Caution: This chp may cantain traumatic sequence that can trigger emotional disturbance, if you cant handle this, i suggest you to skip the part and begin from where these lines are visible ( _ _ _ _ ).
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Raviel's sleep didn't come in those peaceful drifts.
But it plunged him straight into the darkness.
One moment he was lying on his bed in the quiet room...and the next second he found himself standing in a place he knew far too well. A place that didn't exist or so he thought after his....transmigration.
His home.
But this time, it was a dim colorless room.
Cold air.
The hall lights flickering like fireflies in the room.
He blinked, confused as he saw his mom standing there, disheveled.
"Mom...?".
She was standing a few steps away, hair disheveled, eyes swollen...no broken.
And beside her, leaning casually on the wall as if this were all normal, was Lucas, an older teenage lucas. Calm and expression unreadable.
"What are you doin—no screw that, what's happening here?" Raviel muttered.
Lucas didn't flinch as he heard those words, he just tilted his head towards Raviel's hands.
"What are you doing Raviel?".
Raviel frowned and followed Lucas gaze.
And his stomach collapsed.
His hands were around his mother's throat.
He didn't even know how they got there.
He didn't know what happened.
He didn't feel the movement. Only the sudden pressure under his fingers.
The weak trembling, desperate clutching on his wrist.
"No–no...Mom wait"
Her lips moved lile they were stitched up from the pain. Incoherent at first, dry and shaking.
Then words began to form, slithering through her lips, like they hated his presence.
" I-i should have never.... given birth to you".
Raviel froze.
Her face which was usually soft, was empty.
A stranger looked at his face, when he tried to look at her.
"Even if you were born a hundred times." She whispered, her voice cracking midway. "I would never choose you. Not once, never".
His grip loosened out of pure horror, but it didn't matter now as her body was already going limp.
Her breath was stuttering into the silence.
And Raviel...Raviel couldn't even scream only shake.
A small sound broke through the room.
He turned back.
His sister stood near the hallway, her eyes were watery as they damped her cheeks like she'd been crying for hours. Her hands shook around the handle of a kitchen knife.
"You…" Her voice was hoarse but sharp enough to stab. "You're a monster."
Raviel's knees buckled.
"Sis—no, Ella please—wait—this isn't— I didn't—"
"I wish you were never born," she choked out. "All you ever bring is ruin."
The knife glinted as she raised it. Not towards him.
But toward herself.
"No… stop—DON'T—"
But she kept talking, her voice soft and broken, like it was unraveling in her throat.
"I can't bear to live in the same world as you."
Her hand moved too fast for him to stop.
A red smile opened across her neck.
Raviel collapsed, clawing at the floor, his own throat tight with a scream that wouldn't come out no matter what he tried to do. It was lodged somewhere too deep, too painful.
"Sis....SIS..PLEASE—"
Her body hit the ground.
Eyes half-open.
Still shedding the tears.
The room walls began to close in, cracking with the sound of his breath hitching, choking and breaking all at once.
Lucas stepped forward now, hands in his pockets, watching with an expression that wasn't cruel, just… disappointed.
"You keep saying you didn't do it," Lucas murmured. "But look."
Raviel looked down at his hands, and saw they were still covered in blood.
His mother's.
His sister's.
He staggered back, shaking his head violently, chest collapsing in on the air.
"No—no....no—PLEASE"
"I didn't"
"I'm not"
"PLEASE"
The world shattered.
Raviel snapped awake. Gasping so hard that it sounded like he was drowning.
Air scraped through his throat, sweat drenched his body, his hands shook violently that he nearly fell out of his bed.
He dragged the air back in, breath after breath.
His mother's voice was still glued in his skull, like it was carved there.
"I should have never given birth to you."
Raviel clutched his head and squeezed his eyes shut, trying and failing to hold himself together as the nightmare clung to him like a second skin.
_ _ _ _ _
Raviel sat on the edge of his bed, clinging to the bedsheet.
"It was just a dream....it was just a fuckin dream" he whispered, which even he didn't believe.
But.
Why...why was this happening to him?
He dragged both of his hands towards his ears to stop remembering her tone and words when she spoke.
I should have never given birth to you.
Hearing those words, disgust filled inside of him and the urge to vomit became even more clear.
"All I wanted…" he muttered, staring blankly at the dim matte black wall, "all I ever wanted was to fix things. To make it right. To… to just take care of everyone. To say sorry to Mom for"
His throat closed.
He swallowed back.
"For killing Dad."
The words felt heavy to even utter.
He had to force himself to breathe. To not collapse under the weight of the simple truth: he did it. He was the reason everything had shattered. While the world kept spinning. And people kept living. But his family… they stayed broken and sad. Stuck in a moment he had created.
He wiped at his face but new tears came out of the eyes anyway.
"I moved on," he whispered with a hollow laugh short and ugly. " Why? I'm the only one who got to move on.. and they"
His voice fell apart.
"There's no one left now, no one to hug me and tell me it's okay."
He stared at his shaking hands.
"I don't even remember the last time I made my mom happy."
"Part of me… deserves all this," he said softly. "Doesn't it? After everything I did… maybe this is just the universe balancing the scales."
His lips trembled.
He blinked up at the ceiling.
"I'm so tired," he whispered, voice barely comming out from his lips. "Damn tired of all this."
He rubbed the heel of his palm against his eyes again, forcing the tears away even though they kept returning.
His voice thinned into a whimper.
"Mother… if you're there… just try to forget about me."
He sucked in a tight breath.
"Because I don't.... I don't want to be hurt anymore."
A quiet sob escaped from his throat.
"Because it hurts too much."
----------
That night sleep never came to Raviel.
So he went to the gym and started training with his katana.
Raviel swung his katana through the air, each strike was clumsy at first but improved little by little.
Suddenly, his Arctic buzzed. He paused mid-swing, sweat dripping from his brow, and glanced at the holographic notification that appeared in front of him.
[ Reminder: N.O.V.A Academy entrance exam tomorrow.]
He let out a small, tired chuckle, wiping his hand across his face.
"Right," he muttered, shoulders sagging as he leaned on the katana for a moment. "I should aim for something now."