Prologue

It was humiliating. My once prim and gelled hair was covered in various scraps of food. I reeked, and my eyes were watering. My arms were shaking, and I felt tears begin to climb out of my eyes, scratching my heart every time one dripped down my cheek. I was in the restrooms at my school, yet even behind a closed stall, they wouldn't stop bothering me. I knew they were gone, yet my body wouldn't move. Nobody was going to save me, nobody cared, nobody wanted to associate with me anymore. The once beautiful faces of the women around me warped into ugly monkeys that only knew how to suck up to others. My friends, who I once trusted with all my heart were only assholes now. I couldn't care anymore, nobody cared. Gripping the wheels of my wheelchair, I slowly made my way home, smelling of fish and pizza.

My clan's house was old, and the empty gazes of all my relatives reminded me of my situation. It was a painful memory: The incident where I lost everything that was improtant to me. It was a public bus, or some form of public transport, right before some holiday. The details were fuzzy, up until the point of disaster. I remembered grabbing a child, around 7 years old and covering him just as the bus flipped. I remember something stabbing against my back and the world spinning around me. The cuts and bruises the head of my clan used to inflict upon me were nothing compared to that pain. Shards of glass were shattered around me as I woke up, and luckily the child was still safe in my arms. I remember red lights flashing at the time, right before I blacked out once again.

It was a white hospital room, and everything seemed so surreal. My ability to speak was hindered somehow, perhaps it was shock, or maybe it was the damage to my head, but I lost the ability to speak coherently. It was a grim revelation to me, yet I still held on hope. That was when it struck me, when the nurse called out for the patients to walk down for a special holiday dinner, I left my bed. My feet touched the ground, yet on that snowy day, I felt nothing in my legs. No coldness, no floor, nothing was transmitted to me. I stood up as straight as I could, and took a step towards the doorway. However, my leg, seemingly with a mind of its own moved differently from how I thought it would, causing me to fall over. I hit the ground with a thud, and my head rung from the impact. The doctors rushed in after that, performing some surgeries or something, it was so blurry after my fall. My step-sister was there, she was the only one who visited me, yet after gazing at me a little, she left. It was painful, I couldn't express my pain, all I could do was let out a little groan. Her echoing footsteps were the last I heard from her. The doctors told me my nerves were damaged, after my spinal chord was severly damaged during the accident, most of my everyday actions would become monumental trials. I could no longer walk, I couldn't speak, and I would be strapped to a wheelchair, forever imprisoned on that apparatus, a cruel joke fate must have played on me.

It was the days after that, I slowly recovered in the hospital room. Nobody else had came to see me, my parents were dead, my cousins probably didn't care, yet none of these were that important to me, the most impacting absence was that of my friends. All of my classmates I had become close to didn't show up. It was as if they dissapeared from existence for those few days.

On the first day back at school, I couldn't talk, so I could only write down sentences to convey my feelings to my "friends". I asked them where they were, yet all of them came up with one excuse or another to avoid me. That was the start of it all. I couldn't talk, I couldn't fight back, I was practically a sitting duck. That was when the harrassment started. At first it was some boys I had picked a fight with before the incident, then it became some random classmates, and then it was my closest friends. They did everything they wanted to me, the slapped me, the threw me off my wheelchair, they poured food on me, and they pulled several disgusting pranks. I couldn't tell the faculty of the school, as they were choosing to ignore me of their own volition. The bullying then evolved, from something before or after school, into harassment in the middle of class. One of the teachers that didn't like me even chimed in. My life became a living hell after that. I couldn't focus on my studies, as all the neat and proper notes I painfully wrote down were stolen or ripped apart in front of my very eyes. Each time, those classmates would laugh and crack some jokes at me. I was screaming internally, yet silent outside. I hated them, but could do nothing about myself. I was wallowing in self pity, and despite my best efforts, my situation never improved. It seemed as if my life was spiraling into an eventual crash.

I soon came back to reality, as a deep baritone voice called out to me. "Young master daniel, the clan head wishes to discuss an important matter with you." It was the family butler, Eric. His words were grim, and I had a feeling that the patriarch was going to expell me from the clan some time. To him, I was wasting food, money, and I had even costed him a large medical bill. It was about time. Eric held onto the handles of my wheelchair, and began pushing me towards the main office behind the living room. Behind those mahogany doors, the tall, burly patriarch sat, organizing his papers.

"Leave this clan. We will have no association with you anymore. You shall take your mother's maiden name and lose the family name of Charlotte. You will be Daniel Pluie. Now leave at once. Never let me see you again."

Those words felt like an ice cold bucket was dumped on my head. I knew it was going to happen. Yet, I could do nothing about it. I was helpless, and I didn't know what to do. While pushing myself up a small beaten dirt path, I decided upon the best course of action. I was going to kill myself. I didn't want to suffer anymore, and I had no future prospects. I couldn't work, and I couldn't earn enough to feed myself in such a short time. Nothing was worth it anymore. I remembered this small path, where me and my step-sister played along together as children, we would run to the cliff and watch the sun set together. I felt no regret for my actions leading up to this time, however a tinge of sadness crept into my fingertips as I kept rolling myself towards the cliff. My hands were calloused and scratched from the wheelchair's wheels, and a light stinging sensation followed through my arms as I observed the beauty of the forest. I never appreciated something so close to me before, "a fitting place to die", I thought to myself. Around 10 minutes later, I arrived at the cliff's edge. I watched the small clearing me and my step-sister would lie on to see the beautiful horizon. It was time. The sun was about to set, and my shaking hands were pushing the chair and myself closer to the edge. I was about one foot away from the ledge, just as a clear voice called out to me.

"Look at how sad you are...you poor thing."

It was a pleasant voice, it had a comforting aspect to it and her gentle pitch warmed my heart. It was a familiar voice, something near and dear to my heart. The woman that was there, the momen before I was about to take my life, sounded almost Identical to my late mother.