By Xelztra


    (Xel’s Story)


    Page 1


    He was born in silence—no celebration, no gentle words, no warmth. Xel came into the world on a night when the hospital lights flickered from a passing storm. His mother turned away when she heard his first cry, and his father never looked at him. They didn’t want a child—they wanted something to blame. From his earliest memories, Xel knew his existence was a burden. The small apartment they lived in was never a home, just a cage with peeling walls and broken windows. Love was not spoken there. It was replaced by bruises, shouting, and the sound of glass breaking.


    By the time he could walk, Xel had learned to stay quiet. He’d sit in corners and trace shapes into the floor with broken pencils. He didn’t cry when he was hit. Crying made it worse. When he was six, he once asked his mother why she never held him. She slapped him so hard he forgot what day it was. School wasn’t an escape either—it was just a larger prison. Teachers ignored him. Kids mocked his ragged clothes and blank stares. He had no name to them—just “that weird kid.” The one who talked to no one. The one who didn’t fight back.


    He’d eat lunch in bathroom stalls, shivering beside cracked tiles. The loneliness didn’t scare him. He was used to it. It was the only thing that felt consistent. Nights were the worst. He’d stare at the ceiling in the dark, his ribs aching from the belt, his mind playing pretend. In his head, he was someone else—anyone else. Someone with a voice. Someone who mattered. But every morning, the mirror would remind him: he was still Xel. Still forgotten. Still invisible. He began to believe that maybe that’s all he would ever be.


    Page 2


    Sometimes he would sit on the rooftop of his building, his legs dangling over the edge, and imagine what it would feel like to fall. Not to die—just to finally let go. He didn’t want to end his life; he wanted to end the pain of being unwanted. It was different. He didn’t hate the world, not yet. He just hated the way it never noticed him. The way people could walk past him every day and never once meet his eyes. He often wondered if he disappeared—would anyone care? Would anyone even know?


    It wasn’t just physical pain that carved into him. It was the emotional silence. The kind that screamed louder than fists ever could. His parents fought each other more than they noticed him. Sometimes days would pass without either of them acknowledging he existed. There were nights he’d lie awake, listening to the sound of things breaking in the next room, wishing one of them would come in—even just to hit him. At least that would mean they saw him. He felt like a ghost trapped in his own life.


    Still… a piece of him held on. A small, flickering ember that refused to die. Maybe it was a dream. Maybe it was stubbornness. Maybe he was just waiting for someone—anyone—to notice the hurt behind his silence. And one day… someone did.


    Page 3


    He met her on a cold morning. The sky was gray, and the halls were louder than usual. He had just been shoved into a locker by some upperclassmen, his books spilled across the floor. No one helped. No one ever helped. But she did. A girl with paint-stained fingers and a notebook full of sketches. Her name was Eira. She didn’t say much—just knelt beside him, picked up his torn notebook, and gave him a small smile like he mattered. Like he was real. That smile stayed with him for weeks.


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    Eira started sitting near him at lunch. She didn’t ask about his bruises. She didn’t make jokes or pity him. She just… existed beside him. Like a gentle warmth in a life full of frost. She would talk about stars, art, places she’d never been. Her voice was soft, but it filled the hollow places inside Xel. They built a fragile friendship in the cracks of their broken lives. It was the first time Xel truly smiled—not because he was told to, but because he wanted to. She made life bearable. Maybe even worth something.


    But even with her, he never told the full truth. Not about the beatings. Not about the nights without food. Not about the dreams of disappearing. He was afraid that if she knew, she’d leave like everyone else. So he said nothing. But sometimes, when she talked about her own family—her bruised arms, her mother who disappeared, the fear in her voice when she mentioned her father—he realized they were both drowning in different oceans. And that bond made him cling to her even tighter.


    Page 4


    He began to live for her. Every day, he looked forward to her voice, her presence. They had their secret place: the old train yard beyond the woods. Abandoned and covered in graffiti, but to them, it was sacred. There, they weren’t broken kids. They were something else. Something untouched by the cruelty of the world. He started drawing again, because she told him to. Started smiling, because she made it feel okay. And somewhere in his hollow chest, hope began to bloom—slow, cautious, but real.


    On a Monday, he decided. He was going to tell her. He wrote it all down—his feelings, his truth. “You saved me, Eira. I love you. I don’t know what love really is, but if it’s warmth and light and the reason I wake up—it’s you.” He folded the letter three times, tucked it into his jacket, and ran to school with something he hadn’t felt in years: nervous excitement. She wasn’t in homeroom. He thought maybe she was late. But by lunch, she still hadn’t come.


    When school ended, he raced to the train yard, heart thudding like thunder. But she wasn’t there. The tracks were quiet. He waited for an hour. Then two. Then… sirens. In the distance. Blazing red and blue. He ran toward them. And the closer he got, the slower the world became.


    Page 5


    She was gone.


    The crowd said suicide. The whispers said abuse. The officers said the father had finally snapped—forced her to take her own life in a locked room before he fled. Xel didn’t hear it all. He just saw the stretcher, the body bag, the world collapsing inward. The letter in his jacket turned to ash in the rain. His mind split. The color drained from the sky. The hope he’d carried—shattered beyond repair.


    He didn’t go home that night. He wandered until his legs gave out. He screamed into empty alleys. He cursed a god he didn’t believe in. Then, somewhere between despair and delirium, the world split open. A tear in the sky. A rift. A voice that said, “Come.” He didn’t resist. He had nothing left to lose. And so, Xel vanished from the world that had never wanted him… into the one that would soon fear him.