The Legend of Scarlett.

2

Scarlett's life had always been one of quiet agony, a daily endurance of pain and neglect. His world consisted of three places: the farmhouse, the barn, and the fields—each one a station of suffering, a place where he served as little more than a shadow of a human being. His family never let him forget it.

His room was more of a prison than a place of rest. It was a tiny corner carved out of the old barn, partitioned by warped, broken planks that barely stood upright. His bed was a pile of straw, flattened and filthy from years of use. A single, thin blanket was draped over it, riddled with holes and too small to cover him during the long winter nights. There was no light in the room, save for the occasional flicker of the moon through the cracks in the roof. Every gust of wind chilled him to the bone, rattling the structure and reminding him how fragile his existence was here.

On one side of his room was a wooden crate, its surface scarred and splintered, which served as his only piece of furniture. He kept a few meager possessions inside—a torn shirt, a wooden comb he'd found in the dirt one day, and a small pouch of herbs he used to soothe his constant injuries. He often sat there, on the edge of his bed, fingers idly tracing the lines of the crate, as if he could etch away the years of suffering with every stroke.

The rest of the barn was not much better. The animals were housed in better conditions than he was, their stalls clean and well-maintained because it was Scarlett's job to ensure it. Each morning, before dawn, he'd wake to the sound of the animals stirring, his body aching from the previous day's labor. He fed the livestock, cleaned their stalls, and hauled hay until his arms burned with exhaustion. All before the sun had even fully risen.

And after that? The fields awaited.

The land his family owned was vast and unforgiving. Scarlett's hands were raw and cracked from the endless hours of working the soil, planting crops, and tending to the harsh, unyielding earth. His siblings were supposed to help with the work, but they rarely did. Why would they? Scarlett was the one meant for such menial tasks, born into Class D for that very purpose. His role in their eyes was simple: toil in silence.

Each day was a cycle of labor and punishment. It didn't matter how hard he worked or how careful he was. A misstep in the fields, a missed spot in the barn—anything could set off his family. Scarlett had learned to brace himself for the inevitable lash of the whip that came with each mistake. The leather bit into his skin, leaving deep, angry marks that never fully healed. His back was a roadmap of suffering, crisscrossed with scars from years of beatings.

That was how he'd earned his name.

Scarlett.

He hadn't been born with that name. In fact, no one even remembered what his birth name was. The family that took him in had found him as a child, abandoned and orphaned in the streets, a half-starved boy with no memory of where he came from. He had no identity, no history. Only the tattered clothes on his back and the desperate look in his eyes.

They'd adopted him out of obligation, or perhaps it was pity at first, but whatever good intentions had existed quickly withered when his powers—or lack thereof—were revealed. He had nothing. No spark of energy. No strength, no gifts, no potential. Class D. A burden.

From that moment on, he was never truly their child. They reminded him of it every day. His siblings—Bram, Marius, Amara, and Livia—were the golden children, blessed with power and promise. Scarlett was the unwanted reminder of failure. His life became a cycle of servitude, his existence nothing more than the means to make their lives easier. He was invisible until he made a mistake. Then, he became a target.

The whip had become a familiar companion early on. His adoptive father, a stern, cold man named Rod, wielded it without mercy. He never raised his voice—he didn't need to. His eyes would narrow, and Scarlett would know. It was coming. The pain. Rod was always precise, never hitting Scarlett in the face where the wounds could be seen by others. No, the beatings were meant to be hidden, a secret kept beneath his clothes, buried in his flesh.

As Scarlett grew older, his body became a canvas of scars. The welts healed over time, but they never disappeared. Each lash left a permanent mark, a reminder of his place in the family. His skin was rough and calloused, stretched thin over bones that felt too fragile for the weight of his suffering. His back, especially, was a patchwork of old wounds—some faint, faded with time, others still fresh, angry red streaks that throbbed when he moved.

The worst part was how accustomed he had become to it all. The pain. The degradation. The isolation. He had learned not to cry out, not to fight back. It only made things worse. Instead, he clenched his jaw and endured, his mind retreating to a place where the pain couldn't reach him, where he could pretend, for a moment, that this wasn't his life. That somewhere, somehow, there was a different world for him. A place where he wasn't Class D, where he wasn't a slave.

But those thoughts were dangerous. They gave him hope, and hope was a cruel thing in a life like his.

He worked until his body was numb, moving through each day like a ghost. His hands became tools, his mind dulled to the endless tasks. His siblings, whenever they deigned to acknowledge him, treated him like filth. Amara's sharp words cut deeper than the whip sometimes, her voice filled with the kind of disgust that only a Class A could muster for someone so beneath her. Livia barely spoke to him at all, only looking at him with that same expression of disdain their mother wore—a mixture of contempt and pity.

Bram and Marius were no better. They didn't need to speak; they showed their superiority through action, through how they treated him. Pushing him aside in the fields, mocking him when he struggled with the heavier work, taking pleasure in reminding him of his place. He had once been close to Marius, back when they were younger, but as their powers developed and Marius realized his strength, he pulled away, leaving Scarlett even more alone.

The isolation was complete.

Scarlett sometimes caught glimpses of the world outside his misery. When the Annas and Guardians passed through the town, he would see them from a distance—powerful, regal, untouchable. Their very presence seemed to bend the world around them, people parting like water to make way for them. They never noticed Scarlett. Why would they? He was nothing more than a shadow.

Yet, he couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to have power, to be something more than the dirt beneath their feet. But those were dangerous thoughts too. Power wasn't meant for him. It wasn't in his blood.

It wasn't in his scars.

As night fell and Scarlett lay on his straw mat, his body aching and bruised, he stared at the ceiling of the barn. The wind howled outside, the animals shifted in their stalls, and the cold seeped into his bones. He pulled his thin blanket tighter around himself, trying to fight off the shivering.

Tomorrow would be the same. More work. More pain. More silence.