I AM THE SON OF THE ALMIGHTY FORGOTTEN GOD

What's the point of breathing now?

“I am so sorry for your loss, son.”

The priest’s warm words failed to reach Eugene’s frozen heart. He was still struggling to accept the cruel reality that he had truly lost his mother for good.

Eugene had always believed that his relentless hard work would eventually bear sweet fruit—that Florencia, at the very least, would be able to stay by his side longer. Now, life felt like a hollow, suffocating hell. The mere thought of someone he could call a "father" filled Eugene’s chest with a choking wave of bitter resentment.

He was the primary reason Eugene and Florencia had been forced to endure such a miserable existence in the first place.

“I hope you live a life strangled by disappointment and crushing expectations. Because if your life turns out even slightly better than mine and my mother’s, I swear I will curse whatever god or entity allowed you and me to live like this.” Eugene’s bitter curse directed at his absent father was the final thing he muttered before leaving the public cemetery.

Eugene had no idea what he was supposed to do next. The house felt heavier and more suffocating the moment he stepped inside; his mother’s soft voice seemed to echo faintly in every corner—making it even harder to believe she was gone.

Florencia’s bedroom was spotless and neatly organized. The only lingering trace of her was the signature lavender scent that still clung to every object in the room—even the wooden vanity table where a lone necklace lay resting.

Its chain was crafted from intricately detailed, heavy silver, while the pendant took the shape of a silver mechanical gear with a glowing gold speck right at its center. It was the only tangible thing Florencia had ever kept from Eugene’s father—a man whose name she had never once spoken. Eugene didn't wear the necklace because he held any lingering hope for his father, but simply because it was something Florencia had cherished so fiercely.

He had always wished Florencia would protect him just as fiercely as she protected the necklace resting against his chest. But when Eugene caught his own reflection in the mirror, he gasped, as he watched his irises briefly flash with a fiery, burning hue—vanishing back to normal with a single blink.

Eugene stood paralyzed, wondering if his eyes were playing tricks on him. He touched the pendant; nothing happened—drawing a bitter, self-deprecating laugh as he figured he must be losing his mind. He grabbed his worn-out school bag, its surface frayed with tiny tears, and walked out the door.

School had never been a place Eugene actually liked; it was a breeding ground where privileged kids treated him like a disgusting, penniless orphan. The only reason Eugene had never missed a single day was because he desperately needed a decent diploma to secure a real job. Before, Florencia was the sole reason he pushed forward; now, he had to survive entirely on his own.

The moment he stepped onto the school, however, a sickeningly familiar voice greeted him first.

“Isn’t it funny? You’re the one who almost died yet they buried your mother instead.” Arson stepped closer, holding a white chrysanthemum bouquet in his hand. Eugene’s gaze softened briefly as it flickered to Lune standing beside Arson, before snapping back into an icy glare at the boy.

“Hah! Don’t look at me like I’m the one who choked your mom to death, Genie-boo. But here’s for your ma,” Arson sneered, shoving the bouquet forward before aggressively tossing it onto the floor right at Eugene’s feet, “and that’s for ruining my party.”

Eugene alternated his cold gaze between the crushed flowers and Arson. He had zero energy left to play any of Arson’s pathetic games this morning, but Arson had zero intention of letting him live in peace.

“Pick it up.”

Eugene crouched down to grab the bouquet—he was already far too accustomed to dozens of staring eyes treating him like a school clown—when Arson suddenly slammed the side of his foot into Eugene’s shoulder, sending him sprawling hard onto the concrete. “You totally earned that!”

Even knowing Eugene had just buried his mother, the surrounding crowd didn't hesitate to laugh. There was not an ounce of mercy or decency among them. But suddenly, Lune stepped forward, reaching down to help him back to his feet.

“Eugene, I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her eyes filled with genuine remorse and guilt.

“It’s fine, Lune. I won’t tell your dad about what happened yesterday.”

“You need to know I never wanted to hurt you or join in on any of this.” Eugene offered a bitter, hollow smile at her words, before Arson violently yanked Lune’s arm away from him.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Are you actually helping him!?”

“Arson, I…”

“You’re my girlfriend, yet you’re still babying this pathetic loser? What, you like him?”

“No! Of course not, Arson!”

“Oh, you definitely like him—you just love the clout of being with me even more. What a bitch…” Arson grabbed Lune’s jaw roughly, squeezing hard enough to terrify her. Eugene couldn’t stand by and watch.

“Let her go.”

“What? What? I can’t hear you…”

Eugene swallowed hard, his throat dry with raw nerves. It was the first time he had ever spoken to Arson with a spine.

“Leave her alone.”

“Why would I?”

“Wasn’t torturing me in front of everyone enough? Now you’re using your own girlfriend as a sideshow for your ego?”

Arson stepped right up to Eugene, a smug, untouchable smirk plastered across his face. He didn’t care at all. “I’ll do whatever the fuck I want. Who do you think you are talking to me like that, Eugene?” Arson shoved Eugene’s chest hard, asserting absolute dominance. “I am Arson Barnett, and you’re just a miserable nobody who wishes to be in my shoes. But you never will, because you’re nothing and you’ll always be nothing.”

“She deserves better than you. Lune, you don’t ever have to be afraid to ask for help if Arson hurts you.”

Arson shot a sideways glance at Lune, and her shoulders instantly began to tremble. “Am I hurting you, Lune?” Arson asked, his voice dropping into a freezing, threatening purr. “FUCKING SAY IT, AM I HURTING YOU?”

“N-no!”

Eugene froze, a profound, bitter wave of disappointment crashing over him.

“Arson didn't hurt me; he loves me, so stop playing the white knight, Eugene.”

He would never possess the power to shatter Arson’s iron grip over this rotten, disappointing place. Nothing here could ever be fixed.

“You hear that, Eugene? Stop trying to be a hero, it doesn’t suit you.” Seeing Eugene stand there in dead silence, Arson grinned with arrogant triumph, delivering a final verbal blow meant to carve straight into Eugene’s chest.

“I heard your mother withered away to skin and bones before she finally kicked the bucket. She probably had it as divine punishment for giving birth to a freak like you. She got what she deserved.”

Arson turned and walked away, leaving Eugene gasping as the suffocating weight of those words crushed the wind right out of him. Arson figured his morning routine of breaking Eugene was finished, but he never anticipated that Eugene would suddenly snap, bolting forward with blind, feral rage to tackle him from behind.

“Nobody talk shit about my mother…!”

Arson nearly lost his footing. If he had actually hit the ground, his fragile ego would have burned him alive with humiliation—he swore it.

“Do you want to die?” Arson roared, spinning around and unleashing a brutal flurry of punches that knocked Eugene flat onto the floor. “You're testing my last nerve, Eugene Sidernum!” He rained blows down onto Eugene’s defenceless face as the surrounding students watched in petrified silence, too cowardly to intervene.

“Arson! Arson, you’re going to kill him! Stop it!”

Eugene was hauled up by his collar only to be violently slammed back down onto the hard floor. His school bag ripped apart at the seams, its contents scattering wildly across the concrete as Arson straddled him, relentlessly punching over and over again. Blood streamed from Eugene’s broken nose, and his split lips oozed crimson.

“Because of you! Young Master Keaton humiliated me and ruined my party! I tried to suck up to that asshole, but because you almost died at my party, you made me look like an absolute joke!”

“Arson, stop it right now!”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP, LUNE!” Arson screamed, lashing out aggressively at anyone who dared try to pull him away, as if he were entirely invincible. Even Young Master Keaton, who stood watching from a distant, only fueled Arson’s blinding frustration over how thoroughly he had been disgraced in front of his guest of honor.

He turned back to Eugene, venting every ounce of his pathetic insecurity.

“You’re ugly, broke, and a miserable parasite! You belong right here in the dirt. Why are you even fighting back? What, are you mad because I talked bad about your whore mother?"

Eugene’s world spun violently—tilting from right to left in a dizzying blur. The faces around him blurred into formless shapes, and he knew deep down that nobody was ever going to step up to save him.

“How about this, Eugene. Your mother issa whore that’s why she didn’t tell you who’s your father. Maybe he’s a lawyer, maybe he’s somebody’s husband—it keeps unclear, isn’t it? But something clear here is that your mother is a whore, and you’re a son of a whore!”

A sudden, intense wave of blistering heat surged through Eugene’s veins, radiating outward from his chest like swallowing liquid fire. Rage boiled his blood to a fever pitch, and as his vision cleared with sharp, terrifying clarity, his hand instinctively closed around a pen he had managed to snatch from the ground.

“I SAID NOBODY TALK SHIT ABOUT MY MOTHER!”

He lunged forward to strike Arson with the pen in a blinding surge of fury—but in a flash moment, his eyes widened because his pen turned a dagger with a tip so sharp it reflected light—and it was ready to tear the flesh of Arson's face.