

Noticing the look in my eyes the boy steps back with uncertainty and hesitation. A boy with a few fights had no idea what to feel after seeming intimidated by a kid nearly half his size. I suddenly launched by self forward with all the awkwardly technique of a shoulder barge I rocked my opponent off balance as I instantly rushed on him as he fell and before his head hit the ground I had already placed my teeth on his neck to send a desperate message that I’m not stopping until you give up. The big boy, feeling a set of teeth resting on his neck after the pain wears off felt terrified to the point of peeing himself as he assumes the kid is about to bite into him, remembering the kids earlier look shook the poor boy to screaming out he surrenders and burst into tears asking his dad to come save him. Knowing I won I rolled off him and laid in silence…just happy I’m only going to get hit once instead of many times. Who knew this was what lead me to end up on the street 4 years later?

I stand there as a ghost in my own head flowing through what seemed like key events in life, I feel like exploding into a screaming rage as the emotions run so deep in the pit of my stomach I contemplate if demons are going to start crawling out it goes that deep. As my mind starts to become unstable, I fly through memories faster and faster in an emotional roller-coaster of ups and downs before coming to a pleasant one. I stand by the side like usual watching myself wrestling Lily before Vector comes over giving us both a knock on the head with the butt of his pistol in a friendly way to break our squabbling up. I smiled as that was the day vector and lily used up some savings to buy me a cake for my first year in our family of now 3. Its only when there is peace and quietness in my head do I hear a yelling in my head….why does it sound like Lily I think before everything starts to fade and I feel my eyes open to a dim room lit by candles I lay on the floor looking up at the bathroom ceiling.

“ oh wow I’m surprised you even lived I thought such a weakling would be dead the second I appeared to see you fighting a second ranked werewolf boss truly a miracle …..oh so curious about the bonus rewards and first accomplishment rewards you will get” I tried to move resulting in pain shuddering through my body and with a groan I realized the voice came from my head until I hear a second voice but this one much familiar yet a bit off. I turned my head to seeing it sitting on the toilet I assume from lack of floor space. What I muttered as I stare wide eyed at what I just realized sat next to me… I remember back I saw a red orc like thing kick my door down before I passed out.

“lily?” I asked out loud with confusion in my voice, I mean yeah it has similar features, but the white hair is now red! “idiot I swear I was going to kill you if you didn’t wake up soon” it spoke with a distressed expression. “holy shit it is you Lily” I yelled out loud followed by a hand quickly covering my mouth and a shush coming from a serious face I would recognize anywhere. “the dire wolfs are still strolling around the building” she said in which I give pause to suddenly piece everything together now I have time to think.

Blue boxes appeared with voices in my head sounding like a notification system with a bitchy attitude. A creature looking like a werewolf just attacked me with strength and speed not belonging to our world not to mention knife proof fur. I recall there was a Lv 30 above its head in bright red now. I somehow didn’t die due to my fatal injuries and now my friend turned into a red Martian from mars saying there is wolves roaming around, oh and the bitchy toned voice said the werewolf was a second level boss probably the boss of the wolves…..THE WORLD IS A GAME NOW!!!