Strength.
What's more needed in life than that?
The strength to defend yourself from predators. To hunt your prey and devour them to sustain your hunger.
The strength to persevere physically and mentally during times of crisis. The strength to maintain self-control in high-emotional states.
Life revolves around strength. Without it, you're nothing. Nothing but a plaything for the world to make its bitch, and have fun with before it spits your dead carcass out onto the street.
Just like my mother's, right in front of me.
She wasn't a good one, but she tried. Sometimes she didn't even do that, but you have to put up with what you have.
And she was all that I had.
Her blood hadn't stopped spilling from her cracked skull, the cold pavement soaking it up like a man dying of thirst in the Saharan desert.
My fingers dug deeper into the palm of my hands, something wet slipping from in-between them and dripping onto the ground below. My blood.
The loan sharks made me watch as the life slowly left her eyes, incoherent groaning quietly escaping her now toothless mouth. Gone was the cynical, pretty-faced woman who could seemingly survive in any threatening environment. Now, she was just a dying piece of flesh spending her last moments on the cold floor.
The giant, muscular man with a beer belly who stomped in her skull with his steel-toed boot savored another glance at her, before turning to me with a leering grin on his face.
"Take a real good look kid, make sure to imprint it deep inside that shitty little brain of yours."
He walked up to me, his giant stature towering over my small, frail body. He grabbed me by the back of my head before kneeling to get closer to my level. Even on one knee, he was still two heads taller. His hot breath brushed against the side of my face as he spoke mockingly in my ear.
"Ingrain what's left of this bitch in your skull, and remember what happens when you don't keep your promises."
Promises?
I felt hot. My heart was thumping so hard, I could feel it pounding inside of my head. I couldn't think, the only thing I could do was feel. And all I felt, was hatred and rage.
I clenched my teeth as I kept a straight face, my eyes wide open and my body shaking. He thought I was shaking because of fear, that I was in shock due to the traumatic experience.
He thought I was broken, that I would have PTSD from this and would live in fear for the rest of my life of ever meeting him, or anyone like him again.
He didn't understand.
If he truly understood, he would kill me.
He would make sure that I never lived after today, never grew up, and never had the opportunity to even try to encounter him again.
He said something about keeping promises? No.
She didn't die because of lying, and not keeping a promise.
She died because she was weak.
And I will never be like her. I will be the strongest, so that I'll never end up like her. I'll become strong, so that there will be no predator in this life of mine but myself.
And when I do, I'll hunt every single one of them down, tearing them limb from limb as they die, screaming and crying in agony.
.
.
.
The police arrived half an hour after they left me there.
They sent me to a hospital and questioned me after, but I didn't say a word to anyone. I could see it in their eyes, their shrewdness and corruption. They were just the cleanup crew on their payroll, disguised as the enforcers of the law in this area.
I wouldn't say a word that'll reach their ears. I'll let them keep thinking their flawed view of me until I'm strong enough to tear their throats open.
They kept me in a government funded foster care facility, filled with other kids with nowhere else to go. I stayed there for a while, days and months passing by before one day, Martha, one of the caregivers in this place, grabbed my hand and started walking me down the hall.
"You're getting out of this place, Romeo. A distant family member of yours. They said they've been searching for you for 5 years."
I didn't know I had anything like that left in the world, even if only by blood. Before I knew it, we had already entered the headmistress's office, where Headmistress Karla and a middle-aged Asian man in a suit and a white, clean-cut beard looked towards me.
It seemed they finished the paperwork and whatever discussion they had before we arrived, because the man only said a few more words before standing from his seat.
"I'm Charles, your Uncle."
The man didn't say any words of compassion, or look at me with any pity. His eyes, when I looked into them, only spoke of someone who came here with a purpose, an objective, rather than any lingering feelings.
"I'm here to take you home."
When he told me that, I didn't expect 'home' to be in South Korea.
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Author's Note:
This is most likely the only Author's Note I'll be doing, unless it's actually important.
The standard release schedule is once every one to two days.
I have early access chapters on my Patreon, and the release schedule there is also faster: patreon.com/TheBeholder
I don't use AI, this isn't a translation — everything I write is from my own two hands, on my own keyboard, from my own head. As mentioned in the synopsis, this is an AU, or Alternate Universe. Meaning, Canon isn't 100% accurate. There will be changes, and characters from other series will be made weaker/stronger in order for different series' power levels to merge well.
I have no plans on adding romance to the story as of right now, that may or may not change in the future.
Lastly — thank you for reading, and I hope to see you in the next chapter.