It was a normal day as usual when the disaster struck out of nowhere.
The Young Master of Ashworth family, Leon Ashworth, was returning from an eSports tournament in San Francisco. He just turned Nineteen Years a month ago and he's the Youngest sibling in the Ashworth family.
On his shoulder, a black raven with crimson red eyes sat calmly. She wasn't causing ruckus or harming anyone yet everyone's eyes were on her. Her name is.....
"Pharsa! Looks like you are quite famous here." The young man said with a teasing tone.
Pharsa.
She was named by Leon Ashworth when he found her almost dying in a rainy day near a closed food stall. She was attacked and abandoned by her pack because she's the weakest among other ravens.
It's not that she was physically weak or unable to fight. She's just different from other ravens who is gentle and kind in nature, which contrasts the actual nature of ravens.
To her, Leon Ashworth is her everything and unlike humans, she is absolutely loyal to the person she cares for.
"Well. I'll treat you some special meal when we return to the villa, my dear birdie~" Leon spoke in a comical tone.
"Kuh!"
"Ow! Ow! Stop hitting me, Pharsa! I was just joking!" Leon stammered, while trying to cover his head.
Just then, a woman in a black suit walks over to Leon and Pharsa, looking at the scene with a blank unreadable expression.
"Young Master, the car is waiting outside. We can leave as soon as possible." The woman spoke in a flat professional tone.
"Oh yeah. Thanks for your work, Karina."
Karina Sair is the personal butler and caretaker of Leon Ashworth for many years. She was serving the Ashworth family's head for a long time before she was assigned to take care of their youngest.
Karina led the way with a stiff back and a focused gaze, her heels clicking rhythmically against the polished floor of the airport. Leon followed closely behind, still rubbing his head where Pharsa had pecked him moments ago.
The young man had a faint, playful smile on his face, seemingly unfazed by the small "attack" from his loyal companion.
Pharsa, for her part, had resettled herself on Leon's shoulder, though her crimson eyes remained narrowed, watching his every move as if waiting for him to make another teasing remark.
They exited the terminal and stepped into the VIP parking section, where the air was slightly cooler and away from the prying eyes of the common travelers. Standing there, gleaming under the afternoon sun, was a Cyan Blue Rolls Royce.
The car was a masterpiece of engineering, its custom paint job reflecting the light in a way that made it look like it was made of liquid sapphire. It was a vehicle that perfectly suited the status of the Young Master of the Ashworth family.
The driver, a tall man who remained as silent as a statue, stepped forward and opened the rear door for Leon.
With a casual nod, Leon slid into the plush leather interior of the car. Pharsa hopped off his shoulder and claimed the spot right next to him on the seat, her claws sinking slightly into the expensive material. Karina took her seat in the front, and without a word, the driver started the engine.
The Rolls Royce purred to life, a low hum that signaled the beginning of their journey toward the Ashworth family's Villa.
As the car left the parking lot and merged onto the highway, Leon leaned back, stretching his legs. The interior of the car was silent, save for the faint sound of the air conditioning.
But for Leon, the silence was an opportunity for more mischief. He turned his head toward Pharsa, who was trying to close her eyes for a quick nap.
"Hey, Pharsa," Leon whispered, his voice full of that same teasing tone. "You know, for a raven who is supposed to be gentle and kind, you sure have a mean streak when it comes to my head."
Pharsa didn't even open her eyes. She simply let out a tiny, dismissive huff of air through her nostrils.
"Are you ignoring me now? After all I've done for you?" Leon continued, leaning closer. He reached out a finger and began to lightly poke the raven's wing. "Remember that rainy day? I was the one who picked you up. I was the one who gave you a name. You were so tiny back then, almost like a little black cotton ball."
Pharsa's feathers ruffled slightly, a clear sign that she was listening, even if she didn't want to admit it. Leon, sensing he was getting a reaction, didn't stop. He began to ruffle the feathers on the back of her neck, the very spot he knew she found annoying.
"My dear birdie~" he sang out in a comical tone, "don't be so cold. I promised you a special meal, didn't I? Maybe some premium wagyu beef? Or perhaps some exotic fruits?"
"Kuh!" Pharsa snapped her eyes open, her crimson gaze fixed on Leon. She let out a sharp sound, warning him to stop his antics.
"Oh, so you're awake now!" Leon laughed, his eyes bright with amusement. "I thought you were going to play the silent type all the way to the Villa. Come on, Pharsa, give your Young Master a break. It was a long tournament, and I just want to have some fun."
He reached out again, this time trying to playfully grab her beak. Pharsa was quick, though. She dodged his hand with ease and delivered a quick, light peck to his thumb.
"Ow! See? There you go again!" Leon exulted, though there was no real pain in his voice. He kept at it, gently poking her sides and ruffling her feathers, while Pharsa did her best to maintain her composure. She was a raven of gentle nature, but Leon knew exactly how to push her buttons.
For several minutes, the back of the Rolls Royce was a scene of playful chaos. Leon would poke, and Pharsa would respond with a quick hop or a light peck in retaliation. It was their way of bonding, a dynamic that had existed since the day Leon brought her home.
To anyone else, it might have looked like a man bothering his pet, but to Pharsa, this was the person who meant the world to her. She was absolutely loyal to Leon, and even in her "retaliation," she was careful never to actually hurt him.
"You're getting faster, Pharsa," Leon noted, his voice dropping to a more genuine, warm tone. "I guess all that training at the Villa is paying off. You're not the weakest raven anymore, at least not in my eyes."
Pharsa stopped her pecking for a moment, looking at Leon with an unreadable expression in her red eyes. She leaned her head against his hand, a rare sign of affection that Leon immediately reciprocated by stroking her head gently.
"We'll be home soon," Leon murmured, looking out the window as the familiar landmarks of the city began to blur past them.
The Ashworth family's Villa was a place of peace, far away from the noise of the tournaments and the pressure of being the youngest sibling in a powerful family.
But that peace was never meant to be reached.
The Rolls Royce was approaching a major intersection. The light was green, and the driver maintained a steady, professional speed. Everything seemed normal. It was just another day in the life of Leon Ashworth.
Then, out of nowhere, disaster struck.
A massive heavy-duty truck, appearing like a ghost from a blind spot, ignored the red light. It roared into the intersection with terrifying momentum, its horn blaring a split second too late.
The driver of the Rolls Royce tried to swerve, his hands flying across the steering wheel in a desperate attempt to avoid the collision, but the physics of the situation were against them.
The truck hit the side of the car with a deafening, metallic crunch. The force of the impact was so great that the Rolls Royce was tossed aside like a toy.
It skidded across the asphalt, the tires screaming in protest, before the truck—still out of control—squeezed the car against a reinforced concrete wall on the side of the road.
The sound of twisting metal and shattering glass filled the air. Inside the car, the world turned upside down. Leon was thrown against the door, his body taking the brunt of the force as the frame of the car collapsed inward.
Pharsa was tossed into the air, her small body hitting the ceiling before falling into the footwell.
And then, the final blow.
The truck's engine, damaged by the impact and leaking fluid, suffered an unstable combustion. The heat and the pressure built up in an instant, and then the engine blasted.
A massive explosion ripped through the intersection, a fireball of orange and black consuming both the truck and the crumpled remains of the Cyan Blue Rolls Royce.
Silence followed the roar of the explosion. The only sounds left were the crackling of flames and the distant, distorted sound of car alarms.
A few yards away from the burning wreckage, a small, dark shape lay on the scorched pavement. It was Pharsa. The explosion had thrown her from the car, the force of the blast sending her tumbling across the road.
Slowly, painfully, Pharsa regained her consciousness. Her vision was blurred, a haze of gray and red. Every part of her body screamed in agony. She tried to move, but her balance was completely gone. As she looked down, she saw the horrific reality of her condition.
One of her feet was gone, severed by a piece of flying metal during the crash. The remaining stump was raw and bleeding. Most of her beautiful black feathers had been plucked out by the force of the blast or burnt away by the intense heat, leaving her skin exposed and blistered.
She looked nothing like the majestic raven that had sat on Leon's shoulder only moments ago.
But Pharsa didn't care about her own pain. Her crimson eyes, now dimmed by shock and injury, turned toward the wreckage of the car.
The Cyan Blue Rolls Royce was no more. It was a mangled, blackened heap of metal, pinned against the wall and completely engulfed in roaring flames.
The heat was so intense that the air around it shimmered. There was no movement from inside. No one could have survived that.
Pharsa's heart, small and fragile, felt like it was breaking. She remembered the way Leon had looked at her just minutes ago. She remembered his teasing voice, his warm touch, and the way he had promised her a special meal.
He was her everything. He was the only person who had ever truly cared for her, the one who saw her gentle nature as a strength rather than a weakness.
And now, he was gone.
Leon Ashworth, the Young Master who had just turned nineteen, the youngest sibling of the powerful Ashworth family, had died in those flames.
Pharsa tried to stand, her one remaining foot trembling as she attempted to drag herself toward the fire. She wanted to reach him.
She wanted to find him, even if it was just to be near him one last time. But her body failed her. She collapsed back onto the ground, her strength fading.
Looking at the burning wreckage that served as Leon's funeral pyre, Pharsa opened her beak. She wanted to scream, to cry out against the injustice of the world, but all that came out was a weak, trembling sound.
"Kuh... kuh..."
It was a grieving croak, a sound so full of sorrow and loss that it seemed to hang in the air even as the sirens of the approaching emergency vehicles began to wail in the distance.
The raven, once the weakest of her pack and now the sole survivor of a tragedy, closed her eyes as a single tear—if a bird could cry—mixed with the soot on her face.
Her loyal heart was shattered, and the world she knew had ended in a flash of cyan blue and fire.
———
The smoke was a thick, black shroud that choked the very air, turning the golden sunset into a dark, suffocating twilight.
Pharsa lay on the hot pavement, her body a broken mess of charred feathers and scorched flesh. The pain was a distant, secondary thing compared to the hollow void widening in her chest.
She stared at the wreckage of the Cyan Blue Rolls Royce. The flames were dancing, mocking her with their vibrant, destructive beauty.
Inside that inferno was Leon. Her Leon. The man who had looked past her "bad luck" and seen something worth saving.
He was the one who had given her a name. He was the one who had shared his warmth with her when the rest of the world offered only the cold sting of the rain.
"Kuh..."
Another weak, rattling sound escaped her beak. It was a sound of absolute defeat.
She looked at her missing foot, the mangled stump a testament to the violence of the crash. She looked at her wings, once capable of soaring through the San Francisco skies, now nothing more than blackened appendages.
Without Leon, the world was just a vast, empty cage. There was no one to tease her. There was no one to protect her. There was no one to call her "dear birdie" in that silly, comical voice.
The loyalty of a raven is not like the loyalty of a human. It is not conditional. It does not fade with time or distance. It is a fundamental part of their being.
To Pharsa, staying alive in a world without Leon was a fate far worse than the fire.
With a surge of agonizing effort, she pushed herself up with her one remaining leg. Her vision swam, the world tilting dangerously as she struggled to find her balance.
She spread her charred wings. Each movement felt like glass shards grating against her nerves.
She didn't care.
With a desperate, final flap, she launched herself into the air. She didn't fly high; she didn't fly far. She flew straight into the heart of the roaring furnace.
The heat hit her like a physical wall, searing what was left of her feathers in an instant. The light was blinding, a pure, white-hot embrace that promised an end to the pain.
She didn't scream. She didn't struggle.
She simply closed her eyes, letting the flames take her, hoping that in the moments of her passing, her soul might find his among the embers.
The transition was not what she expected.
There was no sudden darkness. There was no lingering heat.
Instead, there was a silence so profound it felt heavy.
Pharsa opened her eyes—or rather, the essence of what she was perceived her surroundings. She was no longer a broken bird lying on the asphalt. She was a flicker of light, a consciousness drifting in a realm that defied human comprehension.
Everything was white. Not the harsh white of a hospital or the cold white of snow, but a soft, infinite glow that seemed to hum with the energy of a thousand suns.
There was no floor, no ceiling, no horizon. There was only... presence.
"So, you chose to follow him even into the end." a voice spoke.
It wasn't a voice that came from a throat. It was a thought that echoed directly into her soul. It was vast, ancient, and filled with a weight that made the entire universe feel small.
Pharsa looked—if she could be said to have eyes—at the source of the voice.
Standing in the center of the infinite white was a figure. It had no definite shape, appearing as a shifting silhouette of stars and nebulae, draped in a robe of pure light.
It was God.
Pharsa tried to let out a "kuh," but she realized she no longer had a body to make the sound. Yet, her intent was understood.
"You are wondering why this happened," the entity continued, its tone neither cold nor warm, but filled with a terrifyingly objective clarity. "You are wondering why a normal day ended in such a disaster."
The figure moved closer, and the white space around them began to show images—flashes of Pharsa's life.
She saw the rainy day near the food stall. She saw the other ravens attacking her. She saw Leon picking her up.
"You were born under a heavy star, little one," God said. "You were what your kind sensed but could not name. You were a Raven of Misfortune."
The words sent a ripple through Pharsa's spirit.
"In the grand tapestry of fate, some souls are anchors for tragedy. It is not a choice, nor is it a punishment. It is simply the nature of your existence in that world."
God gestured toward a swirling cloud of dark energy that seemed to cling to the memory of Pharsa.
"That accident... that truck... it was not a random act of a careless driver. It was the culmination of the misfortune you carry. By bringing you into his life, Leon Ashworth unknowingly tethered himself to your star."
A surge of horror and guilt washed over Pharsa.
It was her fault.
Leon was dead because of her. The Young Master, with his bright future and his silly jokes, had been snuffed out because he had been kind to a bird that was cursed by the universe.
"Do not weep in your heart," God whispered, the light around the entity softening. "The boy knew the risks, even if he didn't understand them. He chose kindness over caution. He loved you, and in doing so, he accepted your fate as his own."
The images changed. Pharsa saw a soul—bright, gold, and full of a restless energy—drifting away into a different part of the void.
It was Leon.
"However," God said, "I find myself moved by the depth of your loyalty. To dive into the flames of your own accord, seeking only to be with him in the end... such devotion is rare, even among the higher beings."
Pharsa felt a spark of hope.
"I have decided to grant you a mercy. I will allow you to be reborn. I will send you to a world far different from the one you left. A world where the laws of fate are more fluid, and where your 'misfortune' will not have the same power over those you love."
The entity paused, the stars within its form shifting.
"Leon Ashworth's soul has already been sent there. He has been reborn into a new life, a new family, and a new destiny."
Pharsa wanted to soar. She wanted to sing. He was alive! Or at least, he was existing again.
"But you must understand the price," God warned. "While I will allow you to keep your memories of your life as his pet, Leon will not. His soul has been washed clean by the transition. He does not remember the eSports tournaments. He does not remember the Ashworth family. He does not remember the girl named Karina."
The light dimmed slightly, emphasizing the gravity of the words.
"And he does not remember the raven he saved from the rain."
Pharsa felt a pang of sorrow, but it was quickly overshadowed by a fierce determination. It didn't matter if he didn't remember. As long as she could be near him, as long as she could protect him, that would be enough.
She would earn his love all over again.
"Is this acceptable to you?" God asked. "To live in a world where your 'everything' sees you as a stranger?"
Pharsa focused all of her will. She didn't have a voice, but she reached deep into the core of her being, pulling out the sounds she had heard Leon use so many times.
She thought of the way he said her name. She thought of the warmth in his eyes when he looked at her.
"Yes." her soul vibrated.
But it wasn't just a thought this time. For the first time in her existence, Pharsa spoke. The words were clumsy, unpracticed, and held an ethereal quality, but they were humanly words nonetheless.
"I... wish..."
God remained silent, waiting for the soul to find its voice.
"I wish... to keep... my name."
The entity seemed to hum with approval. The white space vibrated with the force of her request.
"You wish to remain Pharsa?"
"Yes," she spoke clearer now, the name feeling like a shield around her heart. "Leon... gave me... Pharsa. I am... Pharsa."
It was the only piece of him she could carry with her. If he didn't remember her, at least she would carry the identity he had crafted for her. It was a bridge between their past and their future.
"Very well," God said, and the light began to intensify, becoming a roaring ocean of brilliance that threatened to dissolve her consciousness once more.
"You shall be Pharsa in the next world as well. Go now. Find the soul that you followed into the fire. Find your Leon."
The white space exploded into a kaleidoscope of colors.
Pharsa felt herself being pulled, stretched across dimensions and time. The memories of the San Francisco airport, the Cyan Blue Rolls Royce, and the biting cold of the rain began to fade into the background, becoming a foundation rather than a prison.
She was falling, but she wasn't afraid.
Somewhere in the vastness of the new world, a young man was growing up, unaware of the shadow that was racing across the stars to find him.
He didn't know it yet, but his loyal companion was coming back.
And this time, no amount of misfortune would ever tear them apart.
Pharsa let out one last mental "kuh" as she plummeted toward a new horizon, the name Leon had given her burning bright in her soul like a guiding star.
The darkness of the transition finally took her, but it was a warm darkness, filled with the promise of a special meal and a teasing voice waiting on the other side.
———