The rain did not stop.
It pelted the cracked sidewalks of East Willow with relentless fury, turning the narrow streets into rivers of mud and regret.
Elian Carter trudged forward, his soaked backpack sagging heavily against his bruised back, the threads unraveling with each shivering step he took.
His home — if it could be called that — was a crumbling two-story house at the end of Fallow Lane, a forgotten piece of real estate swallowed by weeds and mildew.
The paint peeled off the walls like scabs, the roof sagged with missing tiles, and the wooden door hung from its hinges like a broken jaw.
He hesitated at the gate — a rusty frame with no actual gate left — feeling the familiar pit in his stomach widen.
Inside, there was no warmth.
Only emptiness.
The living room was dark and cold, with a stained couch slumped in the corner and a shattered TV that hadn't worked in years. The faded wallpaper curled off the walls like dying snakes.
The kitchen smelled of stale beer and sour milk.
And sitting in the kitchen, half-asleep at the battered table, was David Carter, Elian's father.
Once a tall and proud man, David was now a shadow of himself — slumped, graying, with a permanent five o'clock shadow and a cigarette smoldering between trembling fingers. He was forty-six, jobless, bitter, and addicted to gambling and cheap whiskey.
David barely lifted his bloodshot eyes as Elian entered.
"Took you long enough," he slurred. His voice was cracked and hoarse, like broken glass grinding together.
Elian wiped his wet hair away from his face and said nothing.
"You think school's gonna save you?" David sneered, coughing hard into his hand. "You think you're better than me?"
Elian dropped his bag quietly on the floor, ignoring the sting in his scraped knees.
He was used to this.
Used to the disdain.
Used to the way his father looked at him — like he was nothing but a burden, a reminder of a life gone wrong.
"Go get dinner ready," David barked, slamming his fist onto the table, making the empty beer cans rattle.
Elian didn't argue.
He limped to the kitchen counter, opened the bare pantry, and stared at the miserable selection: half a bag of rice, a single shriveled onion, a can of beans with a dent so deep it looked like it had been thrown at the wall.
It would have to be enough.
As he moved mechanically, washing the rice in a cracked bowl, he heard his father's muttering behind him — curses, slurs, half-formed accusations.
"You're worthless," David hissed. "Just like your mother."
The words sliced through Elian sharper than any blade.
His mother.
Marissa Carter, dead five years now.
Gone in a car crash that no one cared about.
Beautiful, warm-hearted, the only person who had ever told Elian he could be anything.
Now just a memory, blurred and fading like old photographs.
Elian bit his tongue until he tasted blood again.
He finished cooking, set the plate in front of his father without a word, then retreated to the corner of the living room where a thin mattress lay on the floor — his bed.
No pillow.
No blanket.
Just the mattress and a threadbare hoodie he used to cover himself at night.
As he sat down, he pulled out his one treasure — a small notebook, its pages filled with tiny, cramped handwriting.
Dreams.
Stories.
A world far from this one.
A world where he was seen.
Where he mattered.
The door suddenly banged open, and Elian flinched instinctively.
It was Mrs. Collins, the landlady — mid-fifties, round, wearing a raincoat that glistened with water and anger.
She stomped into the house, ignoring the puddles her boots made on the floor.
"David!" she snapped. "Three months' rent overdue! I want my money by Friday, or you're out! Both of you!"
David waved her off with a drunken grunt.
Mrs. Collins's eyes fell on Elian, who shrank back against the wall.
"And you!" she snarled. "Maybe if you weren't such a useless brat, you could get a job instead of wasting space!"
Elian said nothing.
He simply clutched his notebook tighter, feeling its worn edges dig into his palms.
Mrs. Collins stormed out, slamming the door so hard that a picture frame toppled from the shelf and shattered on the floor.
Silence settled over the broken house once more, heavy and suffocating.
David cursed under his breath, shoving the plate away, the rice scattering across the table.
Then he stumbled toward his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
Elian sat there, his stomach hollow, the smell of cheap cigarettes clinging to everything.
Outside, the rain continued to fall.
Inside, Elian turned to a blank page in his notebook and wrote, his hand trembling:
"One day, I will not just survive.
One day, I will be unstoppable.
One day... they will all know my name."
The words were sloppy, jagged, raw — but they were real.
More real than anything else in his life.
He closed the notebook carefully, tucked it under the mattress, and lay down, staring up at the cracked ceiling.
His clothes were still wet.
His knees throbbed.
His heart ached in ways no medicine could cure.
But he refused to cry.
Not here.
Not now.
Somewhere deep inside him, a tiny flame flickered — small, weak, but alive.
It was not hope.
Not yet.
It was anger.
It was pain.
It was the fierce, desperate desire to one day escape — to become something more, something unimaginable.
Sleep finally claimed him, not with peace, but with exhaustion.
And as Elian Carter drifted into unconsciousness, soaked in rain, blood, and humiliation, the universe around him shifted — imperceptibly, invisibly — as if destiny itself were watching and whispering:
"Not yet.
But soon."
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