Before thrones.Before shadows learned my name.Before I was branded ENEMY.
A life before i ever knew of magic or swordfights and of another reality
I was...
I was just tired.
Not the dramatic kind of exhaustion you heroes like to talk about after battles and sacrifices. This was the dull, grinding fatigue of waking up every day knowing nothing would change no matter how hard you worked.
Earth was a meat grinder. Life was shitty, well my life at least.
My apartment was small enough that I could cross it in six steps. Seven if I avoided the crack in the floor tile near the kitchen sink. The walls were thin, stained faintly yellow from years of tenants who smoked and left before things got better. The air always smelled vaguely of damp concrete and old cooking oil.
It was home, if you could call it that.
I sat on the edge of my bed with my phone in my hands, punching numbers on the calculator, staring at the sums that refused to line up no matter how many times I recalculated them.
Rent.
Utilities.
Food.
Transport.
I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly.
Still short.
Again.
The clock on the wall ticked loudly, every second ringing in my ears like an accusation. Outside, traffic hissed against wet asphalt. Somewhere in the building, a couple argued in raised voices, their words muffled by the drizzle of rain falling on the concrete.
I leaned back and let myself fall onto the mattress, staring up at the ceiling.
"I'm doing my best," I muttered...
No answer came. It never did.
That was the thing about my life. There was no great tragedy or betrayal or time that caused my monumental downfall.
NO!
All i had was just a long chain of small disappointments, missed opportunities, and quiet compromises that piled up until the weight became unbearable.
I wasn't special.I wasn't chosen.I wasn't waiting for destiny to find me.
I just wanted to get by.
The phone buzzed in my hand.
A reminder notification. Rent was due in three days.
I laughed under my breath and rolled onto my side. For a moment, I considered turning the phone off entirely. Pretending the world couldn't reach me if I didn't look at it.
That was when the air changed. The atmosphere felt charged.
At first, I thought it was the heater malfunctioning again. But then the atmosphere shifted from warm to cold and not just your regular kind, it was cold enough to create goosebumps on the back of my arms. Lights began flickering.
Then the sound started.
It wasn't loud.
That was the worst part.
It was like a pressure, a vibration that settled into my bones, humming at a frequency I could feel rather than hear. My vision blurred at the edges, colors bleeding into one another like wet paint.
"What the hell…?" I murmured, pushing myself upright.
The shadows in the corners of the room stretched.
No. Not stretched.
They pulled.
The air twisted, folding in on itself, and something bright carved its way through the center of my apartment. A circle of blinding white symbols flared into existence beneath my feet, lines and runes spinning and overlapping too fast for my eyes to track or comprehend.
My phone slipped from my fingers and shattered on the floor.
Panic hit me all at once.
"Hey...... wait, what the fuck is...........!" I shouted, scrambling backward.
The circle flared brighter.
Pressure started to crush down on my chest, stealing the air from my lungs. My muscles locked, every nerve screaming as something seized hold of me from the inside.
I couldn't move.
Couldn't breathe.
Couldn't even scream.
The world tilted.
My sense of Gravity got warped.
I was falling and not falling at the same time, suspended in a space where direction no longer mattered. White light burned into my eyes, symbols etching themselves into my vision no matter how tightly I squeezed my eyelids shut.
The sound returned, louder now, grinding and relentless.
I'm going to die, I thought distantly.
Then I hit the ground.
What i felt was excruciating pain. Strong enough to make me want to kill myself to stop it. I had never felt that much pain in my life and i was about to find out that this would soon be my norm.
I burst out screaming as something cracked in my arm, the impact knocking the breath out of me and slamming my teeth together hard enough that I tasted blood. The world spun violently as I rolled across cold stone, gasping, choking, clawing uselessly at the floor.
My left arm was bent the wrong way.
The sight of it made bile rise in my throat.
Before I could process it, voices filled the air.
Chanting.
Dozens of them, layered and rhythmic, echoing through a massive space that dwarfed my tiny apartment by comparison. The language was unfamiliar, harsh and melodic at the same time, but the meaning forced itself into my sub-consciousness like a nail driven into wood.
Summoning.
Binding.
Contract.
"No," I croaked, trying to crawl away. "No, no, no......."
A sharp pain spiked through my chest.
I screamed again as invisible pressure crushed my ribs, pinning me to the floor. The chanting grew louder, faster, the runes beneath me flaring to life with a blinding intensity.
I looked up.
Stone walls soared high above me, carved with ancient symbols and lit by rows of candles that burned without flickering. Figures in ceremonial robes stood in a wide circle around the glowing magic array, their faces pale with effort and anticipation.
At the far end of the chamber stood an altar.
There was blood on it.
Fresh.
Dark.
Still dripping onto the stone below.
Fear unlike anything I had ever known wrapped around my heart.
"Stop," I begged hoarsely. "Please........ stop"
One of the figures stepped forward.
An older man, silver-haired, his expression calm in a way that felt deeply wrong. His hands were stained red up to the wrists, the blood already drying into dark patches against his skin.
"You have arrived safely," he said, voice steady. "The summoning was a success."
"What did you do to me? where is this place? how did i get here?" I asked between pained groans. "Send me back!" i demanded.
Murmurs rippled through the robed figures.
The man sighed, as though I had inconvenienced him.
"Return is not possible at this stage," he said. "You have been bound."
It was at that moment that I snapped.
"I didn't agree to this!" I yelled. "You kidnapped me!"
"It was a necessary act," he replied calmly. "This world requires a hero."
The word was barely given much thought or recognition before i rejected it.
"I'm not your hero," I said through clenched teeth. "I won't fight your war."
The chanting stopped.
Silence dawned on the Auditorium if that was what it was called.
The man's gaze hardened.
"Then you misunderstand your position," he said.
He gestured, and two robed figures dragged someone forward from behind the altar.
He had a petite body structure that betrayed his age and he was chained, blood soaking his clothes from a deep wound that cut across his stomach. His eyes met mine for a brief, terrified second.
My stomach lurched and an inkling of what was about to happened flashed past my eyes.
"What are you doing?" I whispered.
"The contract must be accepted," the man said gently.
The runes beneath me flared.
Agony tore through my body as something wrapped around my heart and squeezed. Words burned themselves into my mind, each one searing deeper than the last.
Hero Contract Established.Objective: Eliminate the Demon King.Condition: Completion required for return.Penalty for refusal: Termination.
The boy screamed.
A blade flashed.
Blood sprayed across the altar.
I screamed too.
Darkness swallowed me whole.
When I woke, I was lying on a narrow stone bed in a cold chamber far removed from the summoning hall. My arm was bound tightly, magic having forced the bone back into place in a way that left it aching and numb.
The pressure in my chest was still there.
It probably served as a reminder to what i was.
A Slave shackled by a contract with no way out.
I stared up at the ceiling and let out a broken laugh.
They wanted a hero.
And all I wanted… was to go home.