My name? It never mattered.
Not to my parents.
Not to my teachers.
Not to the faceless crowd that brushed past me every day, as if I didn't exist.
I was born in the fractured heart of Bangladesh, into a middle-class family suffocating beneath poverty, political decay, and the quiet tyranny of money.
No silver spoon. No golden future.
Just dust, silence, and the endless ache of being overlooked.
My parents didn't hurt me.
They didn't even see me.
I was the forgotten one—unseen, unheard. A ghost in my own home, living in the shadow of an older brother born to shine.
At school, I was the kid with worn shoes and empty stomach.
Laughed at. Mocked.
My notebooks thrown in mud, my clothes stained with ink by boys who saw me as entertainment.
When I cried, even the teachers looked away.
I learned early: justice is fiction—at least for people like me.
But I didn't break.
Instead, I read.
I consumed books like a starving man.
Economics. Politics. Physics. Anything that might help me claw my way up—not for fame or money, but to build a future where no one had to live like I did.
I became a voice for the voiceless.
Created jobs from scraps.
Exposed corruption.
I stood beneath the spotlight, not to be seen—but to be heard.
And people did listen.
For a while.
But heroes are dangerous—to the ones in power.
Ministers gathered in dark rooms.
"He's too loud."
"He's making us look weak."
"If he keeps talking, we're finished."
Even my brother—my own blood—turned on me, accusing me of embezzlement.
I begged him. "Why?"
He only smiled.
"You stole the light, little brother. Now it's your turn in the dark."
And the people—those I bled for—believed every word.
They dragged me from my rickshaw on a rainy night.
Iron rods. Boots. Fists.
I saw familiar faces in the crowd: my cousin, old colleagues, even strangers I once fed.
And standing among them... my parents.
"You traitor."
"Thief."
"Burn in hell."
They didn't listen when I choked on my own blood, trying to scream the truth.
As the sky blurred above me, cold and grey, I whispered through broken teeth:
"If I get a second chance… I won't be a hero.
I won't even be human.
I'll become something else…
A monster. A god. A storm they can't control."
"And I'll burn everything I once swore to protect."
Then, in the silence of death, something answered.
"Welcome, forgotten soul."
Was I hallucinating?
Was I finally going mad?
"Do you want revenge... or peace?"
I couldn't answer.
I didn't know.
"You were never chosen.
But here, you will choose."