**Chapter 1: Echoes of the Past**
Brenner Souka, at five years old, was a child who seemed to carry the weight of the world on his small, fragile shoulders. The environment around him, a house that had once been filled with laughter and love, had become a silent battlefield. The mourning for his mother's death had become a constant echo, reverberating off the walls of the modest residence in Zombo. With that, what should have been a home harbored a storm of pain and despair.
Joaquim Tavares, his father, had plunged into a spiral of sadness that had made him increasingly absent and bitter. The nights when he was not drunk were filled with the murmurs of a devastated man, and the words that left his lips were often sharp as knives. For Joaquim, Brenner was a constant reminder of his loss, and the accumulated anger was directed at his son, who only wanted love and protection.
Enzo, the older brother, was also struggling with his own demons. Like his father, he was unable to deal with the pain of loss. Instead of becoming allies, the brothers became rivals in a cruel game of emotional survival. Enzo, seeking to divert attention from his own insecurities, often became the perpetrator of the psychological wounds that Brenner carried. Enzo's words were poisonous, and the psychological abuse he inflicted on his younger brother left indelible marks on his young mind.
"You are nothing," Enzo would say, with a look that mixed contempt and sadness. "You are the reason for all of this. If it weren't for you, mother would be here." Each sentence was like a blow, and Brenner, still so young, tried to understand the reason for so much bitterness. He didn't understand that the responsibility for the family's pain was not his, but the mind of a wounded child is a complicated labyrinth, where guilt easily turns into a distorted reality.
In moments of solitude, Brenner sought solace in his imaginary world. He created invisible friends who protected him from the shadows that inhabited the house. But even in his fantasy, the echoes of reality haunted him. He saw his father's empty gaze, felt the coldness of Enzo's words, and the feeling of not belonging became increasingly intense. Brenner's mind, which should have been a space of innocence and joy, was becoming a battlefield, where memories of pain and abandonment fought against the few fragments of happiness he could still find.
At the age of five, Brenner Souka already knew the bitter taste of betrayal and sadness. He was a child who, in the midst of chaos, sought to understand what it meant to love and be loved, but found only disillusionment. What remained in his heart was a silent question: "Why me?"
And so, in Zombo, where shadows danced in the moonlight, Brenner's life unfolded between the horror of his reality and the fragments of a future he did not yet know would exist. The battle for his own identity had begun, but the scars of his abused childhood were only just beginning to form.