The world faded to black after the blaring horn and screech of tires. I remembered the sting of my father's slap, the heated argument, running blindly into the street. Then...nothing.
Was this death?
I tried to kill myself before but never found the courage to swallow those pills, too scared of my father's haunting taunts even after death, branding me a coward, a failure.
But if this was the afterlife, it felt...different. As if I had been reborn into another's skin, another's life.
My eyes opened to a cracked ceiling as a old woman carried me from a window into the shadowed corner of the room.
The thick metallic stench of blood invaded my nostrils and I sneezed, earning a sour look from my captor.
Hey, it wasn't my fault I was born as an unwanted child with more trauma than I could handle. I already had enough of that in my previous life.
"Even as ugly as he is, no child deserves to lose their mother so young." Another woman said in the distance.
Quite frankly, she could go screw off too. How could she be so nice and rude at the same time? And what does being ugly have to do with losing a mother?
I couldn't see her face, but I could hear the sadness in her voice despite the harsh words she used.
Although I wasn't the actual baby and only inhabited the body of one, I felt pity for the poor thing. His mother seemed to be dead after giving birth to him.
Never experienced it for myself, but there was this boy named Brent in my high-school.
He lived three doors down from me, and he once told me his mother had died while giving birth to him.
Brent was only left with photos of her to mourn the loss of a parent he never knew, only to be blamed by his father for her death. Crazy thing was, I saw the serious mental issues it caused too.
"She knew what she was getting herself into. Told her 'bout running around with 'em. He was no good," the old woman tsked, gently rocking me. "All Mother's closin an eye on her, for she who strays from the path of righteousness, may not enter the gates of Everdawn."
"But...Lord Ryker..." she started to say, but the old woman holding me cut her off.
"Lord Ryker doesn't need to know," the old woman said and sat me on her lap as she lowered herself in a creaking chair.
I managed to turn my tiny head toward her face, taking in her smooth complexion and a strand of golden hair escaping her bonnet.
"May he have mercy on your soul, boy," she sighed."For the sins of the mother shouldn't be left for the child to pay."
That verse made me realize where I was. My father's game. He put his blood and sweat into the prototype, then launched it ten years after I was born. Millions of people played, paving way for it to be nominated for not only its character designs but action and deep storytelling.
I was in Darshkova.
Trying hard to dig up my fragmented memories, I vaguely recalled that in this game's lore, the Darshkovian people worshiped a powerful goddess called the All Mother as their supreme deity. Though the finer details about why they highly respected her or her origins were hazy; no doubt because of the trauma that caused me to mentally block out anything too closely connected to Dad.
"Then what do we do? They'll want to know what happened to Zora with no high priestess to take her place." The blonde woman whispered, gesturing her hand toward the only bed in the room.
Zora, the High Priest's daughter, lay ashen and still, her once vibrant eyes now sunken pits. The white birthing gown clung to her in shades of crimson, legs open in her final position.
"First, cover her. Don't leave Lord Ryker's daughter laid out so shamelessly." The old woman's tone was devoid of compassion. "As far as anyone is concerned, the Lady Zora and her...offspring...died during childbirth."
My insides recoiled at her callous words as the nursemaid draped a sheet over Zora's motionless form. A sickly feeling pierced me, watching them cloak the young mother, though I was relieved to have her haunting face veiled.
It's a good thing he was only a baby and wouldn't remember, though I'm sure the scars would still follow him—or I should say me since I'm him now.
"But...we can't just-" the nursemaid began, only to be swiftly silenced by the old woman's clicking tongue.
"We aren't in a position to question Sister Morrigan's commands," she hissed, thrusting me into the younger woman's arms. "She decreed the boy lives, until he's of age to sell to the highest bidder. You know how Lord Ryker woild kill 'em."
She gave me more warmth than the old woman, and she stared down at me with sorrowful eyes.
"Take him to the old cabin in Devil's Tooth," the old woman instructed. "Raise him there, out of sight. But don't get too attached. As soon as he turns fifteen, you'll hand him over to the slavers."
The nursemaid held me closer, her young face filled with a fresh wave of anguish as she silently acknowledged her orders. Carefully wrapping me in my swaddling blanket, she made sure it was secure around my head before stepping out into the cold night.
A carriage awaited us on the road ahead. My new guardian, filled with reluctance, climbed inside, holding me with a tenderness that differed from the harshness of her task.
As the carriage began its journey toward the distant, desolate mountains, I couldn't help but consider my uncertain future—to be hidden away in that harsh, lonely landscape for more than ten years. All for the purpose of being sold to the highest bidder one day, like unwanted cargo with no love or value for an ugly thing like us?
Terror gripped me at the thought of being trapped in someone else's cruel fate. But then a blinding light fragmented my vision. The nursemaid's face dissolved into brilliant whiteness.
An invisible force tugged at my soul, violently pulling me away like a fish on a line. I fought against it, thrashing, but it was no use. The light engulfed me fully.
"Zayn!" My mother's panicked voice cut through. Suddenly I was back on that street, my broken body lying motionless.
"We have a pulse! Stay back!" A paramedic shouted.
"That's my son!" My father's sceam stunned me. I had never heard such raw emotion from him before.
If only I could reach out, let them see I was still here, still alive. But I remained paralyzed, each ragged breath a battle. As much as my life sucked ass before, I didn't want this alternative Darshkova forced upon me.
The fleeting sensation of my father's hot tears on my face, my mother's hand clutching mine—that heart-wrenching moment ended as abruptly as the blinding light had taken me.
[ "As punishment for not selecting a username, we've randomized your race and class." ]
A crisp feminine voice echoed all around me as floating windows appeared.
[Status]
[Race: Human]
[Class: Thrall]
[Level: 1]
I snapped awake on a snowy field, clad in a thin white tunic offering little warmth. Other children around me shivered in matching rags.
"All you bastards, stand up straight!" A booming voice bellowed.
Barefoot, we scrambled into a rigid line on a raised wooden platform.
Heavy manacles bound our wrists and ankles, a cruel chain linking us all together like animals. Cheap goods for sale. Which, in this nightmare, we were.
The slaver, a hulking brute of a man, prowled before us with a pronounced limp. "Each of you has been assigned a number on those rags you're wearing," he snarled. "When I call it, you come forward. Understood?"
My gaze dropped to the faded digits scrawled across my shivering chest. As armored guards flanked the stairs with hands poised on their sword hilts, arrogance etched on their faces, I knew disobedience would be met with punishment.
This was really it. After over a decade imprisoned in that frozen, isolated hell, I was finally being sold, just as the nursemaid foretold. My second life stretched before me, more unforgiving than I could imagine.