Chapter 269: Nightmares [VII]

Michael’s favorite memory of his childhood would be his mother’s apple pie.

Without a shadow of a doubt, she used to make the best apple pies in the world.

His second-best memory would be sneaking away with his father at night to that 24/7 ice-cream parlour around the corner.

Okay, yes, all his best memories involved food with his parents.

He liked food. Especially sweets. Because of that, growing up, he was a chubby boy.

But those days of his mother baking pies in a sundress on lazy Sunday afternoons and nights of little escapades with his father had been the most joyous times in Michael’s life.

He didn’t care that the kids at school called him

"Marshmallow Michael."

He had a stable home, laughter, and hugs.

He had love. And that was all he needed, even if he didn’t know that at the time.

Of course, all that included his parents. He wouldn’t have had anything without them.

And he simply adored them.

His parents were Hunters.

But to Michael, they were larger than life. They were like his personal heroes.

He used to wait by the window for hours when they went on missions, convinced they’d march home like the champions in his storybooks.

Sometimes they’d return bruised, sometimes exhausted, but always smiling and always scooping him into their arms.

Their lives were both slow and exciting.

And Michael couldn’t have been happier.

Then one day, his parents promised him something simple, something he had been wanting for a long time — a trip to the movies.

But not just any movie. He wanted to watch the premiere about his favorite Awakened, the one whose trading cards he collected, the one whose posters covered his bedroom walls.

He’d been counting the days, buzzing with excitement, and even telling his friends at school.

...But on the day of the release, his parents were deployed on a mission by the Guild. A Death-Zone, they said. They had to go.

Michael didn’t understand.

He was still a boy. He didn’t know what a Death-Zone meant, or what kind of monsters lurked there.

All he knew was that his heroes had promised him something... and now they were breaking that promise.

He was angry.

So angry he couldn’t think straight.

He stomped his feet, threw things across his room, and screamed at them until his throat was raw.

"Why can’t you just stay for once? Why do you always have to leave? Don’t you love me more than your stupid job?" he cried out.

They tried to calm him. His father told him gently that they would make it up to him. His mother crouched down and tried to hug him.

But Michael shoved her away. "Don’t touch me! You don’t care! You never care!"

His parents exchanged a look that was somewhere between tired and guilty, but resolute. They couldn’t stay. They

had

to go.

...That’s when Michael screamed the words that would carve themselves into his soul forever.

The words he’d regret saying till the day he’d die.

"I hope you guys don’t ever come back!"

Not just once.

Not even twice.

No. He kept shouting it over and over again, until his chest hurt and tears blurred his vision.

His mother’s smile turned sad. She touched his cheek one last time. "Dear... you mustn’t say things like that."

But he wouldn’t stop. He was too angry, too hurt, and too young to understand. He kept shouting at them the same thing.

"I hope you guys don’t ever come back!"

And so... those words became the last thing he ever said to them.

Now, years later, Michael was seeing his younger self angrily cursing the people he loved more than anything in the world.

And all he could do was bury his face in his hands and weep uncontrollably.

Weep for the love he lost.

Weep for the words he could never take back.

Weep because he’d never gotten to tell his parents the one thing that mattered most.

"I love you."

No. Instead, he told them he wished they would never come back.

And they never did.

•••

Growing up, Kang was a scrawny kid with crippling anger issues.

When he was silent, he was invisible. When he spoke, he was annoying. When he lashed out, he was

the problem

.

Always the problem.

Always going on frequent, destructive outbursts no matter how much he tried to manage his temper.

Always ticking like a fuse no one wanted to be near.

The other kids teased him because it was easy. He was quick to snap, quick to fight, and quick to lose. It never stopped.

By the time he grew older, nothing had changed except for the fact that now he was a lot taller and much stronger.

But he was still the one always pushed aside, picked last, and just someone nobody wanted to deal with in general.

And then, one day, she appeared.

Alexia Von Zynx.

Duke Zynx’s blind daughter.

She was small and petite and always showing off that confident smile of hers like she was in on a joke no one else knew.

He barely remembered the details of the first time they met. Just that one afternoon, at the Zynx estate, a handful of children were poking fun at Kang to get a reaction out of him again.

And Alexia had stepped forward.

Without any hesitation, without any fear.

With that unshakable boldness in her voice as she told them to stop.

She didn’t have to. She didn’t owe him anything.

She was nobility, the girl whose family owned Kang’s.

And he was the child of a maid and a valet, he was nothing.

But she stood for him anyway.

And that was enough.

From that moment onward, Kang was... awe-struck.

He watched her from afar.

He admired the sound of her voice, the tilt of her head when she laughed, the way her smile looked like sunlight breaking through storm clouds.

He was sad when she cried herself to sleep in her bedroom that she wasn’t allowed to leave, he was proud whenever he’d help her run away from home, and he was ecstatic when she almost won that martial tournament and got the recognition she always craved.

She was the only person who had ever looked at him and not seen a nuisance.

So when she chose him to be her

Shadow

at fifteen, Kang was... happy. Happy in a way he didn’t know how to explain.

He had already been playing the role for quite some time, but now it was official.

It meant she trusted him.

It meant he mattered to her like she did to him.

It meant so much.

...And now, Kang was watching his whole life play out before him.

He saw his entire childhood laid bare before him, troubles and insecurities and all. He saw it like a movie, right up until the point he became Alexia’s

Shadow

.

Then he saw himself grow older. Older than he was currently.

He saw himself live the life he hadn’t yet lived.

He saw himself following Alexia like he had always done, keeping up pace until—

She was walking away.

Walking toward someone else.

Her smile was brighter than he had ever seen, her laughter lighter, and her whole being leaning toward someone who was

not

him.

Kang reached out in desperation.

He called out her name.

But she didn’t turn.

She didn’t even hear. Or maybe she did, and chose to ignore him.

Regardless, she just kept walking, leaving him where he had always been— behind.

The scream died in his throat.

And once again, Kang was left alone, abandoned even by the only person who ever showed him kindness.

•••

Lily saw her father’s study.

It was a spacious chamber lined with tall shelves that housed books on every subject imaginable — research, politics, war tactics, economy.

Yes, her father was a well-read man. He was intelligent and sharp-witted, shrewd even.

But, at least in his own eyes, he... wasn’t

enough

.

His feelings of inadequacy stemmed from an incident that had happened long before Lily was born.

Apparently, some nobleman had humiliated him in front of the media once.

It hadn’t been his fault — by all accounts, the noble had made a mistake, and to cover it up, he used Lily’s father as a scapegoat.

But the shame of that day didn’t just stay with him, it festered.

Her father couldn’t retaliate at the time because he didn’t have the standing to do so.

He wasn’t a noble himself.

So from that moment on, he dedicated himself to proving he was

enough

.

And, in many ways, he succeeded. He climbed up the social ladder and became a Councilman.

He became a gentry.

But the gentry were not the same as the nobles.

And in the West, becoming a noble was even harder than anywhere else in the world.

Because to ascend to that rank, you either had to be a blood descendant of a famous warrior or an influential religious figure...

Or you needed enough money to buy a title. And that was a lot of money — fortunes stacked like mountains.

Or you had to be recognized as a strong Awakened by the Monarchs themselves — though that type of recognition rarely came without sacrifice.

And then there was the option of simply marrying into nobility, of course. But nobles almost

never

lowered themselves to choose someone beneath their station.

So her father had chosen another path.

He poured all his ambitions into his children.

Because if even one of his children became a noble, he would as well.

So they were trained from a young age. They were made to work harder, study longer, and sit straighter.

Even the smallest mistake was punished sharply. Even a laugh at the wrong time was silenced with a disapproving look.

Childhood was a luxury they weren’t allowed.

Their home was less a household and more a prison. And her father was its warden.

But despite everything,

none

of his children were

enough

... much like him.

Two of Lily’s siblings couldn’t even Awaken their Origin Card. And in her father’s eyes, that was failure beyond redemption.

"Useless," he called them, his voice clipped and cold.

The rest of his children fared only slightly better.

None of them were good

enough

.

...None except Lily.

To everyone’s surprise — her family’s, the city of Luxara’s, and soon half of the Western Safe-Zone’s...

Lily Awakened with a potential ranked [

SSS

].

And her power... was foresight.

Foresight!

She was a Seer.

The West hadn’t seen a Seer with such high potential in

decades

.

Naturally, her father was overjoyed.

Because at last, he finally had a child who could carry the dream

he

failed to achieve.

Finally, he had a reason to believe he was

enough

.

Lily was that reason.

...And now, in his study, she watched her younger self walk in, carrying a paper filled with her progress.

There was a shy smile on that little girl’s face. "Look, Father, my vision has improved! I can even move around now while seeing ahead in time!"

Her father smiled... but not at her.

He smiled at the family crest pinned to Lily’s dress. A crest that, one day, would proclaim their nobility.

"You’re my ticket," he whispered.

Not daughter.

Not family.

He called her his

ticket

.

The little Lily’s smile faltered. She dropped her head and quietly exited the study.

But the Lily of today stood frozen, gritting her teeth, caught somewhere between rage and on the verge of breaking down.

"Why?! Why can’t you just look at me?!" she spat, her tone dripping with venom.

But her father didn’t react.

He simply went back to reading whatever book he was reading, as if she wasn’t there.

Of course he didn’t react.

This was only an illusion, after all — a memory that had already happened.

And yet, Lily couldn’t stop herself from screaming.

"Why can’t you just act like a father?! I’m your daughter! You own daughter! Why can’t you just love me instead of drowning me in your expectations?! Why am I not

enough

for you?!" Her voice cracked as tears streamed down her face. "Look at me! Just look! At! Me!"

But he never did.