From the moment he first opened his eyes, I knew he was not alive to live. I was alive to be used. I didn't know games or fairy tales. I only knew the cold of metal, the smell of chemicals and the faceless voices that spoke to me as if I were nothing more than a tool.
I was part of a project. An experiment.
From the time I was a newborn, I was separated from anything that could be called childhood. They molded my body, manipulated my senses and forced my mind through endless training. I was locked in an icy dungeon, where gray was the only color that existed. There were no toys, no books, not even materials to create. They only gave me paper and pencil, waiting for me to fill pages with plans, formulas, theories... Not because they believed in me, but because they needed to steal my ideas.
I was "the genius. The best inventor in the world, they said. The boy who could change the future. But they never let me dream of one. Their fear was stronger than their admiration. So when I became too dangerous, they decided to lock me up forever.
But before that confinement, I was not entirely alone. I had... friends. A bright, reckless girl with a smile so strong that it made me forget the confinement, and a silent, astute boy who understood pain without the need for words. They were also test subjects, just like me. We bonded out of necessity, out of empathy, out of that crazy hope for freedom. They sought me out, talked to me, made me laugh..... even when I didn't know how.
And I know they came to me because they believed that, together, we could escape. Because they believed I held the key to breaking our shackles. And yes, a part of me wanted to free them too.
But when they locked me up for good, when they threw me into the darkest corner of the compound... I discovered that they were gone. They had escaped. They had used my ideas, my inventions, my madness to escape. And they didn't take me with them.
Maybe they did it for me. Maybe they thought it would protect me. Maybe it was selfishness. I don't know. I only know that they left me behind.
Years of loneliness broke me. Day after day, my hope withered. I no longer had the strength to even feel. When the poison began to eat away at me from the inside, I knew I was near the end.
And then he appeared.
It had no face. It had no body. It was like a shadow among shadows. Like a television without a signal. I called him "the Visionary".
I didn't know what it was. I didn't know if he was real. But his words ignited something inside me. Something I thought was dead.
"You will receive a friend."
I was silent. A friend? What kind of friend? How could I choose the gender of someone I didn't know yet? I didn't know what to do with that information. However, without thinking too much about it, I replied.
-If it's a man, it would be a good brother. If female, a confusing friendship...because women are incomprehensible. Let fate decide.
The Visionary ascended, as if he already knew what I was going to say next.
"Besides," he continued, "that friend will be in a secret space, which only you will be able to enter, unless you die."
My thoughts were so clouded with fatigue and venom that I could barely process his words. And then, at last, he offered me something that seemed even stranger than everything else: a new life in a place called Otome Game.
What did that mean? I didn't understand. But something inside me, a curiosity dulled by years of suffering, awakened. Would this be my chance? My chance to escape this endless cycle of pain and manipulation?
I didn't know what awaited me, but in that moment, all I could do was nod. It didn't matter if I understood what it meant or not. Something inside me told me I had to do it.