Arin's POV
He came back to himself slowly.
Not with a jolt. Not with panic.
Just… awareness seeping in, like water through cracks.
Jason sat on the floor of his house for a long time, staring at nothing in particular. The walls were familiar, too familiar. Peeling paint at the corners. A faint crack running down the plaster near the ceiling, something his father had once said he'd fix and never did. The house smelled the same, too: detergent, old furniture, and something faintly sour that never quite went away.
Eventually, he stood.
He didn't think about where he was going. His feet carried him on instinct, down the narrow hallway, past the living room where the television murmured, his parents and sister watching something without him, and straight into his room.
His room.
Small. Cramped. Forgotten.
He closed the door, then threw himself onto the bed. The mattress creaked beneath his weight. Springs groaned. He lay there staring at the ceiling, unmoving, eyes unfocused.
Minutes passed, maybe hours.
He did nothing.
And then, something felt wrong.
Not immediately. Not sharply. It crept in slowly, like rot spreading beneath skin.
His thoughts felt… thinner.
At first, he dismissed it. Fatigue, maybe. Shock. He'd been beaten, humiliated, dragged through memories he didn't want to remember. Of course, his head felt strange.
But then—
Solkara.
The name surfaced in his mind and slipped.
Like water through fingers.
His brow furrowed.
Sol… kara?
No. That wasn't right.
His chest tightened. He searched for faces. For places. For voices.
Raul.
Victor.
The Temple.
They were there, he knew they were, but when he tried to focus, they blurred, outlines smearing, details dissolving as though scrubbed away by an unseen hand.
"What's happening…?"
His heart began to pound.
This wasn't pain. This wasn't fear.
This was erasure.
"No. No, no, no—"
He panicked and shot upright.
This must be another trick of the trial.
The realization hit him hard, breath leaving his lungs. Not physical suffering. Not violence.
Oblivion.
"I mustn't forget," he muttered hoarsely. "I can't forget."
He scrambled off the bed and rushed to his study table. Books lay scattered across it, textbooks, notebooks, pages filled with messy handwriting. Pencils snapped in half. Pens dried out from disuse.
His hands shook as he rummaged through the mess.
Pen. I need a pen.
He found one at last, rolling beneath a stack of papers. Snatched it up. Grabbed a notebook.
He sat.
Opened it.
Raised the pen—
And froze.
"Huh…?"
His head tilted slightly.
"What was I going to write?"
The thought was gone.
Not fading.
Gone.
He stared at the blank page for a long time, pen hovering uselessly above it. His mind felt empty, smooth, like someone had wiped a board clean.
A faint sense of unease stirred, but even that lacked urgency.
"…If I can't remember," he muttered, voice dull, "then it probably wasn't important."
The pen slipped from his fingers.
He stood, slow and tired, and went to the bathroom.
The mirror reflected someone he barely cared about. Swollen eyes. Split lip. Blood dried dark along his cheek and chin. He turned on the shower and let cold water cascade over him, washing the blood away in pink rivulets.
He dressed in clean clothes, not because he cared, but because it was a habit.
Left the house without a word. No one noticed. No one asked where he was going.
He bought cheap fast food from a nearby stall. Greasy. Tasteless. Just filling enough to quiet the ache in his stomach. It was easier than facing the kitchen. Easier than facing them.
He ate alone on a cold bench beneath flickering streetlights, watching strangers pass by as if they belonged somewhere.
Then he went home.
Slept.
The morning came without asking him if he was ready.
Jason lay still for a while, staring at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of a house that no longer felt like one. Plates clinking. Footsteps passing his door without stopping. Voices that never said his name.
School.
Another day of being somewhere he wasn't wanted.
He dressed slowly. The uniform hung wrong on him now, tie crooked no matter how many times he adjusted it, shirt wrinkled beyond fixing, shoes splitting at the seams. He didn't bother looking in the mirror. He already knew what he'd see.
Outside, the world moved on without him.
At the school gates, laughter burst out in clusters. Groups formed and reformed, conversations overlapping, lives intersecting. Jason slipped through them like fog, head down, shoulders drawn inward, trying to take up as little space as possible.
Invisible. That was safer.
The classroom buzzed with noise, jokes, gossip, chairs scraping, but none of it touched him. He took his seat at the back and stared at the scarred surface of his desk. Old carvings. Names that still mattered to someone.
No one bothered him that day.
No insults. No kicks to the chair. No whispered slurs.
That should've been a relief.
Instead, it left him uneasy. As if the world had gone quiet just before something broke.
When the final bell rang, he stood automatically and headed for the door. That was when he noticed it, something pale sticking out of his locker.
A folded piece of paper.
His fingers hovered for a second, as if touching it might hurt. Then he pulled it free.
Hi Jason,
I have something to confess.
Come to the rooftop.
—Jenny
His breath caught.
His heart reacted before his mind could stop it, fluttering, racing, alive in a way it hadn't been in years. A tight, aching feeling bloomed in his chest, fragile and terrifying.
No.
Don't.
Don't do this to yourself.
But hope didn't listen. Hope never did.
Maybe it's okay for him to hope too.
Maybe things could change.
Maybe he wasn't as invisible as he thought.
He hated himself for thinking it.
And still, his feet carried him upward.
The rooftop was bathed in sunset, the sky painted gold and orange, wind brushing gently against his face. For a moment, it almost felt peaceful. Like a different world. One where things could go right.
Jenny stood near the railing.
Black hair catching the light. Golden-brown eyes warm in the glow. She looked… kind. Normal. Beautiful in a way that hurt to look at.
For a heartbeat, Jason forgot everything else.
"Jenny," he said quietly. "You… wanted to say something?"
She turned toward him. Her smile was shy, rehearsed. Her voice was soft enough to make his chest ache.
"Oh, Jason… the thing is, I've always li-liked you."
Something inside him surged.
Not joy, something rawer. Hungrier. Desperate.
Hope crashed into him like a flood breaking through a dam he'd spent years reinforcing. His hands trembled. His lips parted, trying to shape a smile he wasn't sure he was allowed to have.
Maybe—
Just maybe—
Laughter exploded.
Not one voice.
Many.
Sharp. Loud. Unrestrained.
Doors banged open. Footsteps echoed. Students poured out from stairwells and corners, faces he recognized instantly. Faces that watched him bleed. Faces that laughed when he fell.
And Jenny—
Jenny laughed too.
She doubled over, clutching her stomach, tears leaking from her eyes as if this were the funniest thing she'd ever seen.
"Hahahaha, look at his face!"
She straightened, wiping her cheeks, her expression twisting into open disgust.
"You really thought I'd fall for a disgusting pig like you?"
The words didn't just hurt.
They erased something.
Whatever fragile shape Jason still had inside himself collapsed all at once. Not shattered, collapsed. Like a structure hollowed out long ago, finally giving in under its own weight.
Hands shoved him.
"Look at him, can't even stand right."
Jason stumbled, missed his footing, and hit the ground hard. The impact drove the air from his lungs in a sharp, humiliating wheeze.
Then the world turned violent.
A boot slammed into his ribs.
"Oops. Did that hurt?"
Another kick followed, harder.
Someone laughed. "Careful, don't break the pig. We're just getting started."
Fingers tangled in his hair, yanking his head back. His neck screamed in protest as his face was forced upward, shoved into the open so they could see him.
"Say something," someone jeered. "C'mon, weren't you all gassed up a second ago?"
A slap crashed into his cheek. Fist into his stomach. Pain exploded everywhere, sharp, dull, burning, throbbing, layered so thick he couldn't tell where one ended and another began.
Laughter rained down on him.
"Man, his face is priceless."
"Did you really think she meant it?"
"Look at him shaking."
Cheering broke out as someone crouched beside him, the smell of smoke hitting his nose a second before pain flared white-hot along his arm.
A cigarette pressed into his skin.
He screamed.
"Whoa, he screams loud."
Another voice, closer. "Hey, open up."
Hands pried at his jaw. Fingers forced his mouth open.
"No—please—"
The cigarette was shoved onto his tongue.
Heat. Ash. Blood.
He gagged, thrashed, sobbed, his body jerking uselessly as hands pinned him down.
"Don't spit it out."
"Hold him still."
They laughed harder.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Until the sky above blurred into nothing, until pain and smoke and laughter became the only things that existed, until even his screaming started to sound distant, as it belonged to someone else.
When it ended, they left him there.
Jason didn't remember standing.
He remembered crawling.
The walk home passed in fragments, streetlights bleeding into each other, the taste of iron in his mouth, his body moving on instinct alone.
His sister saw him first.
She stopped mid-step, eyes flicking over him, blood, dirt, the way he held himself like something already broken. Her face twisted, not with concern, but irritation. She wrinkled her nose and made a gagging gesture.
"Disgusting."
The word followed him down the hall like a smell that wouldn't fade.
His mother looked up next.
Not in shock. Not in worry.
Just… assessment.
Her eyes were cold, distant, like she was staring at something already written off. Something inconvenient. Something worthless. She didn't raise her voice. Didn't need to.
"You look pathetic," she said flatly.
Then, without hesitation, without emotion,
"Why are you even alive? Go kill yourself."
The words didn't hit like a slap.
They sank in slowly. Heavy. Final.
Jason stood there, waiting, for anger, for pain, for something to rise and fight back.
Nothing did.
His father didn't even turn his head.
The television flickered blue and white across the room, canned laughter spilling out, hollow and wrong. His father clicked his tongue, eyes still glued to the screen.
"Tsk. Fucking failure."
That was it.
No explosion.
No scream.
No dramatic collapse.
Just a quiet, final sound, something deep inside him giving way.
Like the last thread snapping after being pulled for years.
Like a door closing without a slam.
Like falling into water so dark and still that even panic forgot how to surface.
Jason realized, distantly, that there was nothing left to hold on to.
No anger.
No hope.
No voice inside him saying stay.
Just something inside him slipping, quietly, completely, into oblivion.
Not silence.
Silence still meant there was something listening.
This was emptier than that.
A place where thoughts didn't echo, where emotions didn't reach, where even despair felt unnecessary. Where Jason, the name, the shape of him, the idea that he mattered at all, began to thin, like fog under a rising sun.
And in that oblivion, he understood—
not that he wanted to die,
but that he no longer knew how to exist.
There was no reason left to stay.
No reason left not to leave.
So he turned away.
He turned around and walked out.
No one stopped him.
Jason turned around and ran.
No one followed.
No one called his name.
No one cared enough to try.
He ran until his lungs burned raw, until each breath scraped his throat instead of filling it. Until his legs stopped feeling like his own and became something mechanical, something that only knew how to keep moving. Skin split. Blood soaked into his shoes, warm at first, then cooling, but even that sensation dulled and faded.
The city blurred past him. Lights smeared into long, colorless streaks. Sound flattened. Night swallowed the edges of everything.
He didn't slow down.
He didn't think about stopping.
Eventually, the road opened up.
The crosswalk.
He came to a halt there, standing perfectly still while the world continued around him. Cars passed. Signals changed. People crossed elsewhere, not looking at him.
Ten minutes passed.
Then twenty.
Then thirty.
Time thinned out, stretched, lost its shape.
The road lay ahead, dark and endless, asphalt drinking in the streetlight instead of reflecting it. Wind brushed against torn fabric and raw skin, but the cold barely registered. His chest rose and fell, slower now, quieter, like it was learning to do without him.
Then—
Light.
Headlights cut through the darkness.
A truck emerged, large and loud and certain, its engine roaring as it closed the distance. The sound vibrated through the ground, through his bones.
Jason smiled.
Not wide.
Not happy.
Just… tired.
It was the kind of smile someone wore when they stopped resisting. When there was nothing left to hold onto and no reason to pretend otherwise.
He stepped forward.
And then a voice spoke, somewhere behind his thoughts.
"You're stubborn," it said. Gentle. Almost approving.
"That's good."
The smile faltered.
Jason stopped.
That voice didn't belong here.
Or maybe it did, but not like this. Not now. It felt misplaced, like a memory stitched into the wrong moment.
The world tilted.
Darkness surged upward, swallowing the road, the lights, the sound of the engine. It wasn't violent. It didn't rush. It simply closed in, heavy and inevitable, like deep water pulling him under.
Voices followed.
Not shouting.
Repeating.
Failure.
You should've died.
Weakling.
Disgusting.
They layered over one another, dull and familiar, sinking into him instead of striking. Each word added weight, dragging him deeper, until movement felt unnecessary. Until even breathing felt optional.
There was no panic.
Just sinking.
The truck, the road, the city, all of it dissolved, leaving only pressure and dark, and the sense of himself thinning, loosening, coming apart.
He wasn't fighting anymore.
He was drowning.
Just as his eyes began to close,
Light touched them.
Not harsh. Not blinding.
Soft. Gentle. Warm.
Like a hand resting over his eyelids, refusing to let him disappear.
Something shifted.
The darkness hesitated, then fractured.
Memories rose all at once.
Not violently.
Not cruelly.
They came with a strange calm, fitting into place as if they had always been waiting. Like fog thinning under steady sunlight, not burned away, just… undone. The noise receded. Voices lost their edges, then their meaning. The weight pressing against his chest loosened, not suddenly, but enough for breath to come without effort.
The world stopped spinning.
He remembered.
Not the pain.
Not the laughter.
Not the words that had hollowed him out.
He remembered himself.
The quiet parts. The stubborn ones. The small, unremarkable moments that still belonged to him. The simple fact that he had existed, and that it had mattered, even if no one else had said so.
"Yes," he whispered.
The word didn't shake. It didn't break. For the first time, his voice felt like his own.
I remember now.
"Don't beg."
I'm not a loser.
"Don't bow."
I'm not a failure.
"Live."
I'm not a dead weight.
"How about I name you…"
I'm not weak.
"Arin, it means…."
I AM
"Mountain of Strength."
A MOUNTAIN OF STRENGTH.
The darkness shattered.
Light poured in, relentless and pure, washing away the echoes, the voices, the weight that had tried to drag him under. The road was there. The crosswalk. The night air hums softly.
The truck roared past, a rush of wind and noise, close enough to brush his clothes, but it didn't touch him.
Arin stood there.
Still. Upright.
Eyes clear, like a northern star burning through the darkness.
Then the world fractured.
Cracks split the air itself, light bleeding through them like veins. The street warped, folding inward, collapsing as glass pulled into a void.
And Arin was gone.