I never really believed in dreams.
Not the kind that made you fly or turn invisible — I mean the other kind. The ones people chase. Goals. Ambitions. Passions.
For me, there was only one thing I had: writing.
No, I wasn't some literary genius. I didn't have awards or thousands of readers. I didn't even finish college. I just… wrote. Every night. Every damn night after my shift at the internet café, while my hands were sore and my stomach was empty, I wrote.
Why?
Because it was the only thing that made me feel like I existed.
My name is Carl Michael. I'm from the Philippines.
And my story didn't begin in some fairytale. It started in a house where screams were louder than the TV. Where my father's fist did the talking, and my mother's tears were the reply. After they split, she left for overseas. Said she'd send money back. Said she'd come back someday.
She didn't.
I lived with my grandparents after that. If you think grandparents are always kind — sorry to break it to you — mine weren't. My grandfather was stricter than a prison warden, and my cousins treated me like the unwanted side character of the family. You know, the one who gets bullied so the story can move forward.
Yeah, that was me.
I barely ate. I rarely smiled. But I kept writing.
In secret, at first. Scribbling on torn notebooks under the covers with a flashlight. Then later, on a beat-up laptop I bought secondhand. It lagged every five minutes, but it worked. It was enough.
Eventually, I posted my story online — a fantasy novel.
It didn't get much traction. A few views here and there. One comment. Then two. Then…
Her.
Her name was Mila.
She emailed me one day: "Hi, I really love your novel. I think it's special."
That's all it took. One message. One person who believed in it — in me.
She was from Serbia. Half a world away. We started talking about the plot. Then about life. Then about... us.
I fell for her. Hard.
And for a while, it felt like everything would be okay. Like maybe my story didn't have to be a tragedy.
But real life doesn't follow the script.
We were too different. Too distant.
She was bright — always with friends, always doing something.
I was... broken. I clung to her too tightly. And when she couldn't carry the weight of my darkness, we broke apart.
That was a year ago.
And I still haven't moved on.
It happened on a normal night.
I was rereading my novel, the one I never got to finish properly. Just a few readers still visited the page now and then. I stared at the screen, wondering if I should delete it.
What's the point?
My chest felt tight. Empty. Like every part of me was hollowed out and I couldn't breathe.
I closed my eyes.
Then—
Darkness.
And when I opened them—
I was no longer Carl.
I was Mikhail.
End of Prologue.