The Arrow of God

One hundred and fifty-two years since the founding of our era - that's when my life should have ended.
Not when it actually ends.
Just when everything started going wrong fast enough that you could mistake it for fate.

People like to say our world is still young.
Elves argue it's already dying.
Orcs think it hasn't even been born properly.
Dragons don't offer opinions - they simply exist, and that's usually enough.

And then there's Rockfeller.
A god who prefers mortals the way children prefer fireworks: bright, loud, and short-lived.
He blesses a handful of us humans and calls it destiny.
We call those people Rockson.
I used to call them something else entirely.

My sister was one of them.
Was.

I wasn't chosen.
I was the boy scribbling in notebooks, convincing myself that if I studied miracles hard enough, I might survive living next to them.
I built things, broke things, pretended competence, fell in love badly, and tried every possible trick to avoid being noticed by gods.

It worked.
Until the day it didn't.

The year 152 is when my story begins on paper - when Rockfeller's mark burned into my skin and I learned that running from destiny only teaches it how to chase faster.

But the pages you're about to read?
I'm writing them from much later.

I'm writing this now because Rockfeller is coming for me.
And because before he reaches me, before everything I've learned is swallowed whole, someone should know how it happened.

Not the official version.
Not the heroic version.
The real one.

My story ends the way many stories do.

By starting at the beginning.