"You know you're screwed when your most powerful weapon is a well-timed roast."
Sleep was a myth.
Or maybe a luxury Alex couldn't afford anymore.
He lay on the creaky mattress in Lia's glitch-laced hideout, staring at a flickering neon sign outside the busted window. The word "ARCADE" blinked like a dying star, casting sickly blue light across the ceiling.
The mattress was thin. The blanket smelled like old wires and trauma. But it wasn't the discomfort keeping him up.
It was her.
His mother.
Not the idealized memory. Not the happy snapshots you show therapists to prove you once smiled.
No—this was raw. Gritty. Unfiltered like a bad indie movie.
A kitchen.
Cramped.
Smelling of burnt coffee and hopelessness.
A woman—barely holding herself together—slumped in a chair, trying to smile through exhaustion like it was lipstick.
A little boy, no older than seven, standing in the hallway, clutching a chipped plastic dinosaur. Watching. Silent. Powerless.
He hadn't meant to remember.
But trauma doesn't ask permission.
He whispered to the darkness, "Mom…"
And the memory answered.
"You're special, Alex," she had said once, brushing crumbs off his hair. "But special doesn't mean easier."
He'd laughed at the time. Thought it was just a weird mom-ism. One of those cryptic things adults said before microwaving sadness for dinner.
But now?
He got it.
Special meant broken in ways no one knew how to fix.
It meant being the punchline in a cosmic joke with no laugh track.
Suddenly, his System glowed. A warm, pulsing heat that came from inside his chest—like his bones were trying to scream.
[System Update: Emotional Threshold reached.]
New Spell Unlocked:
Memory Lash – Level 1
"A whip of condensed pain and sarcasm that deals emotional and physical damage."
He sat up slowly.
Chest tight.
Fists clenched.
It wasn't just magic anymore. It wasn't a glitch. It was his story—his pain, his trauma, and his sarcasm twisted into a weapon.
And he was just getting started.
Lia was already awake, typing code with one hand and drinking black coffee with the other like it was oxygen.
"Morning, insomnia incarnate," she said without looking up. "You look like shit soaked in nightmares."
Alex dragged himself toward the training area—an abandoned warehouse behind the arcade where forgotten spellbooks gathered dust and broken arcade cabinets whispered curses.
"Y'know," he muttered, stretching his aching limbs, "I miss when mornings started with cartoons and not emotional trauma."
Lia tossed him a cracked mirror.
"Lesson one: weaponize your insecurities."
He raised a brow. "Wow. That's either therapy or a war crime."
"Look at yourself," she said, her tone cold. "And say the most brutal truth you can. Then channel it."
Alex stared into the mirror.
Tired eyes. Unwashed hair. Trauma under the skin like bruises that never healed. He looked like someone who'd lost a war and got blamed for starting it.
He exhaled.
"Hey. You're the disappointment even your dog would ghost."
CRACK!
A black whip exploded from his hand—dark, electric, volatile—snapping through the air like a scream turned into a weapon. It split a wooden crate across the room like a soggy napkin.
Lia whistled. "Not bad. You just weaponized self-loathing."
Alex's hand trembled.
"This doesn't feel like magic."
"It's not," she said, stepping closer. "It's emotion. You're literally bleeding memories into your spells."
He didn't know whether to be impressed or horrified.
Lia walked him toward the far side of the training area. In the shadows, something moved.
A pile of black smoke pulsed with negative energy, glowing red eyes flickering like tiny hellfires.
"What… is that?" Alex asked.
"That," Lia said, pulling out her stun baton, "is a Shadow Spawn. Born from collective city misery. This one fed on breakups, student loans, and political discourse."
The smoke snarled and took shape—gnarled claws, twisted limbs, and a mouth full of TV static.
"Therapy just got real aggressive," Alex muttered, summoning his whip.
The creature lunged.
Alex dodged on instinct and shouted:
"Did your mom build you in a dumpster or did trash just volunteer?"
[Spell Activated: Memory Lash – Level 1]
The whip struck the Spawn's chest—dark energy searing through its smoky body. The creature reeled, letting out a screech that sounded like a Twitter argument.
It stumbled…
Then adapted.
Its shape solidified. Its claws sharpened.
"Oh, cool," Alex groaned. "It levels up on trauma. Just like me. We're trauma twins!"
It came again—faster, harder.
He rolled to the side, scraping his palms on the cement. Blood smeared across his hand.
"Okay, alright, lesson two," Lia called out. "Your insults need to evolve faster than your enemies."
"How about a 'Please Die' spell?"
He stood, whip pulsing with his heartbeat.
The beast roared.
He gritted his teeth. "You're not even a monster. You're a walking midlife crisis with a superiority complex!"
This time, the lash ripped through the creature's form, tearing away chunks of darkness like peeling bark from a tree.
It howled.
So did he—inside.
Because every time he lashed out, he felt it.
The loneliness.
The grief.
The little boy who never got to say goodbye.
The battle turned into a rhythm.
Pain. Insult. Spell. Repeat.
The Shadow Spawn clawed into the air; Alex lashed back, sometimes dodging, sometimes tanking hits like emotional punches.
He stumbled but kept going.
"You look like depression had a baby with a garbage disposal!"
Whip. Crack. Spark.
"You're not scary, you're just loud, like an ex who texts in all caps!"
Whip. Slash. Burn.
He felt it all—his rage, his childhood, every teacher who said he wouldn't make it, every night spent alone wondering if he was cursed.
It became his fuel.
The final blow?
"You're the living embodiment of every reason I have trust issues!"
BOOM.
The Shadow Spawn disintegrated in a burst of ash and psychic pain.
Alex dropped to his knees, gasping. His entire body shook like it had relived every trauma in thirty seconds.
Lia clapped slowly.
"Congratulations," she said. "You just insulted a demon to death."
They sat in silence afterward, both leaning against broken machines.
Alex stared at his hands.
They trembled.
"These spells…" he said. "They're not just jokes. They're… me."
"Yup."
"And that monster—it didn't just feed on sadness. It felt familiar."
Lia nodded.
"Because it was. The city's grief. Yours. Mine. This place is full of it."
He laughed—bitter and sharp.
"So what am I? A depressed spellcaster with sass?"
"You're a coping mechanism that became a weapon," she replied.
He stared at her.
And for a second—just a second—he didn't feel like a walking glitch.
He felt real.
Raw. Wounded. But real.
"I don't know if I'm a hero," he muttered.
Lia shrugged.
"Sometimes? Heroes are just the last assholes standing when everything burns."
He smiled. Not big. But real.
Maybe the world didn't need a perfect savior.
Maybe it needed him—flawed, fractured, and furious.
That night, as he lay in the corner of the hideout with a warm soda and cold pizza, the System buzzed.
[System Upgrade Complete]
New Feature: Memory Inventory
You can now store specific memories and emotions to enhance or modify spells.
Memory Added: "Mom at the Kitchen Table" — Boosts emotional damage spells by 20%.
Memory Added: "First Foster Home" — Unlocks passive ability: Resilience of the Rejected.
He stared at the screen.
This wasn't just spellcasting anymore.
This was remembering with purpose.
Elsewhere—deep in a palace made of fractured time and dark glass—Lucan Zelios watched the battle unfold through magical projections.
He sipped from a glass of stardust like a god watching ants.
"He's syncing with the system faster than expected," Lucan muttered.
Beside him, a girl with lips sewn shut and skin covered in shifting ink stood silently.
"Shall I prepare the collapse?" her voice echoed directly into his mind.
Lucan's eyes glowed.
"No. Let him fight. Let him grow. Let him think he's strong."
He turned toward a shard showing Alex smiling for the first time in years.
"And when he learns hope?"
He crushed the shard.
"I'll teach him the cost."