Rosalia — POV
"You useless girl! Is this all that’s left of your salary this month? How could you spend money so wastefully? Didn’t I tell you your brother needs a new computer for school? I said to save every cent! So where is the missing 1,000 dollar ? Huh? Tell , you unfilial daughter! You should be grateful I haven’t thrown you out—still unmarried and without a real job. Everyone else in this family is doing well... except you."
Her voice cracked against like a whip—thick, frayed, and rciless.
I sat on the bed, head bowed, as if awaiting judgnt for so terrible cri. The truth? My only cri was existing.
This wasn’t new. She had an endless vocabulary for telling I was a disappointnt. You’d think hearing the sa thing for years would make you immune. It doesn’t—it just makes you tired.
I kept silent. Explaining never reached her. She wasn’t looking for answers, only for soone to bla.
My mother—by blood, if not by affection—stood in the center of our cramped room like a general inspecting a battlefield. One hand on her hip, the other jabbing the air at with every sentence.
The air was thick with dust and the faint scent of old detergent. The wardrobe leaned to one side, its hinge protesting whenever opened. The desk was so scratched that the wood beneath peeked through.
? I was a doll left too long in the rain—black hair sticking to my fever-ward forehead, limbs heavy as lead.
But she didn’t notice. Or didn’t care.
"Not only do you waste money, but you also skip work! What are you doing in bed? Is eating and sleeping all you know? You’re nothing like your sisters. Sotis I wonder if you’re even my flesh and blood."
Soft voice, cold blade. The kind of tone that slides in and cuts deep without raising its volu.
I’d wondered the sa thing. At nineteen, I even took a DNA test, praying it would free from her shadow. But no—99.99% match. Fate can be cruel like that.
Four jobs. Weekends, holidays, mornings, nights—restaurant shifts, cashier work, freelance gigs. Every paycheck gone the mont it cleared, funneled into her hands, transford into gifts for my younger brother.
This morning, I’d dragged my fevered body to the hospital. Tests, injections, dicine—1,000 dollar gone. My hands had shaken so badly that I dropped the receipt twice.
But she was only concerned that her golden boy’s computer would have to wait.
"Rosalia! I’m talking to you—where’s your mind?"
I t her gaze, voice flat. "I didn’t skip work. I swapped shifts. And the 1,000 dollar was for dical expenses."
Her face eased instantly at the ntion of work. The hospital part? Ignored.
I’d long stopped expecting concern. I wasn’t the crying child anymore, begging for warmth. My heart had crumpled in on itself years ago.
There was only one person in the world I loved now—Cassel Zancroft.
A few minutes later, her footsteps faded down the hall. The air felt lighter.
I sank into the mattress, springs creaking under , and slipped my hand under the blanket for my phone.
Because honestly—who has ti to beg for love from this family when there’s the greatest villain in the world to admire?
Not just any villain. The villain—Cassel Zancroft of Last Boss in the Apocalypse. The man who could steal your breath with a single scene. Cold, elegant, untouchable. Without him, the novel would collapse into a heap of clichés.
The apocalypse he ruled was a glorious ss—zombies with steel-trap jaws, mutant plants, superpowered humans throwing lightning and ice like party favors.
And Cassel moved through it like a predator who knew his worth—answering to no one, bending to nothing. Even so, he always protected the heroine, shielding her, making everyone believe he was secretly in love with her. His half-brother certainly believed it—enough to use her as bait, even stealing Cassel’s late mother’s rubynecklace for him.
Cassel Zancroft was lethal, but that was exactly why I adored him.
If I could live like him—untouched by opinions, bound by no ties—
I shook my head. Today was update day. Yesterday, the author had promised a "big surprise." My fever was still gnawing at , but my heart was drumming with anticipation.
The curtains were drawn, the room in shadow. I opened the app, thumb trembling as I tapped the latest Chapter.
Then—
The ground dropped out from under .
The words sliced through : fatally wounded... dead.
My breath caught. Tears blurred the screen, hot and relentless.
"Why... why did this happen?"
Last night he’d been fine. No warning. No foreshadowing. And now—dead?
"What the hell is this? You trash author—"
Bang! Bang!
"Be quiet, you idiot girl!" my mother yelled from the hall. "If you’re good enough to yell, you’re good enough to work!"
I ignored her, diving into the comnts. Chaos. Readers furious, devastated, refusing to believe it.
Then the author appeared:
Sweet lon: Yes, your beloved Cassel Zancroft is dead. He was betrayed and poisoned by the heroine and his half-brother, a toxin that disabled his powers. If you want details, keep reading.
"Sweet lon, my ass," I muttered.
"Cassel... Cassel..."
I whispered his na into the stillness, the darkness pressing like a shroud. I didn’t know when I fell asleep—only that I refused to accept it.
Morning light dragged back. The fever was gone, but a hollow ache remained.
No. It hadn’t been a dream. The betrayal, the loss—it was all still there, sharp as broken glass.
"How am I supposed to live in a world where you don’t exist, Cassel?"
At that mont, rage consud .
Not the petty kind of anger that fades after a deep breath—but a roaring inferno, scorching every vein, burning through my chest until I could hardly breathe. It wasn’t just anger. It was grief’s twisted twin, clawing at my ribs from the inside, demanding release.
And in that mont... I wanted nothing from this world except one thing.
One single, absolute thing.
Death.
My world had shattered in the space between one heartbeat and the next. The pieces of my heart lay scattered like glass shards, cutting with every thought. I tilted my head back, not to the sky I could see, but to the heavens I could only imagine, and I prayed—silently, desperately—to the gods.
If there were any gods in this cruel world at all, then let them strike down that wretched author who had destroyed everything I loved... or, failing that, strike down, here and now, and end this agony.
But the silence that followed was the kind that mocked.
No voice answered. No miracle ca.
Perhaps the gods were deaf.
Perhaps they didn’t care.
Or perhaps my pleas were so insignificant that they never even reached their ears.
And so, without the ti to mourn my favorite character, without even the rcy of a mont to swallow the bitter truth that the only fictional soul I had cherished for years was gone... I had to drag myself back to reality.
I had to go to work.
The irony stung like salt in a fresh wound.
I left early that morning—what I’d told my mother the night before hadn’t been a lie. I truly had traded shifts with a coworker after feeling ill yesterday.
So I did what I’d always done: I pressed down my sorrow, cramd it into the darkest box in my mind, and hurled it into the bottomless pit inside .
Then I washed my face—just enough to look human—and stepped outside.
If you’re wondering about lunch... don’t. I honestly can’t rember the last ti I sat at the dinner table with my family.
There are six of us in total. Besides my "loving" mother and her spoiled youngest son, I have three elder sisters. And as my mother proudly reminds , all of them are "successful" and "special."
The eldest is a psychiatrist, married to another doctor. The second is a teacher. The third is a housewife, already a mother of two.
So technically... my mother’s claim that I am the only "crooked branch" on our perfect little family tree isn’t entirely wrong.
...Oh, except for—
My stupid little brother, who at that exact mont was standing in my way.
God above, I didn’t have the patience for this. Not here. Not in this reeking alley, littered with trash and shadows. I had sowhere to be. If I didn’t get to work on ti, my manager’s wrath would be another storm to weather—and I was already drowning.
The alley was narrow, its air heavy with the stench of damp rot. A group of rowdy high school boys was shoving and shouting, their voices echoing off the stained walls.
One glance was all it took. The rainbow-colored hair, the cheap leather jackets, the swagger that scread "wannabe gangsters." Nothing about them spelled "good news."
And in the center of the chaos—like a dark fla—stood a boy with jet-black curls, silver earrings catching the dim light, leather clothes clinging to his wiry fra. He gripped a wooden board and swung it with reckless force at soone’s shoulder.
That lawless brat was my little brother.
The spoiled son my mother had raised was raised in a perfect storm of arrogance and impulsivity.
By now, it was far too late to fix him. Not that I hadn’t tried. I’d attempted to discipline him before, but my mother would always storm in—yelling, hitting, accusing of cruelty. Eventually, I stopped.
So I did what I always did—looked for a way out. I turned my head, scanning for another route. I didn’t have the strength or the will to get dragged into my brother’s chaos.
Especially not from soone who neither liked nor respected .
"The cops are here! Everyone! Run."
The shout cracked the air like a whip.
I glanced back just in ti to see the pack scatter, sprinting straight toward . Behind them, officers charged, batons raised, the clatter of their boots echoing in the alley.
I stepped aside instinctively—at least, I tried to—when a rough hand clamped down on my shoulder and spun around.
The face that greeted was far too familiar. The sharp lines, the narrowed eyes, the sneer—it was like seeing my mother’s rage bottled inside a teenage boy.
"Rosalia!" he spat, venom dripping from every syllable. "It’s you! You called the cops, didn’t you, you filthy snitch!"
If you’re wondering why I didn’t shout back, why I didn’t defend myself—the answer is simple.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to.
It was that I couldn’t.
Like his dear mother, my brother was all impulse and no thought. He didn’t even finish his accusation before yanking my shoulder again and shoving —hard—behind him.
I was already exhausted, still weak from the illness I hadn’t fully recovered from.
And that single push...
That single, thoughtless shove... was all it took to end .
I wasn’t so fragile that I would die from hitting the ground. But I wasn’t strong enough to survive the rusted tal rod—thin, jagged, and cruel—that by so dark coincidence was sticking upright exactly where I fell.
It was as if it had been waiting for .
And I... was its victim.
The cold pierced first. Then the pain—sharp, all-consuming, stealing the breath from my lungs before I could scream.
My body crumpled to the filthy tiles, the ground greedily drinking in the heavy crimson spilling from . The color was so deep it looked almost black.
My lashes trembled. My vision swam. And through that haze, I caught sight of my brother’s face—pale, stricken. The scene had frozen him in place; he’d forgotten the police entirely.
I watched as they seized him, snapping cold steel cuffs onto his wrists. He didn’t resist, didn’t even blink—his gaze was fixed on .
I wanted to move.
I wanted to speak.
I wanted to tell him it was all right.
Because despite everything—despite the insults, the fights, the years of distance—he was still my brother. And I... I could never truly hate him.
But my body refused. My limbs were lead. My eyes, so heavy, would not stay open.
Slowly... painfully... I let them close.
The last word that echoed in my mind was bitter and sharp: Damn it.
That morning, I had wished for the death of the author—or my own.
How cruel you are, heavens. You’ve ignored every plea I’ve made since I was a child, yet the one ti I wish for death, it cos within the hour? You didn’t even give ti to take it back.
If I had known my wish would be granted so swiftly, I would have wished for sothing else—sothing that mattered.
I would have wished for Cassel. For his return. For one chance to et him.
But the world is rciless.
Cassel... it seems I truly cannot live in a world where you do not exist.
And so, my body grew cold. My breath stilled. My soul... slipped silently from this cruel, unfeeling world.
And that... was the end of .
Or at least, that’s what I thought.
To be continued...
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