From the moment I woke up in this world, I was already broken.
Shattered by a past life that left me drowning in shame. I was scared, terrified of anything remotely human, but even then somehow I still had hope.
Maybe, just maybe, this life would be different.
My last life was misery, plagued by a kind of luck so cursed it almost felt personal. I always ended up on the losing side, every single time. A crybaby, a pathetic stupid crybaby.
I tried to be different, tried to numb myself, even back when it all started with my stepmother. I really tried. I killed every ounce of emotion just so it wouldn't hurt, pretended nothing mattered, but in the end I'd always end up curled in the darkest corner of the room crying while everyone else slept.
Dad hated me, said I killed Mom, that my birth stole the love of his life.
Hypocritical bastard.
If he loved her so much, why cheat? Why bring another woman into the picture before the dust of that happy marriage even settled? He already had a kid with that other woman, a woman I grew to hate more than I hated him or even myself, and he didn't care that she mistreated me, and sometimes it even felt like he enjoyed it.
Fuck. I feel like crying again.
Stupid, this is so stupid. I should be a man, I shouldn't let it show. They say men who cry are weak, idiots, but still, every night I find myself staring into a mirror crying like a fool, crying like an idiot.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Why? Why am I so weak? Why do I care so much? Why does it feel like my emotions are stuck on full volume and never turn down?
I hate it, I hate the tears, I hate the weakness they make me feel, I hate how they shatter whatever little confidence I manage to scrape together each morning, but I still cry, I cry, I fucking cry, god I hate myself.
Then there was Emilia.
She wrecked me, poisoned my heart, and just thinking about her makes it hard to breathe.
Sigh.
Maybe Dad was right, maybe I really am a curse. It happened again, a new life and another death, and I was told the woman who gave birth to me in this world died doing so, and at this point I can't call it coincidence.
Sobs.
Crying again? What kind of pathetic mess am I, I can't even stop myself.
Sobs.
I'm not meant for this, I just want the pain to end, I just want to stop suffering.
Sobs.
It hurts, it really hurts, it's like I was made this emotional just to suffer more deeply.
But life wasn't completely black, there was still some grey. The pre-academy, friends, or people who seemed like friends, and I smiled a lot back then and felt something I never had in my past life, a semblance of a family that actually cared, not some deranged psycho pretending to love me.
Sigh. Fuck. Sobs. I hate her, I hate her so much.
Then came the Goddess.
She made it very clear that I had no future in this world, that the story had its canon and events would unfold no matter what I did, and that death was waiting for me. She offered me a way out, not peace but purpose, and if I followed her orders and did as she said I wouldn't die meaninglessly, and she promised me something I'd never had before, freedom.
That's when I realized I'd never been free, not as Noel, not as Azalea.
So I gambled it all and said yes, and like a fool I still saved those ungrateful bastards again and again.
Sobs.
I'm stupid, they called me stupid and they were right, because I knew, I knew I didn't belong here, I knew they'd hate me eventually, I saw it coming, I fucking knew.
Yet, yet, yet.
Sigh.
Reality's a bitch, I get it now Luke, I get it. Maybe deep down I hoped it wouldn't end this way, that they'd have my back, that they'd pull me back from the edge, that they'd be friends, but they didn't and they never did. I cared too much, that's the cruel truth, don't get too involved and I did, and it broke me.
Fucking stupid idiot.
I hope I die, I hope I don't make it, I hope I disappear, maybe if I vanish the pain will go with me.
"Ahhh..."
My mouth hangs open and saliva drips down my chin. I feel nothing, not even the pain, and I don't even know how long it's been anymore, ten days, twenty.
Sobs.
There it is again, the crying, but I don't feel anything so why the tears, is my subconscious crying for me now? Pathetic, even my subconscious is weak.
My memory's starting to fade, my mind slipping into static, and I'm breaking, finally.
Creak.
I hear the door and I don't look, no need to, she's here again, but I'm not afraid anymore because I guess fear only exists when pain does, and I'm numb now, beyond both.
"Azalea."
Her voice cuts through the silence and I close my eyes.
Go ahead, do it, get it over with you sadistic bitch. You'd better pray I die, because if I live and if I ever meet the devil I will sell my soul if it means killing you all.