⚠️ Disclaimer
This story contains mature themes, including bullying, trauma, violence, and suicide. Reader discretion is advised. All characters and events depicted are fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out to a trusted friend, family member, or mental health professional. If you are in the U.S., you can dial 988 to connect with the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. If you are outside the U.S., please check for local crisis hotlines or resources available in your area.
Blake stepped forward, his arm draped possessively around Natalie's waist, a smirk cutting across his lips like a drawn blade.
"You know what I think you are, Luck? A—" he paused, savoring the word, "—a dumb genius." His hand slid from her waist to the curve of her backside with deliberate insolence. "She's not the same girl you once knew. She's with me now—the guy who's turned your life into a living hell. And yet you still trust her? Love really does make people blind, doesn't it? If I were you, I'd have stayed the hell away. But here you are. Stockholm syndrome, perhaps?" His voice dripped with contempt, each word a venomous drop corroding the air between us.
Wind ripped across the rooftop, carrying the metallic tang of rust and the promise of rain. Storm clouds devoured the sun, and thunder rumbled—once, twice—like a distant drumroll, a warning without release, as if the world itself was holding its breath, waiting to unleash its fury.
My fists clenched until my knuckles whitened. She had sold me out. There was no one left to call, no one left to trust.
One of Blake's cronies slammed a shoulder into me, then drove a boot into my knee. I staggered back, the cold metal railing biting into my spine like jagged teeth—a cruel reminder of my fragility. Yet even that pain was warmer than the frost of Natalie's betrayal.
Blake's laughter erupted, sharp and mocking. "She told me everything, you know. Your mom must've been real easy, getting knocked up so young. And how your folks kicked the bucket in that car wreck, leaving you orphaned. Then your retired grandma turns into a damn coin collector just to keep you and your little sister—Maeve, right?—fed. He turned to Natalie when asking about Maeve's name, confirming she'd told him. "If I'd known your life was that pathetic, maybe I'd have shown a little mercy. I do have a conscience, you know."
His friends howled with laughter, the sound echoing in the oppressive stillness like hyenas circling a kill.
"You should've minded your own business, Luck. A nobody like you, craving attention from someone of my class. Well, you got it. Happy now?"
He leaned in until I could smell his cologne mixed with cigarettes. A cruel grin spread across his face, and he whispered, his breath hot against my ear, low, venomous.
"I've taken everything from you—your pride, your girl, your dignity. Break for me now, my little toy."
Natalie stood frozen a step behind him. Something flickered in her eyes—regret, guilt, or fear. I couldn't decipher it. Her silence was louder than his taunts.
"Why?" The word escaped my lips like a dying breath.
She parted her lips, but Blake sealed them, pulling her into a possessive kiss. Her hands hesitated, then settled on his chest, sealing her betrayal. That single surrender twisted in my gut like a serrated knife, stealing my breath.
I turned away, the world smearing into a blur as tears burned my eyes. But Blake wasn't finished.
His voice cut through the air. "I've been thinking, Luck. I could pay little Maeve a visit, have some fun with her just for a day. You do know who my father is, right?" His voice dropped to a whisper that carried perfectly in the wind. "After I'm done with her, your grandmother won't have to worry about working another day. I doubt she's got much time left anyway—if she keeps grinding that frail body to the bone, she'll end up kicking the bucket, like your parents did. You wouldn't want that, would you?"
He extended his hand like a businessman closing a deal. "What do you say? Shake on it?"
Rage ignited in my veins like wildfire.
Something inside me snapped.
Adrenaline surged—like a primal cocktail flooding my system, quickening my pulse, sharpening my senses, fueling my muscles for one desperate act: fight, flee, survive. Before I could think, I charged, fists balled, teeth gritted to the point of shattering.
Thud.
My punch connected with Blake's jaw, splitting his lip, and blood bloomed. For one perfect moment, his smug expression cracked. But it was short-lived. His boot slammed into my chest, hurling me backward as I crashed into the railing.
As if fate had scripted it, the bolts loosened and gave way. Metal that had held steady for years just gave up. Thunder cracked, the heavens splitting open in a torrential downpour, a curtain of rain cascading as though the universe had conspired for this precise unraveling.
I tumbled backward, weightless, plummeting toward the stormy gray expanse. Gravity took me, and my body surrendered, heart hammering in rhythm with the rain.
The world spun in a dizzying whirl. In that suspended instant, I glimpsed their faces: Blake's smugness cracking into shock, Natalie's eyes wide with unfeigned horror, and the others petrified in place like deer in headlights. A bitter, thin smile found my lips. Look at that, I thought. I finally did it.
"You told me to break," I screamed into the storm, "so I did—into a thousand shards. You walked on my splinters blind, and your own toy cut you in the end!"
Flash.
Lightning etched the scene like a photographer's strobe, imprinting their expressions forever in my mind.
Finally, I thought, raising my middle finger in one last act of defiance. You're late, but I'm glad you came. I'm Luck, and it's a pleasure to finally meet you, Lady Karma.
Then reality intruded: Fuck, I'm dying, huh?
Three months. I'd been three months away from graduating, from escaping this hell. From freedom.
Lightning flared again, and Grandma's face materialized: her weary eyes, her calloused hands sifting coins to sustain me and Maeve. My sister would be shattered. How would they afford a funeral? Grandma would toil through more sleepless nights, her body breaking under the weight.
The sound of pages flipping filled the air—impossibly fast, like a book the size of a building being rifled through by invisible hands. I braced for impact, squeezing my eyes shut.
Boom.
The impact echoed like an overripe tomato hitting concrete, only a thousand times louder.
[Emergency Services Report – Suicide]
Date: September 15, 2021 | Time of Fatality:4:44 PM (Japanese superstition: 4 = shi (死) → "death"; triple 4 = triple death)
Location: St. Josselin Academy, Rooftop
Victim: "Luck ******", Age 17
But agony never came. No splintering bones, no merciful void. Only darkness.
I rubbed my eyes, pulse thundering. Blind? My hands groped for wounds, for blood, finding none. Then screams erupted—primal, guttural, mingling human anguish with something infernal. Metal clanged against metal; the air was thick with the stench of iron and something fouler, like sulfur and decay.
When my vision cleared, I wasn't sprawled on the pavement below the school. I was elsewhere. Utterly wrong.
The earth was charred, strewn with corpses—some recognizably human, others grotesque, with twisted limbs and jagged teeth. The sky bled a feverish crimson. In the distance, chaos unfolded:
Three wounded figures huddled, spectators to the fray. Amid the tumult, three warriors dominated. One commanded the sun itself, trailing his every motion like a loyal hound; his blade blazed with radiant heat, each arc birthing fiery afterimages. Beside him fought a figure with snow-white hair and crimson eyes that glowed like smoldering embers, their movements a lethal symphony, a dance of death.
They fought with a synchronicity that was almost beautiful—a deadly ballet—and together they faced a man who was six-foot-nine at least, with obsidian horns spiraling like thorns. His power was untamed pandemonium, yet it matched theirs blow for blow. His sword screamed for blood with every swing. I felt something in my chest, a thread of empathy tugging at me, as if his rage mirrored some buried fracture in my soul.
The duo pressed relentlessly until the white-haired warrior delivered a shattering strike, disarming the horned man—but at the cost of his own blade, which shattered into pieces. The sun-bound warrior exploited the breach, severing both arms in a single merciless cut.
The horned man collapsed to his knees as black blood fountained beneath him. The sun-bound warrior stepped forward, sword poised for the coup de grâce. The horned man's eyes found mine across the battlefield. His lips moved soundlessly, but I understood:
"Now it's your turn."
Those were his last words. His head rolled.
Before comprehension dawned, darkness engulfed me—warm, enveloping, a seductive abyss where I might have lingered eternally. But light dragged me onward, murmurs filtered through, fragmented at first, gibberish coalescing into sense.
"It's...beau...Bab..boy."
"A bless...to...wolf....family..see."
My eyes fluttered open to a haze, wind stinging them shut instinctively.
"Red ey...white...ha..."
When I looked again, my head rested on someone's lap—a woman so beautiful she belonged in fairy tales, those stories that promised everyone lived happily ever after. She was dressed like one too. Halloween party or a nurse, maybe, I thought.
Above us, painted angels gazed down from cathedral ceilings, and stained glass filtered rainbow light across stone walls.
This hospital must bleed fortunes; Grandma couldn't afford it. I had to leave, I thought.
Words formed, but only infantile wails emerged. She drew down her gown, exposing a graceful curve, guiding her breast to my lips. Milk flowed, soothing the cries.
"Hey, I'm still just a high schooler—this'll get you arrested!" I protested inwardly, but only babble escaped. Then I saw my hands: tiny, pudgy, newborn.
Panic gripped me. What is this? What have you done to my body?
The woman murmured, "It's almost as if fate decreed it. His father wished to name him after the founder."
"Father? Mine's dead!" I railed, reduced to wails.
She lifted me, her smile tender. "Our little Arthur Romaeus van Wolfhard, the second."
The name hit me like a freight train. That name—I had created it. In the novel I'd been writing. Arthur Romaeus van Wolfhard II, the story's primary antagonist.
This couldn't be real. It had to be a dream. But the wind brushing against my face felt real. Her hands were warm. The milk tasted real. My eyes widened.
I had died falling from my school's rooftop and been reincarnated as my own creation—and the worst part—as the villain of my own story. Even though I had never encountered a truck.
What made it hard to believe was that this world wasn't created by a god. I had made it with my own hands, word by word. It should have been scientifically impossible.
I closed my eyes one last time, trying to wake up from this, as if that would reset everything, from what had to be a lucid dream. I was probably in a coma or something.
When I opened them, the woman still cradled me, still smiled with that ethereal beauty.
I had died in my world and been reborn in the world of my own making.