I was six years old.
A child who understood nothing of life except innocence, which never interceded for him.
I woke up that cold morning with a fragile hope hiding between the folds of darkness that enveloped my life.
My mornings were unlike those of other children.
I didn't carry a bright lunch box or a school bag filled with colorful notebooks.
I carried a burden heavier than the six years I had lived, a burden no child could imagine.
School was hell.
But compared to the hell of the palace I lived in, it seemed like a lost paradise. It was a luxurious palace teeming with glittering chandeliers and ornate walls, but at its core, it was more like a cold cemetery devoid of life.
There...
I lived as an outcast, as if I were an unforgivable disgrace. My siblings' rooms towered above the place where I was put, and I slept alone among cracked walls and dampness that crept across the floor.
Every morning,
I would wake to the sound of my mother's high heels as she tenderly woke my siblings. Her voice flowed like warm melodies above my head, but it never reached me. No one woke me except silence and the echo of footsteps.
Did you realize I was underground?
No, I wasn't buried yet. I lived in a basement, but I agree it's not much different from a grave. Its ceiling is low, and it's like a narrow cube, like a coffin.
Like Pandora's box.
"Come on, wake up, Leon... You have another day of torment waiting for you."
I would mutter these words to myself in a voice resembling a whisper, as if consoling myself in an endless exile. I wondered repeatedly, "Is this my eternal fate? To be the only prisoner in a palace teeming with life, but where life isn't for me?"
My five siblings lived a life that had no connection to mine. Their lives were a canvas of luxury and opulence.
Private school.
Expensive clothes.
And love flowing from my parents as if it were an inexhaustible river.
As for me... I was like a ghost trapped in this palace, present but invisible.
And if anyone could see me, I was insulted.
I went to a modest public school where misery and violence accompanied me in every corner, and where I was a constant target for bullying.
The children, who were supposed to be innocent, turned into monsters when they saw my face.
I remember that day well when one of my classmates grabbed me, that fat boy pulled me by my shirt with such force that it nearly tore, and said in a voice overflowing with anger,
"How dare you look at me?"
I hadn't done anything except be there. I did nothing but breathe in his presence, but he considered it reason enough to deserve a beating.
I returned home that day, my body full of bruises, but my soul was the greater wound, and my psyche took the lion's share of harm.
Justice.
This word was nothing but a beautiful lie sold in stories.
But I found no trace of it in my world. I saw justice as merely an illusion with which the strong protected their interests, while the weak like me weren't even allowed to dream of justice.
"I want to live just one day without being beaten, without being insulted."
I prayed for this small wish every night.
But that day never came. Each morning brought me a new version of pain and despair.
-
Heavy years passed in which I no longer felt alive.
I'm now 8 years old, but I feel I've had enough of this life.
The left side of my face bore a dark scar, the result of a chronic skin rash that never healed.
As for the right side of my face, despite its soundness, it didn't save me from the looks of disgust that haunted me wherever I went.
I was thin and fragile, with protruding bones covered only by some ordinary clothes of dull color.
Like a tree whose roots had died, but it still stood despite the strength of these winds.
One day,
I returned to the palace after a long day of insults. My siblings were celebrating their academic success as the results had been announced. They were all my age and in the same school. This is somewhat strange, but I really didn't bother to think about it. I was the youngest, but only by a few months, almost a year, yet I studied at the same level as them, which was elementary.
In the backyard, I saw them from afar, laughing and playing.
As if life belonged to them alone.
I approached with trembling steps, but I didn't need to get any closer to hear Arthur's words, who said in a sarcastic voice,
"Here comes the inheritance thief."
Then Yi Lian followed, laughing maliciously,
"Why don't you die? Won't you finally give us relief? Your existence in our lives is like a curse."
I stood there, hearing their words like arrows tearing me from within. I tried to hold back my tears, but the pain was too great to bear. I wondered in silence,
Why? Why me?
But my question hung in the air without an answer. I ended up withdrawing with a broken heart and visible humiliation from before them.
Night fell, and as usual, I left the basement to eavesdrop and peek into my siblings' world. I was behind one of the columns, watching my mother with her warm laugh surrounded by my five siblings.
I continued to look at them with tearful eyes, desperately wishing I could share even a little of those warm moments with them.
Yi Lian asked in an innocent, childlike tone, "Mom, how did you meet Dad?"
I found myself really paying attention, my curiosity no less than theirs. My mother continued to narrate the details of that meeting with passion and the same warm tone.
I found myself smiling automatically.
Until my mother took out a tablet and began showing them pictures, perhaps wedding photos. I couldn't see from this distance, but their smiles showed me everything.
Until she showed them something on the TV.
Histori?
My brother Histori was on that screen. It seemed to be a ceremony for him winning first place. The teacher asked him what he wanted to become in the future, and he answered with a beautiful smile
"I want to become like my father. That's what I was created for."
He seemed to say it with complete certainty. My mother smiled, and how happy she was to hear his words, and kissed his cheek while my siblings, especially Yi Lian
hugged him and laughed. I felt that Histori's laugh was pale, not giving that happy moment its full share of warmth. That made me wonder,
What's wrong with him?
If I were in his place, I would have been the happiest creature in that moment.
On Christmas Eve, which is one of the famous holidays that comes once a year, and while the palace was bustling with lights and laughter,
My mother held a huge party in the palace.
My father isn't the type who prefers noise, unlike my mother who was very flamboyant and loved to show off. The place was decorated with beautiful ornamental trees with star shapes and bright, glittering lights.
I was watching from behind one of the golden columns, seeing with my eyes, consumed by longing, my siblings playing with the other children. I really wanted to play with them, to feel that I existed, to feel that I was part of this family.
Or... a big dream ... I know.
I tried to sneak quietly back to my hiding place, but I bumped into a little girl, one of the family's guests. She was wearing a pristine white dress that resembled the clothes of angels in the stories I hear.
I sat on the ground and wrapped my arms to protect my face. It was an involuntary gesture because I was used to being beaten and treated harshly if I made a mistake. My arms move automatically like this.
That girl, who seemed to be about my age, spoke, trying to reassure me, but as soon as I moved my hand slightly away from my face,
She looked at my face... and suddenly screamed,
"Monster!"
I backed away a little and said in a cracked voice,
"A-am... I a monster?"
Her scream was enough to echo throughout the palace. My siblings came immediately. Arthur grabbed me and slapped me hard, then said in an angry voice,
"Don't scare our guests freak."
He didn't stop there; Yi Lian and Karma joined in the beating. I was trembling from pain, sitting on the ground like a broken doll, while the emotional pain overwhelmed me more than the physical pain. At that moment, I wished the ground would split open and swallow me.
Even that girl who had claimed to be afraid a moment ago joined them and slapped me while her facial features curved into a slight smile.
This is... humans are affected by their surroundings.
They become crueler when they see cruel scenes before their eyes.
The thing that hurt my heart more than anything was... I don't know who the real monster is.
While they continued to beat me, they suddenly stopped and began to retreat because I stopped resisting and lay down with my eyes closed, motionless.
Arthur said in a somewhat nervous voice, "What's wrong with him? Why isn't this pig moving?"
Yi Lian: "Let's go."
While some of them were afraid and some began to retreat until they all ran away and left me lying on the ground with bruises eaten into my skin.
After making sure they had all fled, afraid they had done something that harmed me beyond limit,
I rose heavily, staggering. My body was hurting in a crazy way. I can't believe children can be this strong when the devil becomes part of their personality.
Goodness is a relative term, but evil is sometimes an absolute term.
My thoughts were interrupted by a familiar cold voice: "Not bad."
I looked nervously over my shoulder when I saw a pair of red eyes staring at me. It was my brother Histori. This was the first time in my life he had spoken to me, which made my heart nearly drop.
He was standing in front of me with a dry expression devoid of emotions. I said in a shaky voice, "B-brother, w-what do you mean?"
"I mean it's a good idea that you pretended to lose consciousness."
He said these simple words and simply passed by me.
That night, I returned to the basement, dragging my feet with difficulty. I felt warmth in the place of each bruise, but after that, the pain became terribly burning.
I descended the stairs, slipped, and fell to the ground. It wasn't a hard fall, but it was enough to make me cry intensely. I remained lying in the same state for some time until I began to hear a sound.
A rustling sound like wood friction.
I rose heavily, trying to balance and lean on this cold wall, and began to move toward the source of the sound. I couldn't easily identify it because it came regularly after a period of silence that could last up to five minutes, but after that,
I confirmed that the source of the sound was behind one of the wooden boxes in this basement.
Is it another rat?
I began to move the boxes away, and I didn't expect what I found.
I saw in the corner of the place a scene that shook my heart: a small kitten trying to nurse from the corpse of its mother, who seemed to have died days ago. The smell was literally unbearable; the corpse had begun to decompose.
I felt a lump in my throat, as if I were looking at a reflection of my life. I carried the corpse and buried it in the garden under a tree,
Stealthily in the middle of the night while people were asleep, after wrapping it in a black plastic bag.
Then I returned to the basement. I looked at the small kitten; it was white with orange spots. It looked weak and very small, hadn't opened its eyes for a long time.
And I said to it in a trembling voice,
While holding it in my hands,
"You are alone... rejected... and treated like garbage. You are like me."
I hugged it tightly as if I had finally found a being like me, a being that understands the meaning of loneliness and rejection.
But deep down,
I knew that the kitten and I wouldn't survive long in this cruel world.
That night, I was lying on the cold floor, contemplating the cracks adorning the ceiling of the basement. I said to myself in a faint voice,
"Life doesn't want me alive... but death also refuses to receive me."
Those words were like a summary of my life. Everything around me pushed me toward fallin
But I was clinging to a thin thread of hope, afraid that darkness would completely swallow me.