(Author's note: "Hi everyone, just stopping by to let you know that my language is not English, so it's translated by AI. Also, enjoy your reading!).

Lian Rid's life, as pessimists would say, was a complete disgrace. There was no shortage of pain and misery in his existence.

His father, a forty-year-old police officer, was nothing more than a drunken human wreck whose only talent lay in sinking into the couch, watching dull shows, and laughing senselessly at stupid programs.

That repugnant man lived off government support and his wife, wasting most of his funds on casino games.

To Lian, his father was little more than a decomposing corpse, sunk into that filthy couch, exuding an unbearable stench.

His father suffered from Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED), and when rage overtook him, he didn't hesitate to unleash his fury on Lian.

The insults were cruel and relentless: "You're useless, nothing you do is right, you curse! You're a plague on this family, boy!" These were the most common phrases Lian heard.

In addition to verbal abuse, his father also resorted to physical violence, leaving visible marks all over Lian's body.

Yet, despite everything, it was the emotional scars that gnawed at his soul. He lived in constant fear, never knowing when he would become the target of his father's wrath.

Lian's mother was a promiscuous woman, known in the lowest circles as the "golden lady," translating into layman's terms—a whore.

Surprisingly, his father never suspected it. She often said, "I'm going out with my friends, Osvald, take care of the kids." And the idiot fell for it every single time, unable to see the truth behind his wife's facade.

Lian also had a sister named Bia. But she had terminal cancer. To Lian, Bia was much more than just a sister. She was his confidant, his best friend, and the only source of comfort and support amidst the chaos of his family.

The Rids lived in a small isolated village, located in the outskirts of a remote, forgotten area where civilization seemed to have been lost ages ago.

It was a community where normality was just a distant mirage, contrasting with the bizarre and eccentric neighbors that lived nearby.

Mr. Stela, the neighbor to the right, was an elderly lady with gray hair who hid a dark secret: she was a trafficker of high-quality drugs. Yes, you read that right—hard drugs.

Whenever Lian returned from college, his ears were greeted by Dona Stela's shrill screams echoing from within her humble home: "Want some green, young man?!" It was as if the old lady enjoyed revealing her illicit business in an entirely unsubtle manner.

And the always polite Lian, even in jest, would respond with a sarcastic smile: "Only when I go sightseeing in hell, Mr. Stela." It was a wordplay that denoted the strange relationship between neighbors in this bizarre and disturbing setting.

The neighbor to the left, Dona Raley, was an even more peculiar and dangerous figure. She was involved in the shadowy world of arms smuggling, running an illegal market that fueled violence and crime.

Meanwhile, her husband, Tom, made dirty money selling exotic animals illegally, feeding a clandestine trade of protected species and defying all existing laws.

The Rids, as dysfunctional as they were, seemed mere amateurs compared to the dark and dangerous exclusivity of their neighbors. It was as if normality had no place in that small remote town, and the Rids were surrounded by a parallel world of criminal activities.

The surrealism reached its peak when even the law enforcement officers, the police, visited Dona Stela's house to enjoy her marijuana offers. It was a disturbing irony where the system used itself to feed its vices and escape reality.

Those who should uphold the law and protect the community gave in to transgression and illicit pleasure, creating a web of corruption and hypocrisy.

Lian was never a popular boy in school, constantly suffering merciless bullying for being considered a weird nerd. "Four eyes, toucan nose, and filthy nerd" were just some of the cruel insults he regularly received.

The school officials, negligent and full of indifference, seemed to turn a blind eye to his pain, making no effort to intervene.

"Screw the rules, screw the system," became Lian's motto amidst all the misery he faced day after day.

It was with this determination that he beat up a boy who bullied him, Jones was his name. A skinny boy, thin as a stick. But Lian wasn't far from that body type.

What followed after this confrontation was a true horror show, carried out by Jones' gang. They grabbed Lian and inflicted the worst beating he had ever suffered in his life.

"Come on, sissy, get up and fight!" said one of the muscular boys after punching Lian in the stomach, leaving him breathless and lying on the damp alley floor.

With anger pulsing through his veins, Lian found the strength to get up, though staggering. His bloodied face and eyes full of fury, he managed to say with difficulty: "I'll kill you, all of you! You bastards!"

But Lian's brave words were like a solitary scream in the abyss, lost in the void. What followed was an onslaught of unrestrained violence. The seven brutes, fueled by pent-up anger and cruelty, struck blow after blow at Lian, like predators thirsty for the most vulnerable prey.

The beating that followed was ruthless. Every kick and punch delivered to Lian was like a destructive strike, a blow aimed at breaking his spirit and resistance.

The sound of his bones being crushed and his flesh being torn echoed through the alley, while Lian found himself helpless against his aggressors' fury.

Darkness engulfed him, the excruciating pain mingled with the metallic taste of blood flooding his mouth. He struggled to breathe, feeling as if the air was being torn from him with every hit.

His eyes filled with tears of anguish and helplessness as his agonizing body writhed on the dirty, cold ground.

Fate finally seemed to have some pity on Lian when a school security guard, drawn by the sounds of the fight, intervened.

The brutes, fearful of the consequences, quickly stepped away like hyenas scared off by a lion's roar.

Lian, almost lifeless, lay motionless on the ground, his body marked by bruises and open wounds.

Every part of his being screamed for relief, for a pause in that excruciating pain. The guard, dismayed by the scene unfolding before his eyes, called for help, and soon an ambulance was summoned.

It was in the threshold between consciousness and fading that Lian found himself on the brink of death. The violence he faced left deep scars, both physical and emotional. The dark and cruel alley became a witness to his suffering, his desperate fight to survive amidst chaos.

The truth was, Lian had no remarkable traits. His appearance was, at best, mediocre. He had no standout features to draw attention—not striking beauty nor a muscular physique. His face was just another ordinary face in the crowd, with no prominent or attractive qualities to make people take notice.

After finishing school and entering college to study physics, Lian learned the hard way that the saying "The worst she can say is no" could turn into a brutal reality.

He decided to confess his feelings to a freshman named Camila, the stunning girl who had made his heart race since the first day of class.

With courage swelling in his chest, he wrote her a sweet letter expressing his deepest emotions.

However, Camila's response couldn't have been further from a fairy tale romance. She returned the letter with an unpleasant surprise: a large, smelly dog turd. And to make matters worse, she had the audacity to declare, "That's what you are, you little turd!"

And that summed up Lian's life — a complete mess.

Although not a devoted Christian, Lian was forced to accompany his mother, Tâmia, to church. She sought redemption for her sins of betrayal and adultery, but the next day, she would be sleeping with anyone willing to pay her a generous amount of money.

Her ideology boiled down to asking for forgiveness whenever she sinned, believing it would allow her to escape the consequences.

It was an irony, to say the least, to see Tâmia seeking salvation in a sacred place only to return to her sinful habits so quickly.

Despite smiling at everyone around him, Lian carried a profound emptiness inside. The world around him seemed devoid of colors-a chaotic and desolate reality.

But the day came when cancer took his sister, Bia. His mental state was, at best, lamentable.

After Bia's death, he found a way to escape reality by dedicating himself daily to taking care of Mrs. Vani in a nursing home.

Vani was much more than just a caretaker to Lian; she was a motherly figure who filled the void left by the absence of affection in his own family.

From his childhood until he turned 18, she cared for him, providing love, stability, and a sense of belonging. Amid the darkness and chaos of his life, Vani was a ray of light-a comforting and affectionate presence.

However, treacherous life didn't spare Vani for long. She suffered a tragic heart attack on what was supposed to be a day of celebration -Lian's surprise birthday party. The pain of the loss was overwhelming, leaving him in a state of shock and despair.

The person who had been his motherly figure and source of unconditional love was suddenly ripped away from his life, leaving an insurmountable void. That was the breaking point for his sanity.

In summary: Lian's life was a complete disaster -a true hell on Earth. But something was about to happen, bringing a radical change to his life.

In a dark and gloomy alley, Lian found himself confronted by a mugger, armed to the teeth and eager to steal everything he had. The gun was pointed directly at his head, and the mugger's voice echoed menacingly: "Come on, you bastard, hand over everything!"

Faced with this desperate situation, something inside Lian snapped. He had nothing left to lose; his life was already an abyss of extreme emptiness. Then, in a desperate impulse, he responded with cold determination: "Shoot. Go ahead and kill me."

There was no fear in his words, only resignation and a desire to end the torment of his existence. He saw himself as a lost shadow, without purpose or hope. His wish was to be freed from this constant suffering, even if it meant dying at the hands of a criminal.

Life had treated him with disdain and cruelty, pushing him to the bottom of the pit. Darkness had become his constant companion, and he was willing to embrace it once and for all. After all, if there was nothing but emptiness, why continue living?

Then, a deafening sound echoed through the alley. "Bang! Bang!" Two precise shots pierced the air, hitting Lian's head dead-on.

The life he knew ended there, in a bloody and cruel instant. His existence, marked by disillusionment, violence, and unbearable emptiness, met a tragic conclusion.

As his lifeless body lay on the filthy alley floor, the desperate voices of passersby blended into a frenzy of panic. "Holy shit, someone shot him! Somebody help!" someone exclaimed, desperate for assistance. But for Lian, there was no more help-no more hope.

Darkness quickly enveloped him, like a shroud that silenced his pain and erased his presence from the world. He became just another sad tale of violence and despair, a forgotten face in the sea of horrors of the city.

As the cruel life of Lian Rid came to its premature and tragic end, plunging him into an eternity of darkness and silence, something indefinable within him hinted that something was coming. Although his earthly existence had been marked by suffering and disillusionment, a spark of energy persisted in the core of his soul.