Dizzy. Pain. Always the pain.

  My veins, I can feel them. Enflamed, like they’re trying to tear themselves apart. God, I wish they would. It’s all that I deserve. I can’t see, my vision too blurry. I can’t hear, the pounding of my head too loud.

  It doesn’t help. It doesn’t stop them. The memories… oh the memories.

  Tears flow, the pain flares, but they don’t stop. I can’t stop them. I won’t stop them. Nothing will stop them.

  The day… the day it all died.

  ****

  I turned to my mother-

  A beam. A beam, a bright purple beam was going through her. In that moment, I couldn’t understand. I failed to realize I would never understand. I saw her, her face! Shock and pain and her eyes… I saw the light leave her eyes. One second, she was alive and the very next… it was like her soul drained out her body, leaving her eyes empty, blank, like a broken doll.

  Too much, I couldn’t understand, it was all too much and too fast. The screams and cries of the villagers, the hail of more beams out the corner of my eyes, the sight of them piercing others, the cries of “King Vega!”

  I didn’t think he was real. No, no, he must be fake. I always thought he was made up. A fairy tale, a nightmare made to scare small children.

  The man who survived a nuclear bomb without a scratch, Vega.

  The man who destroyed a mountain with his bare hands, Vega.

  The man who destroys entire cities and leaves remnants purely for fun, Vega.

  The King of the planet named after him:

  Vega.

  I raised my arm, the Vambrace still on it. Why did I raise it? Why? Then I would never have known…

  The Power Level…

  10…

  100…

  1000…2000…5000…

  9999…

  The Vambrace exploded and cracked, searing my arm. I cried out, the pain only adding to the rest of my turmoil.

  I was still staring in shock when I felt my bones break and the wind rush past me. I can remember it so clearly. I thought… I was under attack! Someone was attacking me!

  I turned, to try to do my best to fight back, to call for help, only to realize the village was getting further and further away at an incredible speed. And that’s why I saw it. The Explosion. The Bomb. A giant sphere of dark purple energy fell and when it hit-

  It was the wake up call, concussive clarity. It snapped all the pieces together and broke me to my core.

  My mother was dead. That was my first thought, before everything else. Before anything else. I saw her die. She was dead. My mother was dead.

  My father lay on top of me, back burnt pitch black. He’d tackled me and ran, so hard he’d broken my bones. So hard and in such a rush that we’d made it away from the explosion, if only barely. He’d saved me, he’d poured everything into saving me, by running as hard as he could.

  My village. My village! It was… gone. Gone. Nothing but a horrible crater was left.

  I stared, shock and terror curdling around my brain and heart like the world’s worst poison, stabbing me over and over again. Yes, maybe I really was in actual shock. How could everything go so wrong so fast? How could? How? How could? What? How could- how could- how could-

  My thoughts stuttered and stuttered, stuck, so horrifyingly stuck, playing it all out again and again. It was a moment of unrelenting torture. The fear only rampaging harder and harder, till it all broke in that one moment. That singular moment. That damn moment.

  Steps. I heard steps and turned, only to see Him.

  King Vega.

  I’d heard about him since I was young, I’d heard he was over a hundred years old, and yet he looked nothing like an old man.

  He looked… young. Arrogant, cocky. Black spiky hair, early to late twenties, malicious eyes, white skin. My mind grappled, trying to take him in and failing. He looked alien to me. So unlike all who I’d known all my life, but not like a monster, more like a bully.

  And yet he’d killed my family. My friends. Destroyed my home. And he was smiling, smirking, as he looked at the devastation. As if this was all just a game to him. A fun activity.

  “Why?” I had to know. I had to ask. My whole being radiated with the need, craving understanding. He turned to me then, and his smirk only grew bigger.

  “Oh? You lived huh? Lucky you I guess.”

  He held out a hand, palm forward, facing me. My eyes grew wide with terror. Somehow, somehow I hadn’t acknowledged that I was going to die. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. I hadn’t had time to think about it. I hadn’t had any damn time to think at all! And now, now-!

  A small sphere of bright purple energy manifested, building, pointed right at me.

  I swallowed and my pupils shook as I stared death in the face.

  It was all too much, all too much.

  All too fast.

  I was going to die.

  I should’ve died. It’s not fair. It’s not right. It should never have been…

  A body stood in front of me, blocking my sight.

  “F-Father?!”

  “You. Will not. Kill my son.”

  His back was burnt black, blood poured down from where he’d barely been clipped by the energy bomb. I could even see his spine. And yet he stood in front of me, arms held out, legs spread, breath heavy.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  In that moment, everything came into such sharp focus.

  I could feel the pain of my broken ribs, stabbing into my body. The heat in my breath as I hyperventilated and panicked. The cold and icy terror and horror stabbing into my mind like a hundred million sharp needles, making my body feel like frozen ice as it chipped away at my sanity. My shaky body as it still reverberated physically from being so close to an explosion, my failing vision and afterimages seared from the bright light into my cornea, the blunted sound of everything swimming through my blown out eardrums, the scent of ash already in the wind, blood in the air, death in the world.

  And then it all tripled and ratcheted up to a point of no return as the Devil, the Monster, spoke.

  “Two survivors? Well well well, would you look at that? Fair enough. Your son can live.”

  As if time had slowed, I saw my father’s head disappear, replaced with a beam.

  I failed you all.

  “NO!” My voice tore, the word ripping out of me like a maimed animal. The beam grew smaller and my father’s body fell, toppling lifelessly next to me.

  Before me still stood King Vega, hand still out, the smirk never having left his face.

  My father’s body lay at my feet, headless, blood pouring in torrents out of his neck.

  I tried.

  I attacked him. There was no thought, no conscious decision, only the rage. The feeling of loss. Dark, ugly things broke into my soul that day and would never again let me go. And they all demanded, they all screamed, they all howled and cried and bled and mourned and fought and stabbed and demanded only one thing of this world.

  HE HAS TO DIE!

  I failed. I could barely stand, my punch barely reached, and it did less than nothing. King Vega stared out from where my fist had slammed into his face, expression unchanged.

  “Impressive. I think the blood from your father’s ruined head hit me harder. That’s some incredible weakness. I didn’t know I was sparing an infant.” Voice unchanged, expression unchanged, raw amusement lifting the pure smugness in his tone.

  I screamed, the sound broken and wet and afraid and full of unending RAGE. I swung, again and again and again and-

  And… then it was over.

  I woke up.

  I had been knocked out without even realizing it. Had he punched me? Touched me? Even looked at me? Or had he just demanded I fall like a god and I had? I would never know.

  That was when the worst of the nightmare truly began. I was broken, my body ruined. People, strangers, were caring for me. They were on my island, they were bringing me away. I didn’t understand, I tried to fight back. To tear their hands off me, to get up and find King Vega and kill him.

  They held me down as easily as I might hold down a leaf.

  “Only one survivor this time?” One said. He wore white clothes, with a bored expression.

  “Yup.” Said the woman with her hand on my chest, popping the P. It was wrong, it was so wrong. They, who were they? Where was I? What was happening? Why were they so casual?! My village… mother… father…

  The man finally looked at me.

  “Congratulations.” He said, his voice monotone. “You’ve survived King Vega. As a reward for surviving his trial, you will be healed and dropped off into Vega City. You may seek revenge at your leisure. Per the King’s instructions, he heavily encourages you to try. If you die before being able to challenge him, then you clearly weren’t worthy of seeking revenge in the first place. After all…”

  “Only The Strongest Is Allowed To Face The King.” The man said. He said those words. He said them. But… but they were all wrong. Monotone, as if from a script. A script he’d read so many times before, as if…

  The woman laughed. She laughed. I’ll never forget that sound, so long as I live.

  A haunting sound entered my ears. Laughter. It was so wrong, it was all so wrong. Everything was so wrong. I puked. I leaned to the side and puked hard, gagging, crying, sobbing, still being held down.

  The world was broken and so was I.

  “Hey, sorry.” She said, staring down at me, a cruel smile on her lips. “For you, this is the worst day of your life. For us? Vega? It’s just another Tuesday.”

  ****

  I can feel the bottle, as it falls from my grip. The rain slamming down onto my form. After that… I was broken. So, so broken. I cried, I screamed, I tried to fight them. They didn’t care. Even if I was ten times stronger, they wouldn’t have cared. They held me down and put me back in the healing tank, drowning me in the fluid, till I could breathe it. My injuries healed, but not the ones that mattered. Never the ones that mattered.

  I was… I was part of a process. There were others like me. So, so many others. Shipped and dropped off into Vega City. A whole corporation… made just to transport the survivors of Vega. The Smile Company. I’d only learn later they’d mined my island and stripped it clean of everything that made it special. The special pond I liked so much, most likely destroyed to make bottled water. It was another death to add to the pile.

  For the first time in my life, I’d worked. I’d also stolen. I’d eaten. Maybe said hello. It’s all such a blur. But rage… it kept me going. I awoke with a dark fury every morning. Vengeance. I can remember it so clearly, how bright it felt every night I went to sleep, how it conquered the confusion, how it focused me, how it burnt out everything else. It took time, time to learn this bizarre alien place, time to adjust, time to heal enough to even attempt to seek revenge. A fog that lasted more than a year.

  But I came back. I swore revenge, I… I…

  I failed.

  I trained in the gyms, but my power level never went up.

  I scraped together all the money I had to pay for a master, but my power level never went up.

  I fought. I fought and lost, so much. And my power level never went up.

  I begged and begged and begged to be let into one of the dojos, to any of them, all of them, till one finally agreed. I practiced and learned and tried. I tried! I TRIED! I TRIED HARDER THAN ANYONE!

  And yet… and yet…

  [1].

  If I looked above me, if I focused… I could see it floating above me. My Vambrace was still broken, shattered, lost long ago, sold for barely enough to last another day. And yet… I could see it there, above my head if I focused. A number. But not just mine.

  [2]. A child

  [7]. A random woman.

  [10]. A muscular man.

  I could see the numbers… floating above them.

  A curse. King Vega had cursed me. Another insult to injury. Always able to see how strong others were. To see everyone’s power level without a Vambrace. To know my own precisely. I could see others increase in power. See the numbers change.

  And yet mine… mine had never changed.

  I gave up. How could I not? Every day… every day the same strength. Every day the same power level. Every day, every day, every day every day every day every day…

  No closer to revenge.

  What was there left to do but drink? Too cowardly to kill myself, too weak to do anything, too stupid to figure out what to do.

  Worthless.

  “Hey.”

  Worthless. I’m just so worthless. Why… why did I have to be born so weak…

  “Hey!”

  Worthless. If I’d only been stronger… mother… father… everyone… you’d all still be-

  “HEY STUPID!”

  “Huh?” I say intelligently, looking up.

  Oh. Just a gang.

  “Oi. Whatcha thinkin’ you’re’ doing out here ya homeless bum?”

  So many gangs, so many lusting for power. What a terrible place to make a home. All so… weird and bizarre.

  “Are you fucking deaf you dirty bastard?”

  “Look at his face. No way he’s local.”

  “Ha. You know, I heard King Vega blew up a bunch of islands a few years ago. Think he’s from there?”

  “Eh, he could be from anywhere. You know how it is.”

  Soft words yet they still break the skin. More painful than anything else. Had it been years already? I couldn’t remember.

  “Holy crap! Look at his Power Level!”

  “What?! It… oh. Don’t you be scaryin me like that Johhny! I thought we had a proper’ tiger on our hands and instead we got a… wait, how are you even alive?!”

  “Now that there is a freak of nature. Don’t see that every day. Think he’s dying?”

  Why were they even here, out in this dreadful rain? Why couldn’t they just…

  “Leave me alone.”

  “Ha! Nah, no way buddy. Actually… I’m feeling generous today.”

  Generous? Oh great, it’s time to get robbed again. Just my luck-

  “Come join the Kuma Gang.”

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