‘Mostly Sunny’, was the name of that darned book. It was a historical fantasy. A children’s book, or so it wants you to believe. With pretty pastel colors and funny drawings, the goofy expressions and dialogues of the characters. It spoke something similar to poems but mixed with metaphors and riddles. I remember liking it because it was complicated and you needed to think arduous of what it truly meant. It talked about a powerful man whose life was so miserable to the point where every single glimpse of happiness is taken from him. An epitome of misery. Everyone who met him fell into misfortune, his riches robbed, his glory demised and his lovers dead. And no matter where he tried to escape, the clown of misery follows him to torture the poor man. Cursed and wretched. Up to the end of the chapters, his heart was first to die before his body deteriorated into the sandy deserts and eaten by hungry birds.

He went through a lot of shit in his life but let us explore the most important misery of his life which is where my character comes into play. The happiest he had ever been.

The protagonist’s childhood friend, Lupa Bricallis.

He met her while visiting a temple with his father to inquire about his divine ability when he was young from a powerful priestess. Whilst sneeking out through the temple wall, he crashed landed unto the poor ragged wimp while she was out picking fruits to sell. The girl was born from a prostitute mother and a crippled father who was a retired soldier in a small village in the outskirts of the Kingdom of Ezdhilflare, the protagonist’s rival kingdom. She was his first mutual bond and probably could have been the female lead if only she had lived longer.

The two kids had the time of their lives that day,playing together in the hill at the back of the temple until sunset. The happiest he had truly ever been. When it was time for the protagonist to return home, they made a promise to each other, Lupa would wait for his next visit and he oath  he would come back for her. But roughly after their sweet little entourage, she was killed by her father when her mother left them for another man and soon after, their village burned down to the ground due to some unfortunate circumstances. During his exile, when he did came back for her, it was already too late. Her death turned to be the protagonist’s ample trauma that haunted him throughout his life as his biggest regret.

And yes, I am now this said ‘childhood friend’.

Through countless  months of tiresome nights, fever and hunger as a baby because of my neglectful  parents and the 7^th god’s ‘wonderful’ blessing of this frail body.I somehow managed to overcome such torture and live to be two years older. That scum was probably enjoying himself a box full of popcorn as he diligently observed my impending struggle for living. But no matter, because today is the day that I learned my first step. Because of how weak I am it took me a while to do so. No wonder why parents get so excited with their kid’s first step, because this shit is hard to do when your head is heavier than your legs.

Lupa --or rather, I, will be abused throughout my short life and it will be a lot harder for me to endure if I don’t figure out a way to heal this frail body for the mean time. I can’t speak yet and there’s no chance my parents would ever teach me.

As I grew up to be able to crawl and walk more, I began scavenging my own home for books to learn from. I once saw my mother read through some in her small collection of the bookshelf  during her spare time so she must have books that could help. However, when I did finally managed to reach the shelf I was greatly disappointed to see that all of her books were simply about the arts of sex. I slammed the last one close and feel myself enamoured by the thought of burning all of  it down to ashes.

‘They’re all useless!’

I threw them on the ground. What a damn waste of my energy.

But then later on, with nothing else to do at home. I found myself picking up one of these books and began scheming through it out of boredom and surprisingly enough, overtime, I’ve learned how to read  and write through it. Though, most of what I learned cannot be used in normal conversation but still, who knows, this might come handy in the future.

I’ve wasted writing 3,000 letters  from practice to improve my hand writing but it ‘ll just have to be enough for now as long as I’m able to read it. But luckily what my god doesn’t know is that I am the reincarnate that carries the story. My memories cannot be erased so what the 7^th god can only apply to me is that  my recall would be altered, meaning I would forget the arrangement of events in the story, not the story itself. My script memory in shambles.

With daily conversation, I learned through observing my neighbors and mimicking them. By the age of 3, I already knew how to read and write and could now walk outside on my own, however, I do get easily exhausted. This was also the beginning of my father ordering me around to do his errands. The man needs a stretcher to assist him walking on his one leg but he still could have found a job somewhere like as a market vendor or something for a living but instead he chose to just lay around all day and get drunk with his friends whenever they are off-duty.

“Lupa! Go buy me a bottle of rum”

I stared at the man with a poker face. Sigh. I get that he’s depressed at losing his position in the military but he doesn’t have to make it everyone’s problem.

“Rum, my boy, RUM. This one!”, he pointed at the empty bottle he was holding.

Another thing about him is that he seems to be having delusions about me being a boy even though my thick long hair reveals otherwise. As the village folks have said, I have my mother’s eyes and beauty with only my black hair as an inherited trait from my father. Since he’s the only man in this village with such colored hair it was evident that I am indeed his child. But since my mother is a whore, I simply do not care.

I hadn’t realized that I had been spacing out for too long until he threw an empty bottle of liquor at me, almost hitting me in the head but luckily it flew through and hit the wall behind me instead.

“Didn’t you hear me?! Get me my goddamn rum!”, he exclaimed even more.

Oh well. At least now, I have a chance to make out a map of the whole village and the stalls in the market.