My First Memory

  I don't know how many people can remember the exact moment they awakened to life. Not the first day they walked, nor the first word they spoke, but the precise moment they became aware of their existence.

  I do remember.

  It's a blurry thought, wrapped in shadows and fog, but still, it is mine. A moment suspended in time, with no before or after. No colors, no shapes. Just a sensation.

  I woke up.

  As if, until that moment, I had been asleep. As if something in me had arrived late to this small, weak, fragile body.

  I don't know where I came from. I don't know what I was before this. I only know that, suddenly, I was here.

  I open my eyes. I see a white ceiling. I feel the weight of a body I don't recognize as my own. I hear sounds, voices, but I don't understand them. I don't know who I am. I don't know how I got here.

  And then, a name that never came.

  A voice, soft and trembling, whispers something I can't comprehend. Another, harsher, more distant, responds with an exasperated sigh.

  They don't call me. They don't name me.

  And so, my life begins. As a formless void, without identity. Like an echo without origin.

  My first thought was not a cry, nor a question. It was a certainty.

  "This is not the beginning."

  But if this is not the beginning... what came before?

  I don't know. I don't remember.

  And maybe... I never should.

  No Name

  Time passed, but one thing never changed—I have no name. I never did.

  To my father, I am a burden.

  To my mother, a small, helpless thing.

  To the world, just another child.

  But in dreams... in dreams, I am something more.

  It's just another day at home. My father is angry for some reason, as always. He yells, spews words I don't fully understand, but they hurt. My mother tries to calm him with her trembling voice, but she is weak. She always has been. I don't blame her, though I probably should. I only watch, feeling that something is rotten in all of this, but without the right words to define it.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  My bare feet touch the cold floor as I step toward her. My mother trembles when I hug her, as if my touch is something she never expected. I cling to her, small and insignificant, but with the only certainty that she is the closest thing to warmth in this home of shadows and screams.

  "Don't worry, my love..." she whispers, her voice broken.

  The words should comfort me, but they don't. They never do.

  My father stops and looks at me. His gaze is filled with venom, with hatred I can't understand.

  How can someone hate their own child?

  How can someone hate something they created?

  There are no answers. Only his sharp words:

  "And what do you think you're doing?"

  I stay silent. There is no right answer.

  He ignores me and walks away. His footsteps echo through the house, a war drum without a battle. My mother strokes my hair. Her touch is soft but filled with fear. A fear that becomes my own.

  The Stories

  That night, I can't sleep. I hear voices in the living room. My uncles have come to visit. They talk with my mother, mentioning names I don't know—Goku, Vegeta, Superman, Optimus Prime... Heroes from a world that is not mine, figures that seem more real in their words than my own existence.

  They speak of the Dragon Balls, a power that only the pure-hearted can use to save the world. The idea captivates me. It consumes me.

  Who is pure in this world of screams and shadows?

  Am I?

  I get up, walking carefully over the frozen floor. My feet make no sound as I reach the living room. My maternal uncle, a man with a scruffy beard and eyes full of stories, is the first to notice me. He smiles, but his eyes see something more in me. Something I don't even understand.

  "This kid... he has the soul of a warrior."

  My mother tenses. She tells me to go back to bed, but I can't.

  "Who are Goku and Vegeta? And Superman? And Optimus?"

  Silence. My uncles exchange glances. My paternal aunt, with her firm stance and calm voice, speaks first:

  "They are heroes. Beings who protected this world."

  "Are they real?"

  My uncle smiles.

  "That depends on whether you believe."

  But I already believe. Something inside me tells me these stories are more than just tales.

  I go to bed that night with images in my mind. Battles, flight, power beyond life itself.

  And in my dreams, they appear.

  The heroes my uncle spoke of.

  A muscular man in a blue suit and red cape smiles at me and tells me to call him Superman.

  A robotic figure introduces himself as Optimus Prime and nods.

  But when I wake up, reality remains the same. A broken home. A weak mother. A father who is absent, even when he is present.

  The Fire Within

  School is another prison.

  At first, it's just teasing. They call me a dreamer, a weirdo, an idiot.

  But the words become shoves. Then punches.

  One day, the biggest kid in the group confronts me during recess. He looks at me with mockery, with cruelty.

  "Do you think someone's gonna come save you?"

  My fists clench. Not because I'm scared, but because something inside me burns. Something I can't name.

  I don't answer. I just stare. He gets bored and walks away.

  But the fire remains.

  That night, in my dream, one of the heroes my uncle mentioned appears before me. He has spiky black hair, strange armor, and an aggressive look. He calls himself Vegeta and looks at me with disdain.

  "Why didn't you fight?"

  Another man, with a warrior's outfit and messy hair, smiles.

  "He's just a kid. He's not ready... but he will be."

  And then I wake up.

  Days pass. Years pass.

  But the fire inside me does not go out.

  One day, my uncles show me an old comic book. Superman on the cover, his cape waving in the wind. Goku in his fighting stance. Optimus raising his sword.

  They look exactly as I saw them in my dream.

  My uncle smiles and says:

  "This is the legacy of the heroes. If the world needs a new one... maybe that could be you."

  For the first time, the idea doesn't seem impossible.

  For the first time, the possibility exists.