Hmmmmm so this is something new for me. I've read a lot of OC fics (probably too many), but there's never a lot where the OC has no knowledge of canon. I mean there's a few where they came from our world and caught glimpses of it, enough to know they were in the anime world. So this is my little spin on things.
-A Brief Prologue-
He never wanted it to turn out this way, however he had made a mistake and was now facing the consequences. The damage had been done, but that didn't mean it had to stay done. If he could just tweak one moment in time, everything would be saved. Not everyone, but everything that mattered. The ends would justify the means, right?
No.
They wouldn't. Not when those who would have to die would stand over your shoulder as you trample upon their unmarked graves. Not when the injured would be forced to limp their way to their death bed. No death would be justified. Mass murder could never be justified. But is it necessary?
Perhaps.
In this dark and depressing world we've created with coated hands and broken fingers, perhaps. With our fettered feet, shackled with the responsibilities given to us by our society, we step over and on those in our path, that's just how it is. Everyone knows. The weak fall, the strong take what they can from the fallen. Those who can survive, will. Those left are nothing but a failed path to avoid.
This is how the world of Eluned works, social Darwinism at its finest. There's no need for faith when death stands at the street corner, waiting to accept another; it's always waiting to accept us all.
Can society change? Yes.
Will it? Probably not. The rules of our world are ingrained into the stone that built the houses we live in. The streets we walk on. The words of our faith are carved into every hand we hold and every shoulder we brush past.
As for Rowan, well, he's just another path to step around. A mistake for others to avoid. An example for the world to show what happens when you walk the course of the weak. The cannon fodder of the strong, shields to protect against the reality of poverty. The poor bastard had never seen it coming, they never do. The rest of us always will see it half a mile away.
Well, who can really tell their fate besides those around you? A person will always deny their destiny when they see it. After time, you might accept it, but will you really? Will you not defy what you believe is your fate? What if, perhaps, the denial you tried so hard to achieve, was nothing but the course of your destiny? A desperate refusal turning out to be a deterministic nihilist's wet dream. Wouldn't that be ironic?
Such is the life of Rowan. Weakling extraordinaire turned psychotic cannon fodder. Life sucks when your youth is taken and twisted around. All the while, you stand there without a clue, thinking that life is so unfair. You're right.
Life is unfair. But what can you do? Defy it? Join the rebellion and slowly change the way your story is written? However, with that your path to the end is only rewritten. The ending is stagnant and unchanging, but the path is filled with twists and turns that are always switching and molding itself. After all, why would someone read a story without a good plot twist? What's the fun in that?
A harsh beginning always suits a protagonist. Reality cruelly playing with the emotions, twisting our hero's feelings and relationships. Should we give our main character a dead mother, a massacred family, a life on the streets? How about a new world that toys with them as they desperately try to change the upcoming future? A butterfly effect? It's a simple game of character history roulette. Personality? Why, they should be cold and stoic. Or, perhaps, caustic with a major helping of sarcasm. What if, we went for the obscure and did a timid but damaged little thing?
Oh wait, that's not obscure.
Oh, we apologize, that's a bit too harsh on our creators isn't it? Not that we are exempt from this criticism, after all, our dart board only has so many spaces. Who's to say that our little hero won't be exactly as described? Regardless, it's time to begin.
Take a book off of the shelf. Preferably, the plainest you can find. The correct one is never the showiest. It's always the one with a worn and peeling cover, pages yellow and stained, with corners bent out of shape by age and abuse. A book kept for a lifetime. The pages are blank, except of course for the beginning and end. Because those, as always, are the only pages that will never change. The start will always remain the same and the end will always end. The only thing that will ever stray from course is, as we said before, the journey.
Such is the life of any citizen in our world. Rowan was no different, he held close to his heart the tome detailing his beginning and his end. The pages slowly filled as he continued towards his inevitable end. A shame that he didn't read ahead, if he had, perhaps his story would be a bit longer. At least this time, he can at hopefully reach a satisfying length, or maybe it will be even shorter. Only time will tell. There are only so many pages to write before he runs out, so he must make a decision quickly. Otherwise his sequel will never be written.
Of course, he will need to find his book first. Whether it's in the local library, a friend's house, or laying in the middle of the road, he will have to find it. What he does next is up to him, regardless if he is going to take over the world, or kill himself. We have no place to decide. Watching is our career, livelihood, and entertainment. We wonder, which path will Rowan take up? A person of the strong, stepping over those too weak to help themselves? A person crushed by reality? Or a mix of the two? Whatever he picks, we'll be right there. Awaiting his choices, we will read each line as they appear to both us and to him. I'm curious as to how this story will write itself. We shall only meet again at the end.
Chapter One
-People With Shiny Boots Are Never To Be Trusted-
Rowan hated life. He didn't hate being alive, but he hated life itself. He hated how it would take all that was dear to anyone and snatch it all away. Slowly choking the public by stuffing despair down the throats of all who dared to be happy, life was cruel. Rowan was not a hateful person, but society drowned out his hope, his pride, and his family. No longer would he wait for a second chance. Look what happened to him. Shoved aside and trampled upon, he was no longer respected. Not that there had ever been many to respect him.
Really he hated society. The way this world had been built robbed all those unfortunate to have been born outside of the first class of a chance to survive. In a kill or be killed world, every hand was stained. Rowan's included.
His life had been rough. Born to an average middle class, he struggled. He struggled with a desire to change the world, to dismantle the foundation that his world was based upon. But of course, reality fought back. It fought tooth and nail to tear his ideals apart, uncaring as to who else it took down with him. And take him down it did.
Rowan didn't really remember how he ended up laying in the middle of a gravel road 70 kilometers from his home. Perhaps it was the teasing lights that drew him from his bed that night. Little wisps of flames, blinking faintly as he followed them. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense.
The next bit was a blur. All he remembered was a blast of wind and a blast of pain. They might have been in that order, they might have been switched. He didn't know. Rowan only knew that he had been fine when he left his home. His mom had barely shot a glance at him as he had walked out of the door, as per usual. He had made it to the edge of the forest and after that, it was all a big mess. Did he make it into the forest? Did he not? Did he die before reaching those damned flames? Rowan would never know.
Well, he could. He could find out fairly easily, aside from the whole you-can't-be-dead-for-this part. All he'd have to do is find his Opus. He'd had it on him before he fell, so now he just needed to reach for it.
Rowan did exactly that. Stretching his arm as far down as it would go, he reached for the pocket on his thigh. His eyes widened when he couldn't feel the bump that was always there. It was gone. Did he drop it? Did someone take it? No one would touch another's book, that's just not done. It went against all rules of this twisted world and no one would dare break the rules. So, where was it?
He blindly reached his arm out, desperate to feel the pages. His fingers grasped at the rough gravel that surrounded him. After what felt like an eternity, he felt the familiar paper. However, it was too thin to be the entire book. A jolt of fear washed through him at the thought of a destroyed Opus. What if whatever caused his fall had destroyed his book? Stories of those with damaged books raced through his head.
People with broken stories were never the same. Weaker than the others and shattered emotionally, they were different. Legends that could never be finished, beginnings that were lost. Losing your book had consequences that could never be absolved. Soon after it's lost, the Opus' protagonist stops too. Without the story, how could they continue on? They either sink into a lasting depression or turn into a vegetable. Regardless, whether mentally or physically, they halt for the rest of their life. If their lives ever end. Some legends say that those broken are unable to die because of the missing end.
And now Rowan would become one of those lost. Fated to drift listlessly through his life. Unless, of course, he found all of his pages.
Pulling his strength towards his arms, he lifted his body. It hurt to move his head, but he couldn't stop now. The gravel bit into his palms as he held his body weight up until he could see the pages scattered around him. Rowan desperately reached towards them all, halting when he felt himself slide to the ground.
He had to keep going. How could he survive with a broken Opus? Drawing his determination, Rowan grabbed the first page, fingertips scratched and scraped bloodied the page's corner. He reached for the next. And the next.
Slowly he gathered more until he reached the last few. His stack grew, but was shorter than what he thought it'd be. He couldn't be missing pages could he? He'd never heard of anyone with missing pages. Did they lose memories of events, or did they just stop?
He frantically skimmed through the page numbers. 1, 2, 3, he counted them all until he reached the end. They were all there. How could that be? Something wasn't right, the book should be thicker. Was this a trick of some sort?
He could deal with that once he fixed the matter at hand. You know, the not dying part. As he stretched his arm out towards the last page, a foot ever so delicately stepped on the edge before he could snag it.
The boot shined ominously with the light of the fading flame wips glinting lightly in the background. Rowan didn't want to see the owner of said boots. People with overly shined boots usually never had good intentions.
The paper beneath the unknown shoe crunched as whoever it was shifted their weight. Rowan's heart stopped at the sound.
"So this is the brat boss asked me to check out. Doesn't seem to be worth much to me." The stranger spoke with a lilting accent that would have been soothing in any other situation.
It took a moment for the words to sink in, "I'll have you know that I am worth at least 3 more than whatever worth you've placed on me!" Which was a lie, but the stranger didn't know that. For all they knew, Rowan was worth millions. In reality it was that minus seven zeros.
"Sure. Think what you want, but I've got orders to go through with. You've got something we've been looking for." Rowan could see their face by now. Scars that you'd think would be there were strangely missing. Their face was clean of everything except for eyes, a nose, and a mouth. No eyebrows or hairline in sight, though that could just be a trick of the light.
This was very strange for a henchman. They were normally covered in scars that coated their body and told their story. Not that Rowan had met any previously.
Henchy the henchman looked disgruntled at his staring and silence, "You dead already? Or are you just daft?" They nudged their foot to the side of his head as if they were prodding roadkill on the road with a stick. The thought of being roadkill brought Rowan back to his situation. Laying on the road, a stack of loose pages in front of him, and a strange Henchy that hadn't quite threatened him but also hasn't not threatened him.
Rowan's head shot up as he remembered what Henchy had just said. "Wait, what did you say I had that you needed?"
"I didn't." And wasn't that just wonderful. Henchy was playing hard to get and being rude again. Mentally grumbling, Rowan thought over all that he'd stolen over his short life. He came up with a fat zero. Aside from the cash, he hadn't really stolen any items. Especially not anything noteworthy.
The stranger peered down at Rowan, "I bet you've no idea what we want." The stranger gave a strangely wide smile as he spoke, effectively cementing the impression of a villain's grunt that Rowan had been building in his mind. Briefly, Rowan wondered if the head honcho had his lair in a volcano or if it was a mountain.
Oh right. He'd been spoken to a second ago. "You'd be right to assume so," Rowan muttered. It'd be better in the long run not to be too forthcoming with a new enemy.
As soon as he uttered his last words, a too shiny boot slammed into his spine. It dug deep into his bones and oh man did it hurt. Rowan shrieked as he tried to roll over, to shake off the foot, to do anything to stop the pain that lit up his entire back. However, the moment he moved, the boot shifted as if Rowan was a spider that Henchy spotted on the floor. This accurately described how Rowan was feeling at the moment. He figured that at this point, he'd become paralysed from the shoulders down. He couldn't feel his feet, but that could have been the massive boot stomping all feeling out of his soul.
"You don't know, eh? Then that makes what's about to happen so much easier" Henchy's smile grew to what should have been an impossible size. It stretched from ear to ear, in the most literal sense of the phrase. With eyes narrowed dangerously and cheeks split from the strain of the not-quite-a-smile smile, it was a very intimidating expression.
Rowan's heart stuttered and his voice followed suit, "H-hey, that's a bit too cliche for this situation, don't you think? Maybe you should try a different appr-"
The ever-growing pressure that had been attacking his nerves reached their peak. Suddenly Rowan's world was alight. Lit with pain, memories, and regrets. His heart stuttered once more, skipping at least two beats. (Always an overachiever, as his mother would say.) A pause. Again, it stuttered, but this time when it happened, Rowan's heart had nothing left to stutter with.
His arm reached out in between the stutterings and stammerings of his voice and heart; he was desperate. Desperate to reach that final page he'd forgotten about when facing those shiny boots. Too shiny. Black was never meant to be shiny, you know. It was meant to absorb, so why would it need to shine? Things are meant to follow their designs. Their outlines, their fates. Isn't that why things are where they are? Why people are here?
Rowan had never read the last pages of his Opus, he'd always preferred surprise over resignation. If he had, would he have seen this coming? Would he have been able to avoid the wisps? It didn't matter now because it was too late.
Too late?
Too late?
His eyes shuttered closed. Caught up in the flashes of remembrances and memories, he couldn't help being dissatisfied. He'd never done anything worth mentioning. Never been in a relationship, nor had a close friend. Rowan lived life surrounded by books and his mother. What a life. He supposed it was time to close the curtains for now. Let the actors and orchestra take a bow, it's time for the next performance. He's heard they're performing a masterpiece, unparalleled by modern arts. The composer's pièce de résistance. A statement to the world.
Rowan wondered whether his life contained any sort of thing. Had he done anything noteworthy? Anything worth such admiration or praise? All questions came to the answer of no. Rowan had lived a safe life. That was it. In a way then, as the most exciting part of his life, one could say that his death was his magnum opus. Never again will he reach a milestone as important as death. What a sad life, truly and utterly depressing. Rowan cut that line of thought before it could become too disastrous.
His eyes darkened slowly as his eyelids dropped. It was hard enough to stay awake when thinking, but now that his thoughts had calmed, it was near impossible. (Strike that and rewrite completely impossible)
Rowan barely caught the flash of flames that danced around him with the closing of his eyes. Heat surrounded him as the pressure on his spine evaporated. The last thing he saw, a fleeting image that would stay with him for the rest of his life, was the sight of flames rising. They were consuming every last bit of him. Blue flame, orange, red, any color he could see, he saw.
And then it was cold. Cold and wet, a sinking feeling that drifted from his barely there mind to his definitely-not-there-anymore stomach. It was the type of cold that hit kids walking home from school in the rain after forgetting an umbrella. Walking somewhere they'd rather not be, all the while being pounded on all sides by pinpricks of frigid downpour. On the brink of pain, utterly miserable and completely pathetic.
He couldn't breathe. It felt like his entire rib cage was being sucked into his chest. A vacuum had nestled itself into his lungs and decided to take the rest of him with them. His eyes bolted open, frantic to see what other mess he'd dragged himself into. However, he only saw a rippling moon above him. Shaking and swirling, the moon danced in light of his desperation. The water around him tugged at his limbs in an effort to draw him into a ritual to music mute to his ears. It hurt. The pull of his chest right before water began to fill his lungs. His mother warned him of the lake. She always said that lungs were like a sponge: they soak up water with ease, and weigh down the world. Soon his chest would be too crowded, lovingly packed with drops of the sky above until there was no room for him.
It was then that he realized he wanted to die. To be free of this cliche'd mess that he'd landed in. Free of the pain that bit at every inch of his skin, whether it was from overly shined boots, or from the unforgiving nip of ice. He wanted to be released from this prison he'd been thrown into.
Maybe his wish had been heard, because the sky above slowly faded from his stinging eyes. His lungs were full of stars, his eyes clouded by the moon, and his limbs languidly danced with the waves. He was so tired. The music had stopped and as the conductor, he must take a bow. His piece had ended. It was time for the next performance.
Before the curtains closed, Rowan realized something. He realized that his death was no release, it was a sentence for a crime he hadn't committed. And sentences were always just and paid in full in Eluned.
So... That's the prologue and first chapter. I don't like the though of a prologue all by itself out there in the big bad world (it's too short to go alone) so I went ahead and gave the first chapter too. In a way it's like a continuation of the prologue, if you wanna get technical about it.
Semantics aside, I am excited to put this out here. I've been thinking on this for a couple months and I'm a little nervous.
Regardless, I'll see you in the next chapter, where we will see the fate of our dear protagonist.