The sky outside was a muted gray, the kind of color that wasn't stormy enough to be ominous, but not clear enough to be hopeful.
Just… dull. Much like the life of a certain boy trudging home from school, his worn sneakers dragging along cracked pavement, his backpack hanging limply off his shoulder.
Seventeen-year-old Elias Kade was a boy who stood out but not in the ways anyone wanted.
Too intelligent for his peers to understand, too quiet for his teachers to remember, and too broken for his parents to even acknowledge as human.
He approached the rusted gate of his house if you could even call it a house a two-story decaying building with peeling paint, a roof missing a few shingles, and windows fogged with grime. Every day, the walk home was like approaching the gallows.
His heart no longer pounded in fear, though. Fear had long since burned out, leaving behind only a numb acceptance.
The front door creaked open as Elias stepped inside, his footsteps quiet as a whisper.
His goal was the same as always: make it to his room unseen.
If they didn't see him, they couldn't hurt him at least for a while.
But fate, it seemed, had no sympathy.
"Where do you think you're going, you little shit?" his father's voice, thick with alcohol and frustration, slashed through the air like a blade.
Elias froze for a second. A second too long.
His mother was there too, stepping out from the kitchen with that ever-present scowl on her face. "You think you can come and go as you please, huh? Acting like some stuck-up little genius? Think you're better than us?"
He knew better than to respond. Silence was the only shield he had a brittle, cracking shield that barely withstood their constant assaults.
A hand struck him across the face, the impact sharp enough to make his vision blur.
His father's grip followed, yanking Elias closer only to hurl him into the wall with force that knocked the breath from his lungs.
"Look at you! Pathetic. Always staring at your books, reading those useless stories. You're nothing!" his mother spat, her hands grabbing at his shirt as she pushed him into the wall again. "Nothing but worthless trash."
The next blow came from his father, a heavy fist driving into his stomach. Then another.
They took turns like it was some twisted game they played together.
His father's fists, his mother's nails and slaps.
They cursed him, berated him, called him garbage, a mistake, a burden.
The words were background noise, blending into the ringing in his ears.
It didn't hurt the way it used to. His body had long since numbed to pain. His heart, though? There was nothing left to break.
When they finally grew tired or bored they left him crumpled on the floor like discarded trash.
Blood trickled from his lip, bruises already blooming beneath his skin, but Elias only stood up silently and made his way to his room.
The door shut behind him with a quiet click.
He didn't cry. Tears were a luxury for people with hope. Instead, he reached under his bed and pulled out the one thing that brought him comfort a toy katana with a chipped plastic blade and a faded handle.
It was cheap, the kind you'd find at a convenience store, the kind no one would miss if it vanished from the shelf. And vanish it had, when Elias stole it months ago.
He held it close to his chest, clutching it with the kind of desperate grip someone might use on a lifeline.
His fingers trembled slightly, his body aching from the fresh abuse, but the plastic katana didn't complain. It didn't cry. It didn't betray him.
Even when things got rough, the katana stayed silent always by his side.
His voice, hoarse and low, escaped in a whisper. "You and me… we're both just pieces of trash."
The katana, of course, gave no answer. But that silence was comforting. It was the only thing in his life that didn't hurt.
Elias collapsed onto his thin mattress, his body too tired to move, but his mind wide awake.
As the dim light from his cracked phone screen flickered to life, a notification popped up.
{New Chapter Released - Hero's Rise.}
His chest tightened with the faintest flicker of excitement. Hero's Rise was the only story that gave him a sense of escape.
In that world, there were heroes, villains, monsters, and magic. People who mattered. People who could change their fate.
He opened the new chapter eagerly, hoping, praying for something good.
But instead, disappointment struck like a dagger to his chest.
Noah Astra was dead.
The villain with so much wasted potential a character who had captivated Elias from the start was gone.
Defeated by the ever-perfect protagonist, Ares. It wasn't even a glorious death.
Noah Astra, cold and indifferent to the world, had been outmaneuvered and struck down like an afterthought.
His emotionless façade had been his strength, but also his downfall.
Just like Elias.
He shut off his phone and lay there, staring at the cracked ceiling.
Blood was still seeping from his lip, but he didn't bother to wipe it away. It didn't matter.
He was just another piece of trash. Just like Noah.
With that final thought, Elias closed his eyes and let sleep take him, his hand still clutching the plastic katana like a lifeline.
…
…
…
When he opened his eyes, it wasn't his cracked ceiling he saw.
It was silk.
A canopy of deep, rich crimson silk hung above him, embroidered with golden threads that shimmered faintly in the morning light. Confusion flooded him instantly the room was too big, too clean, too lavish.
The bed was soft, the air smelled faintly of incense, and the fabric brushing against his skin was far too smooth to be the tattered clothes he owned.
He bolted upright, his heart hammering against his ribs.
The room was huge marble floors polished to a mirror sheen, a towering bookshelf filled with thick tomes, and a grand window overlooking a city unlike any he had ever seen. Majestic spires pierced the sky, airships drifted lazily between them, and a colossal sun blazed over a world that was unmistakably not Earth.
On the dresser, polished to perfection, was a black uniform embroidered with silver patterns, neatly folded and awaiting him.
His trembling hands reached for the mirror beside his bed.
The face staring back at him wasn't his own.
Pale skin, Snow White hair, and chillingly emotionless amethyst eyes. The face of a boy who wasn't a hero, but a villain. A character who had just died in the story he read the night before.
Noah Astra.
The realization struck him like a lightning bolt. This wasn't a dream. It wasn't some feverish hallucination brought on by blood loss.
He was inside Hero's Rise. In the body of Noah Astra, the indifferent villain who was destined to die.
A soft chime rang in the room the mechanical clock on the wall chiming nine times.
9th of Septarias, year 1428. The day of the Academy Entrance Ceremony.
The day the story truly began.
Elias no, Noah stared at his reflection, the cold amethyst eyes staring back at him like an empty abyss. The character who once had no future. No purpose.
But now, it was Elias' mind inside this body. And Noah Astra's fate was no longer written.
The battered boy who once whispered to a plastic katana had now become a villain with untapped potential in a world where power meant survival, and fate could be rewritten by those brave enough to seize it.
The reflection whispered back at him, cold and unfeeling.
"I'm not trash."
Not anymore.
He turned away from the mirror, the beginnings of a plan forming in his mind.
Noah Astra wouldn't die here.
Not in this world where magic, power, and destiny were his to take.
And for the first time in his life, Elias smiled.
Even if it was the smile of a villain.