I know this place with a bone-deep certainty that eclipses the memory. Not the dungeon, my carefully constructed reality. Not anymore. This is the primal landscape of fear: kindergarten.

  I am immobile, a trapped consciousness within a frozen moment. Too small. Infinitesimally small. My adult awareness is a giant crammed into a child's fragile frame, forced to witness, powerless to intervene. A ghost observing the raw, untainted agony of its past self.

  There she is, me, a vulnerable speck of humanity. Tiny, the roundness of baby fat still clinging to my cheeks. The oversized hoodie, a pathetic shield, has sleeves gnawed and ragged by nervous habit. Purple bleeds across the dinosaur colouring page, a defiant act of imagination against the rigid rules of the world.

  Miss Carter’s voice floated above us like it always did, soft and smiling, but I never knew where to look when she spoke. “Remember, friends, keep your hands to yourselves and your eyes on your own paper.” I nodded like I understood, even though my stomach was already twisting. I didn't know what I had done wrong yet, but I was sure it was coming.

  Behind me, the faintest whisper of a sneaker sole against the polished tile. A sound I learned to recognize before words. The herald of violation. My child self doesn’t even look up. A weary resignation was already etched onto that innocent face. I know what’s coming. I’ve lived this scene countless times in the lonely theatre of my mind.

  She materializes behind the small, hunched figure of my past. One of the girls. Her face, thankfully blurred by the passage of time, is irrelevant. I know who it was, who it always was. Her acts remain, a brand seared into my soul.

  A hand darts forward with swift, brutal intent.

  And then, snap, the sickening squish of cold, wet gum being shoved into the soft strands of my hair. Not a playful prank. This is deliberate. Cruel. Pressed deep, a violation that goes beyond the surface. A sticky, disgusting weight anchored to my scalp, a physical manifestation of their contempt. Wound tight, a knot of shame and helplessness.

  I freeze.

  Laughter erupts, sharp and piercing. The sound of small voices amplified by malice. That high-pitched, cruel chorus that children wield with such unconscious precision, each note a tiny blade twisting in the wound. A pack of miniature tormentors, their bright clothes and silly shoes a grotesque mask for their savagery. I picture little hyenas in rainbow stripes and jelly sandals, tearing at something small and defenceless.

  No tears fall from the child’s eyes. My eyes. Nothing loud, not dramatic. Just a silent, internal collapse. The wetness on my cheeks is a quiet story of my overwhelming despair.

  No teacher intervenes. No adult hand reaches out to offer comfort or protection. Perhaps they are blind, lost in their own world. Or perhaps, more likely, they see and choose to look away, muttering about not wanting to "make it worse," inadvertently validating the bullies' power.

  Don’t make a scene, my inner voice whispers, a mantra of self-preservation I learned too young. I still use it. Just sit still. Be small. Be quiet. Don’t give them anything more to grab.

  And so she, I, sat there, a statue of silent suffering. Until it’s over. Until their attention shifts to another vulnerable target. Until the bell rings, a temporary reprieve. Was this when I started counting the minutes? Until my mom arrives, my face etched with weary jitteriness.

  I sigh as if I am the one who caused this as if my pain is merely an inconvenience, another problem for Mom to solve by snipping away the sticky evidence of their cruelty. Then, in a flash, I was at home.

  The kitchen smelled like burnt toast and lemon disinfectant. The weak overhead light flickered slightly, catching on the chrome edge of the scissors my mother kept in the "everything drawer." I sat at the worn linoleum table, my feet barely reaching the floor, fingers balled tight in my lap. The chair’s seat stuck to the back of my legs, a tiny discomfort I couldn’t wiggle away from.

  The gum was still tangled in my hair: thick, pink, and smelled awful. Matted near the base of my skull where I couldn't see it, but I could feel it: sticky and humiliating.

  My mother stood behind me, yanking a comb through my hair with one hand, the scissors glinting in the other.

  “Unbelievable, Chloe. Gum? Really? Where did you even get it? I never give you gum! You know that. Do you just take things from other kids now? Is that who you’re becoming?”

  The comb snagged. I winced. I didn’t speak. I hadn’t spoken since it happened. The boys had laughed, the girls too, and the teacher hadn’t even noticed.

  “Do you have any idea how hard it is to get this stuff out? Of course, you don’t. You don’t think. You never think.”

  Snip.

  Hair fell.

  “I have so much to do, and now I have to deal with this? Honestly, Chloe, sometimes I think you like making my life harder.”

  Snip. Another clump.

  “You’re not a baby anymore! Start acting like it. I can't be cleaning up after your messes forever. God, you’re exhausting.”

  The scissors paused. My mother huffed, muttering about split ends and ruined pictures. I stared at a plate across the table, still smeared with crumbs and crusted peanut butter. I didn’t cry. Not because I wasn’t sad, but because I had already learned what crying cost me. Only later, when i was alone in my room, staring at the ragged edge of my haircut in the mirror, did I whisper the only thing I had left: “It wasn’t even my gum.”

  *****

  I was back in the world of memory, in the corner of my eye I thought I saw the System again; however, it was a deceptive landscape. Still swathed in the soft hues of childhood, the edges blurred and harmless, like a picture book left out in the sun. Pastel blues of the sky, the gentle green of the playground grass. Rounded, innocuous.

  But even adrift in this resurrected past, a cold knot of dread tightened in my chest. I knew the inherent lie of this sentimental scene. I knew the sharp edges hidden beneath the comforting tones.

  The sky stretched vast and indifferent above my old elementary school. Clouds, fat and white, drifted with the languid pace of denial. Underfoot, the bark mulch crunched with a sound that amplified the silence, each tiny snap a prelude to the breaking of my fragile peace. A lone tetherball spun in its orbit, a dizzying dance that ended in a violent, echoing whap.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Flash.

  And there I was again. The miniature version of myself, a fragile echo. I stood just at the periphery of the monkey bars, a self-imposed exile. My gaze was fixed on the minute drama unfolding at my feet, a line of ants marching with single-minded purpose up the rough bark of the wooden frame. A desperate make-believe of whimsical fascination.

  I didn’t want to join the chaotic energy of the other children, their shrieks and laughter a foreign language I no longer understood. I yearned for invisibility, of being unseen.

  And then, they were there.

  He moved with a swagger that contradicted his small stature, a self-proclaimed king surveying his dusty domain. The boy. Older, a looming presence in my fragile world. A year, maybe two, the difference felt mountainous. His brow was perpetually furrowed in a scowl, his gaze sharp and predatory. The other children instinctively gave him a wide berth, scattering like startled shadows fleeing the sudden glare of sunlight.

  He rarely spoke to me directly. I was beneath his notice, a shadow in his periphery.

  But today was different. Today, his trajectory was unwavering, a direct line cutting through the playground towards me.

  My legs screamed for flight, a primal urge to escape the encroaching danger. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat urging move, move now. But my feet were anchors, rooted to the mulch by an invisible force of terror. Just like always.

  He stopped inches away. He towered over me, just like I did to the ants. His presence was a suffocating weight. And then, with a casualness that chilled me to the bone; as if he were presenting a prized possession, a fascinating pebble. He slowly opened his worn jacket.

  Inside, nestled within the faded fabric, was a blade. Small. Compact. Black-handled. Used. But undeniably real. A knife. I saw the way a sliver of sunlight caught the honed edge, a fleeting, malevolent glint. I remember, no I relived, the sickening lurch in my stomach, the desperate urge of my internal organs to flee.

  He leaned in his face inches from mine. Close enough to count the smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. Close enough to feel the warm, stale rush of his breath against my cheek.

  “I’ll cut you if you tell.”

  The words were soft, almost conversational. Devoid of anger, yet imbued with a chilling certainty. A simple statement of fact. A promise. As if my existence was so insignificant, the act of violence required no particular emotion.

  I think I nodded. A small, involuntary movement of surrender. I don’t remember making a conscious decision. My vocal cords seemed to have withered, choked by the rising tide of fear.

  The world around us continued its oblivious rhythm. A teacher’s voice, tinny and distant, called across the field about the importance of sharing the tire swing. The carefree shrieks of laughter echoed from the slide, a cruel counterpoint to the silent terror gripping me. But within my small universe, time had fractured. I was locked in place, a tiny, petrified statue. Eyes wide and unblinking, absorbing the horror. My body felt impossibly cold as if the very air around me had frozen solid.

  The moment stretched, an eternity of unspoken threat. Then, just as abruptly as he had appeared, he was gone. He simply turned and walked away, swallowed by the indifferent chaos of the playground. No one noticed the silent transaction of terror that had just taken place.

  And I… I just stood there.

  Not breathing. Not thinking. Not crying. The tears felt locked somewhere deep inside, a frozen well of unshed grief. Because even then, in the naive landscape of childhood, a profound and awful truth had already taken root: crying was a futile gesture. Telling wouldn’t magically erase the threat. The world was dangerous, with sharp edges concealed beneath deceptive surfaces.

  And no one was coming to rescue me. Not the well-meaning but distracted teachers, not my weary parents, not the cheerful pronouncements on the brightly coloured classroom posters.

  I was my own salvation.

  I felt awake. I felt a primal strength stirring within me, a hunger that could devour the very source of that childhood terror. The memory shattered like glass in my skull. I gasped, stumbling back into my dungeon body, clawing at air that I didn’t need. My vision shook; static, raw emotion glitching across my senses.

  “I remember…” I whispered. My voice sounded so small again. The classroom around me snapped back into place like a stage curtain pulled tight. Desks. Chalkboard. My dungeon.

  But it was in me now. That moment. That powerlessness.

  The gum.

  The laughter.

  The way it never really stopped. It just grew more creative as we got older.

  My fists clenched.

  No more silence.

  No more sitting still.

  If the stained glass eye wanted to watch, let it. I’d give it a goddamn show.

  My classroom. And yet… I couldn't draw a full breath.

  I stood near the phantom chalkboard, my gaze unfocused, lost in the echoes of my past. The familiar hum of dungeon mana, a constant thrumming beneath the surface of my awareness, pulsed softly in my now larger chest, like a second, spectral heartbeat. A sensation that had once been a source of comfort, a reminder of my control.

  But not now.

  Now… it felt like a mocking echo in a hollow chamber.

  Because I remembered.

  It didn’t even creep up on me. There was no gradual descent into the darkness. I saw the stained-glass eye again. It was a fleeting glimpse, a flicker at the edge of my vision. But this time, it didn't burn with righteous anger. It didn't blink in judgment. It didn't utter a single, condemning word.

  It just watched.

  And that was infinitely worse.

  Bookbite was there, a silent, standing beside me. He didn't move, didn't offer empty platitudes. Just a steadfast, unwavering presence in the face of my unravelling. I hated how much comfort I drew from that.

  My knees buckled, sending me crashing to the unyielding surface of the fake classroom floor. My fingers curled into tight fists against the cold, unforgiving tiles, as if I could anchor myself to this fabricated reality and prevent the past from swallowing me whole.

  And then, the dam broke.

  I cried. I wasn’t allowed to cry back then, but fucking hell, I did now. Not a little polite, cute cry when you try and restrain the tears of a composed adult. Not gentle sobs that could be easily stifled. No, this was a true ugly crying. Red-faced, full-body shaking, jaw-locked, chest-twisting, deep-from-the-gut wailing. A primal scream ripped from the core of my being.

  I screamed until my throat was raw and shredded until the sound became a ragged rasp. I screamed for all the times I had been denied a voice. Not when the gum was twisted into my hair, a tangible symbol of their cruelty. Not when I came home, my small body trembling with fear, my voice choked by shame. Not when I stood frozen in the mulch, the glint of a blade, a promise of violence. Not when the teachers dismissed my terror, urging me to stop "tattling" and plaster a fake smile on my face.

  All those screams, all that pain, all that bottled-up rage. I had swallowed it all.

  And now?

  Now, it erupted like a volcano, a torrent of fire and fury unleashed from a burst pipe. I don’t know how long it lasted. Time lost all meaning in that maelstrom of grief. But when the storm finally subsided, I wasn’t empty. I wasn't hollowed out by the flood of pain.

  I was… shifted. Something deep within me had moved, a subtle but profound realignment. A quiet click in my core, like a puzzle piece finally snapping into its rightful place. And then, a sound that startled even me… I laughed.

  Just once. Sharp. Crooked. A little breathy and broken at the end. Like a balloon slowly deflating with a defiant hiss of sass. My eyes were swollen and wet, my face raw and stinging.

  But I was here. I was me.

  I whispered into the space between, my voice hoarse but firm, “I’m not five anymore.”

  I pushed myself to my feet, the phantom ache in my knees a reminder of my vulnerability. I wiped my nose on the sleeve of my shirt, a gesture of defiance against the lingering fragility.

  “I have monsters now.”

  A grin tugged at the corner of my mouth, a slow, predatory curve. Crooked. Dangerous.

  I pressed my hand against the cold, hard surface of the classroom wall. Felt the familiar surge of mana respond to my will—my mana. My power. My story. “Time to share them.”

  Crow's next chapter will focus on his time in town, and coming back.