After the overwhelming wave of confusion settled, Alex burst into laughter.
It wasn't the kind of laughter that brought light to a room. It wasn't the kind of laughter that warmed hearts or turned heads with curiosity. It was manic. Sharp. A raw, jagged sound that grated against the walls like fingernails on glass. Unsettling, unhinged, and full of something darker than madness—despair so deep it had looped around into hysterical amusement.
The servants inside the room—five of them, all stationed nearby for the young master's comfort—froze in place.
It started with a snicker, then escalated into a wild, guttural cackle. Alex's body quaked with it as he sat up in the large, luxurious bed adorned with dark blue velvet sheets embroidered with silver lining.
"The hell?" whispered Clara, a timid redheaded girl barely older than sixteen, whose job was to bring Alex his tea each morning.
The others didn't wait. As Alex's laughter intensified, they bolted for the door. Clara followed seconds later, the tray in her hands clattering to the floor, china cups shattering into shards.
Alex didn't care. He didn't even see them anymore.
He stood up, still laughing, like a man possessed.
"I couldn't even fucking die," he muttered under his breath, his voice cracking with disbelief.
Then louder—much louder: "I COULDN'T EVEN FUCKING DIE!"
He turned and grabbed the nearest thing his hands could find—a pillow—and hurled it across the room. It landed harmlessly with a thud, but it didn't matter. The act itself was a scream.
"They wouldn't even fucking let me die!" he roared.
Tears had begun to stream down his cheeks now, cutting wet trails through the grime of dried sweat and sorrow.
"I just wanted to die!" he sobbed, his voice catching at the edges. His knees trembled. His throat ached. His chest felt like it was being torn open.
He collapsed to the ground, folding in on himself, his breath coming in ragged bursts as his sobs shrank into small, broken gasps.
"I just wanted to die," he repeated, this time in a whisper. "Why wouldn't they let me die?"
His body went limp on the cold marble floor, arms spread out beside him like a rag doll, his cheek pressed against the ground. His shoulders trembled with every breath.
The universe had never once been kind to him. From the very beginning, he was a mistake—his father's failed attempt at pulling out, his mother's nine-month sentence, completed in silence and contempt.
They told him. Often. They reminded him again and again—through words, through looks, through the way they'd never call him 'son' unless it was laced with venom, through the way he was violated by his mother, through the way his father hit him.
Then he was sent to a juvenile correction center.. Supposedly a place of reform. In reality, it was a cage for broken boys, and Alex was shattered before he ever got there. All it did was grind his pieces smaller. He came out less than a ghost.
Then be was adopted. Adopted by people who treated him like a person. Who saw worth in him. Parents—real parents. The first hug that didn't make him flinch. The first birthday cake made just for him. The first time someone said, "I'm proud of you," and actually meant it.
And then, like all good things in his life, it ended.
A drunk driver, a rainy night, a missed call.
Gone.
The ones who gave him a second chance—gone, in the blink of an eye. Their deaths shattered whatever fragile mask of happiness he'd managed to put together.
After that, Alex stopped trying. He stopped being.
He was adopted again, but by monsters who somehow treated him worse than his parents. Beat him down worse than his father, and somehow made him feel lower than he already did.
He failed at school. Failed at sports. Failed at relationships. Even the novel he'd written, pouring all his pain into it, what was supposed to be an escape for his failure, became a failure as well.
So, he made a decision. If he couldn't win, he'd stop playing.
He'd take the pieces of pain he'd been given and shove them back into the faces that gave them to him. Before he died, he made sure that his foster parents died to. Even if they'd meet in hell, at least they'd suffer together. He wouldn't be alone in his pain.
And then he jumped.
Then, silence.
But it didn't end. Not for him.
Somewhere, some cruel being—God, fate, karma, or whatever—decided that even death was too good for Alex Walker.
"I just wanted to die, damnit!" he screamed again, slamming his legs against the frame of the bed, shattering it with a splintering crack that echoed like thunder through the ruined room. "ALL I WANTED WAS TO DIE!"
"Why wouldn't you let me die?!"
He thrashed. The mirror across the room exploded into glittering fragments. A carved wooden chair crashed against the wall and split into pieces. Vases—family heirlooms—shattered underfoot. Paintings, tapestries, curtains—they all fell under his rage.
Alex stood in the center of the destruction, panting, sweat dripping from his forehead, chest heaving.
His eyes fell on a shard of glass near his foot. Without hesitation, he bent down, picked it up, and drew the jagged edge across the inside of his forearm.
It burned. It always burned.
But pain… pain was familiar. Pain was his oldest friend.
His vision blurred as blood trickled from the open wound. He didn't react. Didn't cry out. Just watched, breath slow, body swaying.
---
Outside the room, multiple servants put their ears outside the door, listening to Alex's strange ramblings, flinching every few seconds when they heard the sound of something crashing on the floor.
"I think the young master has finally lost it". Clara said.
"I would lose it too if I proposed to the young Silverstone Queen and got rejected". Angela, the smallest of the maids said
"I heard she even insulted him in public". Allison said. She looked like the oldest. She was also the most lady-like among all of them.
"Things like that can do things to a man".
"It's not like he didn't deserve it though, he's an asshole. It's so pitiful that he's the mistress's son". Angels said with a shrug
"You guys, he's been quiet for quite a while now, do you think we should check on him?" Clara said, there was a bit of worry in her eyes. But she wasn't worried about Alex. She was worried about her job.
"He's probably fine... right?"
"Let's be safe".
With those words, the servants pushed open the door and the sight that greeted them almost made some of them pass out on the floor.
The room was completely destroyed and in the middle of it was Alex... collapsed in a pool of his blood.
"Welp, the mistress is definitely going to kill us now". Allison said while she facepalmed.