I am 15 chapters ahead on my patreón, check it out if you are interested.
https://www.patréon.com/emperordragon
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Chapter One: The Problem Child
They say your life flashes before your eyes right before you die.
But that didn't happen to me.
There was no slow-motion reel of childhood memories. No poignant last thoughts. No final goodbyes whispered to the void. Just a sudden, jarring stop.
One second, I was crossing the street like I had a hundred times before. Earbuds jammed in, music blasting loud enough to drown out the world. I wasn't paying attention—because why would I? The walk sign was green. The sun was out. It was just another regular day in a long string of forgettable ones.
Then: the shriek of a horn. A scream that might've been mine. Tires scraping asphalt like nails across a chalkboard.
Impact.
And then—darkness. Cold, quiet, complete.
But it didn't last.
The silence cracked open with crying. Not just one voice, but dozens. Wails sharp enough to stab the eardrum. Babies. Newborns, screaming like the world itself was an offense to them. And then the light—white, blinding, hospital-white. The air reeked of antiseptic and latex gloves. Something pressed against my skin. A hand?
I opened my eyes, or maybe they opened on their own.
A woman hovered above me, face flushed and soaked with sweat. Her hair stuck to her cheeks, her eyes wild and shining with something I couldn't place—fear, awe, disbelief. She said something I couldn't understand, and then I did what I was supposed to do.
I cried.
It wasn't a choice. It was instinct. A newborn's first breath. My lungs burned. My throat ached.
Because somehow, impossibly, I was alive again.
Not metaphorically. Not some second chance or spiritual awakening. I was actually born. New flesh. Tiny limbs. Zero memories in my tiny brain—except I wasn't exactly empty. Not entirely.
The name they called me at the orphanage was Lucas. No last name. Just Lucas. The file says I was found on the front steps of St. Augustine's Children's Home at two days old, in the early hours of October 6th, 1995. No one saw who left me. There was no note—only my name. No clues. Just a shivering bundle in a threadbare blanket, wailing loud enough to wake the entire dormitory.
The staff assumed I was a fluke, another abandoned infant. The city has a system for kids like me: a report, a file, a government-issued ID number. Then the waiting. Waiting for someone—anyone—to come looking.
No one ever did.
I don't remember my first few years, not really. But I remember feelings. The sensation of being watched. The strange sense that I didn't belong—not just in the orphanage, but in the world. Like I'd been cut from a different thread.
By the time I was three, those instincts sharpened. By five, I was sure of it: I was not a normal child.
I could hear things. Not just the obvious—footsteps in the hallway, whispers in the next room. No, I could hear things no one else could. Thoughts. Regrets. Secrets buried so deep people didn't even realize they were thinking them aloud. I could hear Mr. Callahan counting coins in his jacket pocket, muttering about rent. I could hear the faint tremble in Mrs. Greene's breath when she read letters.
And then there were the smells.
Everyone gives off a scent, but not the kind you'd expect. It wasn't about shampoo or soap or sweat. It was emotional. Fear smelled like copper and vinegar, sharp enough to sting. Anger burned like ash. Joy was like fresh-cut fruit. Guilt was mildew. I could track emotions like a hound dog—sometimes before people even felt them themselves.
It was a curse.
Imagine living in a dormitory with twenty other children, all of them radiating noise and scent and chaos. Their moods flooded the air like secondhand smoke. I couldn't block it out. Not really. I tried plugging my ears. I tried holding my breath. I tried hiding. None of it worked.
Then came the strength.
It started with small things—doors that slammed harder than I meant them to, toys that broke in my hands. But by six, I was different enough for people to notice.
One day, during a meltdown—what the staff called "an episode"—I snapped the metal leg off a desk. I didn't mean to. I didn't even know I could. But in that moment, when the pressure inside me peaked, it felt like something ancient was crawling through my veins. Like lightning had a pulse, and it lived in me.
The staff panicked. The other kids scattered. They called me a danger. Unstable. Violent.
They wrote it on my file in red ink: Problem Child.
And maybe they were right. I am a problem. I feel things too strongly, and when I lose control, things break.
But I'm not a monster. Not yet.
So I adapted. I learned to manage it the only way I could—by going inward.
Meditation. Breathing techniques. Yoga routines from a book no one bothered to lock away. I made a little sanctuary behind the orphanage, where the grass grows patchy and a gnarled old tree stands alone like it forgot to die.
It's quiet there. Peaceful. My only safe space.
That's where I was when it happened.
Sitting cross-legged in the dirt, eyes closed, breathing slow and steady. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Repeat. My mind had gone soft at the edges. My senses dimmed.
Then—snap.
A sound. A presence. Something slicing the air behind me.
I moved on instinct, hand rising to sheild my neck. Pain bloomed in my palm. I opened my eyes to see it—a dart, black and sleek, metal tip catching the light.
Poison?
Sleep came over me in waves, fast and final. I tried to stand, but my limbs betrayed me. The grass tilted. The sky melted. The ground yawned open beneath me.
As darkness closed in, as everything went silent again, a single thought echoed louder than anything I'd ever heard:
What the hell is happening to me?