Prologue

Ever wondered what it feels like to have a scumbag for a father?

Well, those of you who were so unlucky to have good fathers, you can stop wondering now, and let me introduce you to my lovely father, the biggest dirtbag to ever exist.

Everything started six years ago after my dear mother passed away. We all loved her so much, yes even my scumbag of a father.

I could tell because he refused to eat anything and cried for days after she was confirmed dead, and it was after he was done crying a week later did my life turn to hell.

Convinced that I was somehow the cause of his dear wife's demise, the man was out to make my life miserable.

He started by pulling me out of my school, cutting me off from my friends without any prior notice, but hey, at least he had a bit of fatherly decency in him to homeschool me instead.

It was quite heartbreaking to suddenly get cut off from physically meeting my friends but hey at least I still had my phone, tablet, and laptop to communicate with them. Surely, he wouldn't take those away to make me suffer.

Well, he did and he sure wasn't nice about it, sending the head maid, Stella to seize everything while I was still asleep.

The number of abusive words that were launched at me from his mouth when I went to ask him what happened to all my gadgets that morning was something I would never forget.

Evil bloodsucking witch, Mother killer. Those were the only ones that sort of struck a nerve in me.

He was such a loving father when my mother was alive or at least he appeared to be so, I had no idea what had happened to him. Had he lost it? I thought to myself.

Being the ten-year-old child I was back then, having all my gadgets taken away felt like my world ending a second time, the first time obviously being when my dear mother passed away.

This was exactly what irked me about my so-called father, I was sure he saw me slugging through my whole day devoid of the spirit to do anything, I honestly felt like dying, so how could he have the gall to accuse me of being the cause of my mother's death.

The only person I had to comfort me was Cecilia, she was one of the maids but to me, she was like a lovely big sister, no, she was like a second mother.

She was the only person I had in the huge mansion I called my home, everyone else was an enemy.

Other than homeschooling me and taking away my gadgets, I was also grounded indefinitely. Yeah, the man was out to make sure I had anything but a normal childhood.

I tried to sneak out many times but with the always-on-high electric fence and three guards guarding the place, that was impossible.

There you have it, a brief summary of my life, and things have been like this for me for the past six years.

Still, my now sixteen-year-old self got up every day to face everything I had for the day head-on while trying to keep a positive outlook. That was something my mother and Cecilia taught me and I was trying my best not to forget it.

Today was no exception as I got up just two minutes before my annoying alarm went off by 6:00 AM. It has been like that for a whole year now.

"Useless alarm." I scoffed before reaching for the device to turn it off.

My bed happened to be a mess at the moment, littered with textbooks, a notebook, and pieces of paper. It seems I had been studying all night and fell asleep in the process.

Look at me, a prim and proper studious student, never thought I would be able to call myself that.

Anyway, I had a chemistry test that afternoon so I had to burn the night candle to make sure I got at least ninety percent. What was my motivation for wanting to score that high? Well, that's a secret you see.

Chemistry was my favorite subject but the reason for that didn't really have anything to do with the subject, it was more about the teacher.

Eager to get my day started, I slid down my bed, cleared it, and dressed it before getting down beside it to do fifty push-ups.

Now that I think about it, my lovely father never really taught me anything, most of the things I knew, my mother taught me, but I guess he was there to buy anything I needed so I can't fault him there.

It took me a few minutes to complete my pushup quota, and once I was done with that, I made my way to the bathroom toward the left of my room to brush my teeth.

As I raised my brush to my lips, my gaze drifted towards the mirror, and I was met with the striking reflection of a handsome young man. My dark hair was perfectly messy, and my bright blue eyes seemed to hold a deep sadness, framing a face that was both strong and vulnerable at the same time. The image staring back at me was one of refined features and youthful elegance, but also one of subtle exhaustion, as if the weight of my hidden thoughts was evident in my eyes.

"I guess looking at someone who looks so much like his late wife every day must be heart-wrenching for him," I uttered to myself as I slid my brush into my mouth and slowly began to move it sideways.

As I brushed my teeth, my gaze slowly drifted to my left wrist where a red bracelet, the only memento my mother left with me encircled my wrist with a familiar sense of comfort.

She told me it would always keep me safe when she gave it to me as a present on my seventh birthday, something I find to be quite ridiculous now that I'm older but I still wear the bracelet, I haven't taken it off once since I turned ten.

Maybe that's why I've been having those strange dreams recently where I see the bracelet floating in front of me glowing quite brightly.

The bracelet frequents my dreams at least three times a week, and each time I expect something terrifying or eventful to happen but they never do. Staring at the glowing bracelet is all I do in those dreams until I eventually wake up.

At this point, I was already done brushing my teeth, so I washed my face and slid out of the bathroom in a charming style.

I noted a couple of key points to memorize this morning before my test in the afternoon. To be honest, I didn't feel like doing it, but it was something I had to do.

The rays from the rising slowly crept into my room through my slightly open window, bathing me in its nourishing sunlight as I stood beside my bed, glancing through the notebook in my hand from the top.

I was only planning to glance through the ones I believed would be necessary for getting my target score for just a few minutes but somehow, I ended up reading everything and you wouldn't guess how long that took.

Yes, an hour, even I didn't believe it when I turned to my wall clock to find out that it was already seven minutes past seven.

"You have to be kidding me." I sighed, slamming my left palm into my face. "Was I stuck in a trance or something?"

Without relaying much thought as to why exactly I ended up reading everything, I dropped the notebook on my bed and quickly headed for the door.

My stomach was acting up at this point, so I figured I'd feed the demons first before thinking about that.

I would always catch the scent of whatever meal we were having for breakfast the moment I stepped out of my room every morning. Yes, my nose was that effective, which was why I found it strange when I didn't smell anything the moment I exited my room.

'They always have the table ready for breakfast by seven, it wouldn't be different, would it?' I thought to myself as I headed for the stairs.

I expected to at least catch a whiff of something as made my way down the stairs but there was nothing to catch a whiff of.

Already forming an assumption of what was going on here, I began to drag my steps and just as I got down from the last step and turned to the right, I was able to confirm the first part of my assumption.

There was nothing on the dining table, there was always something there for me every morning, but this time there was nothing.

I wanted an explanation and it looked like the right people to give that explanation were there.

The head maid, Miss. Stella was standing beside the table, her gaze now fixated on me, her cold eyes as indifferent as ever. And by the side were the other four maids, including Cecilia who had somewhat of a sad expression on her face. The other three, well, I could tell they were trying really hard to hide their grin.

They were always laughing behind my back, enjoying every moment of my suffering, I pretended not to notice just like I pretended not to notice how they always talked and mocked my mother behind her back despite her kindness to them.

Flat-surfaced orangutans whose minds couldn't even comprehend empathy or compassion, their shallow minds solely focused on ridiculing and belittling others to elevate their own pitiful selves. I'm sure the male orangutans wouldn't even want them.

Miss. Stella was nothing like them but I hated how she acted indifferent to anything as long as it didn't fall into her main line of work.

She was a middle-aged woman with long dark hair which she always had tied back and covered, and brown eyes. Her body was one that I would only describe as stiff, not slender, in fact, everything about her was stiff including her face.

Anyway, I made my way to the stiff lady, not once breaking eye contact, maybe I was trying to relate a message of superiority as the young master of the house. I say maybe because I can't remember.

Well, it didn't take me long to get to her, and as soon as I did, I opened my mouth to ask the question she had been waiting there to answer, "Where's my breakfast."

"I'm sorry young master." She said with a little bow, displaying her false sense of compassion. "But you won't be getting any today, the master's orders. He declared that starting from today, as long as you don't come down to join him for any meal, your right to that meal will be revoked."

I thought I was prepared for what was going to come out of her mouth but my eyes widened in shock to that revelation.

'I was prepared for the worst but I got something worse than it.'

Is it even possible for something to be worse than the worst?