No one existed there in that mental space; it was just him, completely alone with his thoughts and memories. The emptiness of the place felt heavy, like the silence itself had weight. He also didn't have his white hair in this vision of himself; this was exactly how he looked before getting the powers that changed everything about his life, back when he had below-average looks that never caught anyone's attention or made him stand out.
He entered the movie theater through the familiar doors, the same doors his daughter had walked through, and headed towards one of the screening rooms. His footsteps echoed in the empty hallway as he walked. He went on to sit back in a comfortable seat and prepared to watch his life flash before his eyes as if it were a movie or something playing out on the big screen in front of him.
"Your life is flashing before your eyes. Why is your mind playing things out like this?" A voice sounded from behind David just as the movie was starting to roll, the first images beginning to appear on the screen in front of him.
"Maybe I want the place I die to be the same place I wished I had died," David said lazily, his tone flat and resigned, carrying the weight of old pain. He didn't bother to turn around to look at the speaker behind him, keeping his eyes fixed forward on the screen.
[Money Tree99] Does anyone know who he is talking to?
[Sarah Rockcatcher] Most likely, his mind made someone up to ask questions to help him understand stuff.
[SuperSaiyan 69] That name is wild.
[Sarah Rockcatcher] Lol, my name doesn't become bad just because one girl didn't know how to catch a simple rock.
[Long Wang] Lol, these guys only showed themselves now. I bet they would disappear once David wins this battle. Watch as my man is about to get some anime power-up…
"You had scars in school?" The voice asked with genuine curiosity as the flashback was starting to play, the images moving backwards through time like someone rewinding a tape, stopping at key moments in David's life to linger on important scenes.
One thing became painfully clear as the scenes played out on the screen: David had deep claw marks carved into his face, terrible scars that looked as if someone had tried to remove his skin entirely, leaving permanent marks.
David ignored the voice completely, not giving any response, as the memory on screen stopped at the earliest point of his life that he could actually recall with any real clarity. That specific memory was of his mother looking at him in absolute horror, her face twisted in pain and fear, as she was burned alive in a car after a devastating car crash.
The flames had consumed the vehicle, an accident which had sent young David flying violently out of the window to relative safety while she remained trapped inside. It was a scene that had burned itself permanently into David's mind, searing into his memory like a brand.
A scene which overshadowed and dominated all other memories from around that point in time, making everything else from that period blur together. Because of the intense trauma of that moment, a major jump in the timeline happened on screen, the film skipping forward several years because his mind couldn't or wouldn't recall what came between.
The person behind David said nothing at this heavy revelation, the silence stretching out between them. They were clearly uncomfortable with the painful memory being displayed, not knowing what to say in the face of such tragedy. They quickly tried to change the subject to something else, to move past that agonizing moment and talk about literally anything else.
"That's your dad?" The voice behind David asked, looking at the new scene in the movie playing out on the screen. It showed a young kid who was clearly a younger version of David being hugged warmly and protectively by what seemed to be his father based on the significant age difference between them. But David shook his head slowly from side to side, correcting the mistaken assumption.
"My elder brother," David said lightly, his voice barely above a whisper, the words carrying a sadness. He closed his eyes tightly, trying desperately to shake the vivid memory of his mother's death from his mind, to push it away.
He didn't even remember her face clearly anymore, couldn't recall her voice or her laugh or anything else about her personality, but the scream she made, the exact way she looked at him in those final moments, as if hoping and praying that he could somehow save her from the flames, had haunted him for years and years, following him into his dreams.
"Never knew you had a brother. What was he like?" The voice asked seriously, genuine curiosity in the tone, wanting to understand this part of David's past.
But David didn't answer with words as he let the movie playing on the screen talk for itself, show rather than tell… and what it showed was that his brother was his hero in every sense of the word. David saw his brother as a father figure, looked up to him and depended on him, while his own biological father kept all his time and attention focused at work, rarely home.
The screen showed moments that David held close to his heart, memories he treasured. Even after such a long time had passed, he was still able to recall with perfect clarity how his elder brother tried his absolute best to be the father that David himself never really had.
His brother was there for every significant moment of David's life, never missing a birthday or important event… but things went south dramatically when David's father suddenly lost his job without warning.
David's father was a man who wasn't a good father to begin with, who had deliberately put his full focus into working long hours to avoid facing the painful reality that his wife had passed away so suddenly. David's mother's sudden and completely out-of-the-blue death had destroyed him emotionally, leaving him lost and broken.
Work was his only escape from the grief, his way of not thinking about it, and without it and having to actually be present with the family he had created… well, things got bad for David very quickly. His father became an alcoholic and an abusive man, drowning his pain in bottles.
It started the day his father heard David call his elder brother, who was just 15 years old at the time, "dad" instead of calling him by name… and it broke something fundamental inside his father.
Something snapped in that moment. But as his father began to abuse his children physically and emotionally, taking out his pain on them, David's elder brother stepped up once again like he always did, always using himself as a shield to protect David from the worst of it.
"That's why you want to protect kids so much," The voice behind David sounded soft and understanding, finally grasping the connection.
"This was the last time I saw my brother," David said softly, his voice heavy with old grief as he watched the scene unfold. On screen, his father punched the younger version of himself hard, the blow connecting with the small child's face.
The impact caused Kid David to fall hard to the ground, instinctively rolling into a defensive ball to protect himself. His elder brother, who was standing nearby and older but still just a teenager, instantly rushed forward without hesitation and began to fist fight his father, putting himself between the abuser and the victim.
The two traded a few hard blows back and forth, fists flying in the small room. The violence was raw and desperate. Before long, his father stepped away from the fight, breathing hard and glaring at his elder brother with rage in his eyes before turning and walking off.
This allowed David's elder brother to immediately check on David, who had a developing black eye and was trying his very best to look strong despite the pain and fear.
David's elder brother went on to help him carefully care for his injury, being gentle as he cleaned the wound and got ice. Then he said something David couldn't quite hear before running out of the house to do something urgent… but that moment was the last time David ever saw him. His brother never came back home.
His father told him coldly that his brother had run away, just left without saying goodbye, and David, feeling unwanted and abandoned, was left feeling deep down that he had done something wrong to drive him away. So naturally, in his child's mind, he concluded that his elder brother must have gotten tired of taking care of him and protecting him, so he left.
So, for the next several years of his life, David grew up in a home with just a father who, shockingly, began changing for the better slowly. It was a gradual transformation that took time.
But David was genuinely happy that things were finally turning around in his life, that maybe he could have a normal family. Although deep down, he was constantly scared and anxious that his father would suddenly up and disappear one day, just like his brother had, leaving him completely alone.
(A/N: Well, you got it, MC confience problem is rooted in his past. By the way, although MC has forgotten, he is the reason behind his mother's death. Something only he knew, but with him forgetting, no one knows, although in the back of his head, while growing up, that fact remained, which played more roles in why he thinks so poorly of himself.)