Prologue — In the Ashes of Ruin (Part 1)

For some people, life is a crooked sequence of small victories, ugly stumbles, and more-or-less fresh starts.

Lian Rid’s life had none of those good parts.

His life felt more like hell on earth than anything else — the kind where even the Devil would feel sorry for you.

The old clock in the living room read two in the morning. The hands moved, but time inside that house seemed stuck. The filthy curtains tried to hide the flickering streetlight outside and failed miserably. The TV spilled canned laughter from an unfunny show, way too loud for that cramped shack.

Lian’s father was slumped into the couch, half turned sideways, as if his body were already giving in to its own weight. A cheap bottle dangled from his hand. His belly pushed out from under a stretched shirt, his pants undone at the button. The sour stink of beer, cigarettes, and old sweat fouled everything. He laughed to himself, a ragged laugh that had nothing to do with joy.

— Lian! — his voice cut through the TV’s noise, rough, soaked in alcohol and built-up spite. — Bring more beer, for fuck’s sake!

Lian closed his eyes for a second. He was at the kitchen table, a physics notebook open, the same equation rewritten three times without going anywhere. The yellowish bulb flickered.

“It could just go out for good,” he thought. “Then no one would see when everything collapses.”

He got up without arguing. He’d known since he was little that arguing only made everything worse.

He opened the fridge — almost empty, as always — and grabbed the last can.

— Last one — he muttered, more to himself than to his father. — After this, there’s nothing left.

— The last thing is you, you blood-sucking pest — the man grumbled, yanking the can from Lian’s hand. — If your mother had listened to the doctor back then, you wouldn’t even have been born.

He said it with the same casualness someone uses to comment on the weather. It wasn’t new. Just another sentence that had long since turned into an echo in Lian’s head.

“You’re useless.”
“You ruined our lives.”
“You’re a curse.”

At first, it hurt. Now, it just weighed.

His father took a long swig. His bloodshot eyes turned into drunk embers.

— And stop staring, you bastard. — The can crumpled in his hand with a metallic crack. — Get out of my face before I break you.

Lian didn’t answer. He gathered his notebooks, the chewed-up pencil, and went back to the narrow room he shared with his sister.

Bia was curled up asleep, hugging her pillow like she was trying to make herself smaller than her own pain. She was skin and bone; her eye bags were deep; her bald head shone under the weak light leaking from the hallway. A few colorful scarves were piled on the chair like tired flowers.

He moved closer quietly, careful not to make the raw cement floor creak.

She coughed — a dry, short cough — and opened one eye.

— Studying again? — her voice came out in a thin thread, but it carried the same old sarcasm. — You gonna be the next Albert Einstein, Lian Rid?

— Not a genius — he said, trying to pull his mouth into a smile. — Just someone who can get out of this hole.

Bia laughed softly, then winced in pain, pressing a hand to her chest. Lian’s reaction was automatic — he grabbed the glass of water from the nightstand and brought it to her lips. She took a sip and breathed in deep.

— If you ever get out of here… — she murmured, resting her forehead on his arm — send me a picture. Of anything. Your new house, your new family… some place where people aren’t screaming all the time.

Lian swallowed hard.

— I’ll take you with me.

— I don’t fit in a backpack, idiot.

He laughed, but the sound cracked halfway through.

There was a drawing taped crookedly to the wall near the bed: two stick figures, one of them with glasses, holding a badly drawn rocket. Bia had scribbled it years ago, back when she still had hair and the strength to fight over colored pencils.

— Still wanna go to Mars? — he asked, nodding at the drawing.

— Anywhere without this trash planet is already great — she murmured, eyes half-closed. — If you end up on another planet and forget me, I’m gonna pull your foot at night.

— Another planet, huh? You’re ambitious.

— Faith is the last thing to die — she shot back, a tiny smile forming at the corner of her mouth.

In that cramped room, with the jammed window and the constant smell of medicine and mold, Bia was the only piece of light he had left. Sister, friend, official comedian. Proof that, in some distant moment, he’d actually loved someone in that house.

Too bad cancer didn’t care.

♦

The Rid house sat in a village forgotten by the map. No “romantic countryside,” no “peaceful little town.” Just a cluster of crooked houses, badly paved streets, falling-apart poles, and people surviving however they could.

Normality there was a luxury item.

In the house to the right lived Dona Stela, a little old lady with a loose bun and stubborn dentures, always in a floral dress that had seen better days, a rosary wrapped around her wrist. To any passerby, a harmless granny. To anyone who lived there, the region’s best supplier of “special herbs.”

Every time Lian walked home from school, backpack heavier than him, her voice cut across the street:

— Want a little green, my boy? Discount for anyone who looks half-dead!

He’d raise a hand without slowing down.

— Only when I’m doing tourism in hell, Dona Stela!

— Then I’ll save a little packet for that trip! — she’d answer, cackling. The smell of weed mixed with reheated coffee, making a weird cloud around her door.

In the house to the left, the scene was less funny. Dona Raley dealt in weapons. Her husband, Tom, kept animals that shouldn’t be in any cage in that country. Through the gate’s slats, Lian had seen eyes too yellow in cramped cages. A skinny, trembling monkey. Bright feathers where no feathers should be.

That was the background: an alcoholic father, an absent mother, criminal neighbors, and a little town that looked ready-made for a Sunday sensationalist news report.

On that neighborhood’s scale of problems, the Rids barely stood out.

♦

At school, Lian wasn’t exactly a protagonist either.

Skinny kid, narrow shoulders, crooked glasses, big nose, uniform always a bit wrinkled. Spoke little. Knew too much. That was enough to annoy people.

— Hey, four-eyes, didn’t you see the floor? — Jones, the usual little leader, bumped his shoulder on purpose in the hallway.

The nickname varied: nerd, little shit, toucan, faggot. The creativity was huge; the humor wasn’t.

Teachers pretended not to see. The principal pretended to be too busy. Day after day, it only got worse.

Until one day Lian decided he was going to get beaten — again — but he wasn’t going to stay quiet.

It was after school, in a side alley where the peeling wall had seen more fights than paint. There, far from cameras and the “healthy school environment” façade, Jones shoved Lian against the wall hard enough to knock the air out of him.

— So, king of numbers — he sneered, surrounded by six more guys — heard you got a ten again. Congrats. Shame good grades don’t stop a punch to the face.

Laughter ran around them, waiting for the reaction.

Lian felt the usual script: cold fear rising in his stomach, hands shaking, the automatic urge to shrink, to apologize for existing. But there was exhaustion stuck on top of all that — a thick layer of rage and burnout boiling like fever.

Before he could think twice, he lunged.

His fist met Jones’s bony face with a dry crack. The boy’s body, skinny as a twig, hit the ground. Silence lasted a full second.

Then, chaos.

— Son of a— GET HIM!

The pack jumped him. Lian landed another wild punch, a crooked kick, tried to protect himself however he could, but there were too many. Hands grabbed his arms, someone else punched straight into his stomach.

— Come on, bitch, get up and fight! — one of the bigger ones roared after throwing him onto the wet ground.

Blood filled his mouth. His chest burned. His vision shook.

Even so, Lian pushed himself up against the wall that reeked of mold and piss, and stood again. His eyes were on fire with hate.

— I’m gonna kill you — he spat, his voice breaking. — Every one of you. You pieces of shit…

It sounded ridiculous even to his own ears. But it was all he had.

The answer came as a kick, a punch, an elbow. The world became a sequence of impacts, white flashes of light, pain spreading through every inch of his body. Seven against one. Simple statistics.

The sounds drifted farther away: laughter, insults, sneakers scraping on wet concrete. The smell of old rain on the ground. The metallic taste of his own blood.

It only stopped when an adult voice roared from the alley’s end:

— Hey! What the fuck is this?!

A school security guard. The boys scattered like roaches in the light, leaving Lian on the ground, half conscious, half gone.

There was a hospital, exams, ice packs, ointment, a police report that wouldn’t lead anywhere. Then back home again, another “incident” on the record and no real culprit.

The bruises would fade in a few weeks. The ones inside wouldn’t.

That night, lying on the narrow bed with his whole body aching, Bia turned over with effort and looked at her brother.

— So, my great hero — she murmured with a crooked half-smile. — Win?

— I won about ten fractures — he said, voice hoarse. — Does that count?

She choked on a laugh that turned into a cough. She caught her breath, still smiling.

— One day you’re gonna hit back and not fall after — she said. — I wanna be watching that from somewhere.

Lian didn’t answer. But the sentence stuck somewhere in his head.

He’d never been handsome. Or strong. Or remarkable.

He was the kind of person you bump into on the street, say sorry without really looking, and forget two minutes later. Nothing in him seemed built to be the protagonist of anything.

Maybe that’s why it was so cruel when, one day, he decided to do the most normal thing in the world: fall in love.

Camila was a freshman in the physics program. Big curls, open smile, loud laugh. She walked into a room and the air seemed lighter. She greeted everyone.

Even Lian.

That was enough.

He spent weeks rehearsing words, deleting messages, rewriting dialogues in his head that never happened. In the end, he went with the classic: a handwritten letter, folded carefully.

“I like you. It doesn’t have to be mutual. Just don’t laugh at me.”

Naive.

The next week, coming back from break, he found his own letter on top of his desk. Something heavy sat inside him. When he opened it, the smell hit first.

On top of the crumpled sheet, inside the envelope, there was a piece of dog shit.

Camila was two rows behind, surrounded by friends. Laughing loud.

— That’s what you are, Lian — she said, not even bothering to lower her voice. — One big piece of shit.

The whole room laughed in waves.

Lian stood there holding the envelope, his stomach turning, his face burning. He wanted to vanish. He wanted to blow the building up. He wanted to erase everyone there with a giant eraser.

In the end, he just put the letter back, dumped the contents in the bathroom trash, and washed his hands for too long, like it was possible to scrub off something other than the smell.

After that, he didn’t try again. Not with her. Not with anyone.