No family with a legacy. No bloodline tied to magic. No name that carried weight in any room I walked into. Just a skinny boy from a poor family who somehow found himself enrolled at the Scholars' University, surrounded by people who were born for this world and reminded me of that every single day.
I wasn't gifted. Everyone knew it. I knew it too.
But I worked. Harder than anyone. Harder than the ones who barely tried and still outscored me. Harder than the ones who laughed at my worn out shoes and secondhand books. I worked like effort alone could close the gap between me and everyone else.
It never did.
But I kept going anyway. Because the one thing I had, the one thing no one could take from me, was the refusal to stop.
That, and a friend.
Or at least, someone I believed was one.
And a girl.
Or at least, someone I believed was mine.
It started small.
A group project. Nothing unusual. I scanned the classroom, spotted a girl from my class nearby and took a step toward her.
"Hey, sorry to bother you. I was wondering if you wanted to—"
She turned.
And flinched.
Not just a flinch. Her whole body recoiled like I had reached out to grab her. Her eyes went wide, jaw tight, and she took a full step back before the words came out of her mouth like something sharp and practiced.
"Don't talk to me."
I blinked. "I just wanted to ask about the project—"
"Don't." Her voice cracked with something between fear and revulsion. "Don't come near me. Don't talk to me. Don't even look at me."
I stood there frozen.
And then I heard it.
The silence first. That specific kind of silence that only comes when a room full of people all stop at once and turn toward the same thing. Toward me.
Then the whispers. Low and fast, spreading from desk to desk like fire catching dry grass.
I didn't understand what was happening. None of it made sense. I hadn't done anything. I had only taken a step forward and said three words and suddenly the entire room was looking at me like I was something that had crawled in from outside.
A few students shifted their seats. Someone near the back muttered something I couldn't fully hear but caught enough of to feel it land in my chest like a stone.
A girl near the window wouldn't even look in my direction.
My face went pale. My hands, which had been relaxed a moment ago, were now stiff at my sides. My mouth was open slightly, not from words but from the absence of them. I had no idea what expression to make because I had never been here before. Not like this. Not with this many eyes and this much weight pressing in from every direction.
I looked around the room desperately, mouth open, silently calling out for someone, anyone, to step forward. But nothing came. No one moved. No one spoke up for me. And when my eyes finally found my friend across the room, I felt something in my chest loosen, just for a second, because at least there was one face I recognized.
Halbert Deox.
My best friend. The one who had been there since the beginning. The one I trusted more than anyone in this university. The one I would have taken a blow for without thinking twice.
He looked back at me with soft, sorry eyes. The kind of look that said I see you. I wish I could help.
I held onto that.
Then I saw her.
Dianne Del Valle.
She was standing just beside him, her fingers wrapped around his arm, her head leaning slightly against his shoulder. Comfortable. Easy. Like she had been standing there for a long time.
Like it was nothing.
Like I was nothing.
She didn't look at me. Not once. She just stood there beside the boy who was supposed to be my best friend, holding onto him the way she used to hold onto me, while the entire room continued to stare at me like I was something they had scraped off the bottom of their shoes.
I had no idea that behind those sorry eyes, Halbert was enjoying every single second of it.
I had no idea that Dianne was never really mine to begin with.
I didn't know it yet.
But every rumor. Every whispered lie. Every disgusted look thrown my way had been carefully placed there by the one person I never once thought to suspect.
I didn't know that my reputation had been gutted long before I noticed the bleeding.
I didn't know that the girl who recoiled from me had heard things about me. Things about money and women and a version of me that had never existed but had been described so convincingly that it might as well have.
I didn't know that the girl I loved had already chosen someone else. And that someone else had made sure of it.
I didn't know any of it.
I just stood there in the middle of the classroom, face pale, heart loud, watching the two people I trusted most in this world stand together like I had never existed.
Completely alone in a room full of people.
And Halbert Deox watched every second of it.
It got worse after that. Much worse. I remember stepping into the fluorescent haze of the classroom one morning to find my chair slick with an unknown, congealing smear—dark, glistening like spilled syrup—and the air carrying a faint ammonia tang that made my stomach lurch.
My backpack lay on the floor beside it, splattered with what looked like dried blood; jagged letters in a dripping crimson scrawl spelled out insults I couldn't ignore.
I had no choice but to sling it over my shoulder and walk the gauntlet down the hall, every head turning, laughter bubbling from corners, while the rest drifted by with glazed eyes, treating me like a stain on the lockers.
Nobody said anything. Nobody ever said anything. Then the attacks multiplied: clusters of silhouettes blocking my path in the corridors, the hiss of mocking whispers, the sudden shove that sent me stumbling into lockers, the quick jab that barely left a bruise but dragged bruises across my spirit every single day.
I became their punching bag, their five-minute diversion, a living joke between classes. I moved through crowds who never truly saw me—except in the fleeting moments they wanted me painfully aware of my low status.
I endured it, clinging to the belief I still had something—some promise of worth—left inside me. Until the day I heard them.
It began with her laugh, a crystalline sound I once thought belonged only to me. The door to my dorm room was ajar, a sliver of warm light leaking into the dim hallway. Something inside me screamed to turn and walk away. I didn't.
I knelt on the cold linoleum, back pressed to the wall, and listened. The bed frame creaked in a slow, rhythmic pulse. Her breath came ragged and uneven, moans slipping through the crack beneath the door, mingled with the sharp scent of her perfume and the musk of his skin. Then her voice, trembling and urgent: his name, repeated over and over, each syllable a dagger.
" I love you. I love you so much," she gasped, her voice breaking, baring a longing I had never been allowed.
Then softer, almost tender: "He never made me feel anything. Every day with him was empty. So pathetic." She laughed between breaths—light, unconcerned—as if I were nothing but a blurred shadow.
His voice came next: low, deliberate. "Forget him. He was always nothing. Now say my name again."
She did, urgent and unabashed. I remained pinned to that hallway, unable to turn away as every shard of hope I'd carried shattered.
Then I saw her: through the narrow gap, Dianne's head turned. Her eyes, sharp and knowing, found mine. In that second, everything froze. She recognized me, understood exactly what I was hearing—and she smiled. A slow, triumphant curve of her lips before she turned back, resuming the world I had been cruelly excluded from.
They emerged minutes later. Halbert first, towering over my kneeling form, the same easy grin I'd once trusted stretching across his face. "Oh," he said, tilting his head as though inspecting a smudge, " I never thought my ex-friend would be here." His laugh was sharp, genuine. "Sorry to bother you, ex-friend. Must be the wrong room." Another chuckle, like I was the punchline of a private joke.
Dianne slipped out behind him, smoothing a strand of hair from her forehead without once looking down. Hand in hand, they strolled away, their silhouettes swallowed by the corridor until I was left alone—a faded stain on the wall.
I stayed there long after they'd gone, head bowed, hands flat on the cool floor. The hallway fell into silence: fluorescent bulbs hummed overhead, the air thick with absence. Exhaustion wove through my limbs, a heaviness settled deep in my bones.
Morning returned on autopilot. The shoves in crowded hallways, the sudden eruptions of laughter, the circles of bullies who hunted me between classes—each day wore me thinner. Someone drenched my carefully inked notes with water, watching the letters bleed into indecipherable smears. Someone tripped me, vanishing before I could gather the shredded pages.
On the board, red marker spelled out every insult they could muster; the classroom hushed as I entered, only to erupt moments later.
I didn' t look up. I had nothing left to see.
I moved through each day like an empty vessel, a body animated by routine alone, the ache in my marrow replacing any sense of self.
That night, I returned to my room and closed the door. Darkness swallowed me; the faint hum of the air conditioner was the only sound. The walls felt close, the air chill against my skin. I stood by the bed and inhaled once, then exhaled—each breath a burden.
I lay down, eyes on the unseen ceiling, and whispered two things into the void: I am so tired. Please.
Then I closed my eyes.
And I did not open them again. Just silence, just dark, alone in a room haunted by every dream stolen and every moment I'd never been allowed.
I am Vaguar.
And that was how my life ended.
Quietly. Completely alone.
Like I had lived it.