Introduction

Childhood- often describes as the golden age of a person's life, cherished by everyone. It's a phase where you can explore different things, have freedom to do whatever you want and no one is going to scold you. There are countless opportunities to create some beautiful memories. Adults go nostalgic over it, reminding themselves about these carefree days. But what if this luxurious life becomes curse to someone?

Not everyone's childhood is golden; some of them are dark too. Certain events can trigger someone's seemingly sustain childhood into nightmare. These events may occur during ones peaceful childhood or maybe even before they were born. These circumstances can shape their life in a direction that provides less positivity. Their childhood may become a curse of their life. Some overcome it, some cannot.

I find myself belonging to the latter category and I wasn't aware of it until very recently. It was only when at the end of the elementary school I realized something is off with the behavior of others towards me. There was a certain hostility to my very existence. But I, naively, failed to recognize it from the very beginning.

Now, Two months have passed after I started my second year at 'Imperial Junior High', the second year of my high school. I entered this high school with a flicker of hope for a fresh start. However, my situation remained unchanged from my elementary school days. I find myself alone, ignored and invisible to the mass crowd of the people. Strangely enough, this no longer bothers me, as if I've become accustomed to this isolation, a recurring pattern that happened during my middle school days as well. And Yes, I can count the number of people who interacts with me in my two hands.

I don't even have a family. I am an orphan... Mother's life slipped away during the very act of giving me life, and her voice never reached my ears. In the absence of her, my father shouldered the responsibility of raising me. He taught me what he knew and gave me everything he had. Above all, he was everything to me. Singing songs, playing together—we forged a bond that meant the world to me. These are all lovely memories that I will always cherish.

The absence of mother's love— he never made me aware of that. It wasn't until I was seven years old that I met a person who informed me about the presence of my mother. He yelled at me in a fit of anger, saying that my birth had taken the life of my mother. And for that, he would never forgive any of our family. That person was my maternal uncle.

The childhood that I thought peaceful was just an illusion, because at that time I was a 'Happy go Lucky' person. I was so carefree that I never knew I was being bullied. I had friends and so I thought; it's not true. They were just using me for their benefit. What they did as a fake friend is to bully me and I was so carefree that I even took the bullying like a job they entrusted me to do as a friend. What a loser I was!

From the very beginning I was not good at anything. Studying, Sports or any other activity; I'm not good at any of them. However, I didn't care a bit about it, because I was happy; happy with the life I was living, happy with an illusion. But the illusion broke at the age of nine when my father left me alone in this world.

That day at the afternoon an ambulance stood in front of our house. Normally at this time father came back from work. That day it was the ambulance. My heart ached continuously as I was watching from the window on the second floor. The people opened the door of the ambulance and I saw father lying on a stretcher. As soon as I saw his weak, pale face I rushed outside and reached there. He was wearing an oxygen mask. There are scratches and bruises all over his hands and maybe under his shirt as well. He was trying hard to remain conscious. The moment I approached in front of him, he smiled. With a deep breath he opened his mouth, said,

"Sorry…to leave you like this...," his breathing got heavier and heavier, "I hope…you can leave a peaceful life." His breathing got heavier than before and exerting some pressure he said his last words "Don't lose your hope, Zeo. Do not…lose your…Hope."

I was still standing unable to correlate what is happening. There's no word coming from him now. The person that took out my father from the ambulance covered him with a white fabric cloth. At that instant my emotions flooded out, I couldn't hold my tears as I knew the person whom I call 'Father' is no longer with me. They decided to take my father back to the hospital once they got to know that there isn't any other family member except me and told me if I found someone I should contact them at the city hospital.

After that, I had no choice but to seek help from my other family members. However, the maternal party rejected me as soon as I went near them saying that they will not help me since I was the reason their precious daughter, my mother died. They despised me, despised my existence. So I turned to my paternal party.

"We can't accept you. You are not a person to be born. Your birth was a sin. I prohibit you from ever entering my premise, just like I prohibited your father, he was my son. He was a disgrace to my family name and so I removed his surname so that his sin couldn't reach our door. He wasn't a member of our family anymore and thus you. For he did many crimes that none of our family members dared to do, the worst of all is Murder. Therefore, a sinner shouldn't be allowed in my premise, not even his son."

The one who said these cruel things is my grandfather. I was just standing there unable to speak. I didn't understand; a grandfather should hold his grandson and play with him. But he wasn't happy seeing me rather he also despised my existence. Is it a sin to be born?

"The son of a sinner, stay away from that kid."

"He is the one whose father killed that famous person, right?"

"Karma shines on everyone; he deserves such punishment for his father was a grave sinner."

I couldn't do anything about these talks as I was just a nine year old little boy seeking help. I was sobbing as I went to my house where the only person remained on the house is me. In front of the house stood a person same age as that of my father. His face is gloomy. He is one of my father's friends who often came to our house, Howard is his name.

"I was waiting for you, kiddo. As soon as I found out about your father I hurried here. There's a promise between us. He asked me to take care of you. For that he made some preparation beforehand."

I found a ray of hope within him for an instance. He looked at me with that gloomy look,

"However Zeo, I can't take you with me for now. You might not know this but my wife also passed away two weeks ago. And my daughter isn't very well after she's gone. Also I can't stay with you. I can't leave her alone. So just wait for me a little okay. I'll stay with you at the day but at night you have to... manage somehow…"

The ray of hope…had faded.

Howard was the one who initiated the funeral. There are very few people there. Some of them are my father's friends that I knew and some I didn't know. But the peculiar thing is that two little girls joined the funeral as well. One of them was of the same age as me, probably nine years old and the other one was older than both of us. They were holding the hands of a middle aged lady who was standing there with a gloomy face. It seemed like she was the mother of both of them.

For a week I didn't go to school. At daytime Howard came by and spends the time. Unfortunately that didn't make me happy as at night I have to live alone. The nights are dark and scary. I desperately needed help. But no one was there to help me. It's me and only me.

A week later I went to my elementary school. That's where I realised the whole scenario surrounding me and my life. Those whom I thought as 'Friends', turned out to be fake. They acted well in front of me but behind my back they despised me. They had been doing that from the beginning. I was the one who didn't realise it. They had long dumped me if it isn't our school's community guidelines.

During the time when I went back to home from school the stares the other people were giving me, were just creeping me out from the inside. They were chitchatting about me and my rotten life. I tried to avoid them as much as possible. Reaching home I saw Howard standing outside smiling at me holding a bag. They were my dinner for the night. Actually my father taught me everything he could teach me which includes cooking, so I didn't particularly needed any help from others to make my meals which includes the bag Howard was holding.

"Sorry…I can't be with you today. It's already afternoon. I need to pick my daughter up from her school. She is afraid of other people and doesn't want to interact with them…you know, since her mother died a couple weeks ago..."

This is the sole reason why Howard didn't want me to live with them. His daughter is afraid of other people and doesn't go near them. What could I do about that? I can do nothing. So I took the bag and went inside. Perhaps he wanted to say something but I locked the door from inside and he went away.

This sequence continued for another couple of weeks. Every time I went to school or came back to home the people who saw me began to talk mean things about my father, about how he became a murderer. Even on the school students began to stay

away from me. The bullies began to tease me even more as they knew that there's no one I could complain about them. As I'm not good at anything, the name they chose to tease me is ZERO. However, the very next day their parents saw me with them while I was being bullied again. They shouted at them and ordered them not to be around me anymore as I was the son of a sinner. And so the bullies stopped their bullying as well, but no one calls me by my real name anymore. The name they sprouted as Zero still remains till today.

Hearing mean things over and over and over, I became furious at those who were saying that. My father wasn't a sinner, he didn't kill anyone. I have full faith in my father. He was a kind person. He couldn't do such a thing. I was at my limit. But my father did say, "Don't lose your hope, Zeo."

That's why I stayed calm and worked really hard for my last two years of the elementary school to be friendly with everyone else just like I used to be. I put on my mask as a carefree person and began to approach others. But they didn't try to go along and avoided me. I hoped they would approach me tomorrow, but that 'Tomorrow' never came and I lost all my hopes and expectations.

Hard work doesn't give much pain than the not fulfillment of wish does. I worked hard and it went in vain. Thus it gave me a tremendous pain on my heart, a deep wound that cannot be cured and I lost all my hopes. But actually it was not the hard work; it was my wish of accepted by everyone that hadn't come true gave me much more pain than the hard work ever did.

This pain made me realise that - The world is cruel. This world isn't the bed of roses that I used to think of. If you want to live in this cruel world then be a part of this cruelty. That's why I disconnected the link of trust with every single one except me.

That's how I became the 'Me' I'm now. I Am Zeo, The Zero.