Adam : From a man to a God

**18 years later.**

Adam lived with his adoptive family: a mother, father, little sister, and big brother—the Simins. Adopted at the age of ten, he never understood why they chose him, especially since they could have their own children.

Adam woke up in his attic bedroom, a space he despised. The old, dusty belongings stored there constantly reminded him of his place in the family. Glancing at the calendar, he noted it was April 2nd, 2020.

*Oh right, exams start in a week,* he thought.

He heard the attic door creak open and the sound of someone climbing up. It was his 16-year-old sister, Anna. She threw a school bag full of books at him, hitting him on the head.

"What the hell is wrong with you? I told you to do the laundry and the dishes, but you only did the dishes. Why?" she demanded.

"Ow! I'm sorry. I'll do everything once I get home from school," Adam apologized, rubbing his head.

"You know what happens if you don’t do what I want, right?" she warned.

"Yes, your dad starts removing stress by whooping my ass," he muttered under his breath.

"You’re a sad excuse for a brother. Why did they adopt you?" she scoffed.

"To make me the house slave, apparently," he thought, but didn't say out loud.

"Okay, Cinderella, hurry up. Your cereal is waiting downstairs," she mocked before heading back down.

Adam prepared for school and went downstairs to eat his cereal at the kitchen table.

"Good morning, Mom. Good morning, Dad," he greeted.

His father was reading the newspaper while his mother was getting ready for work. His dad had the day off; his mom worked at the town bank, and his dad at a tech company.

Brock, his older brother, came downstairs wearing a vest and jeans, looking like he had just woken up.

"Morning, Dad. Morning, Mom," Brock mumbled.

"Good morning," both parents replied in unison.

As Adam started eating his cereal, he tasted something awful. He rushed upstairs to the bathroom, spat the cereal into the toilet, and saw he had chewed a cockroach. After vomiting and cleaning up, he returned downstairs with an annoyed expression. Brock laughed.

"That was disgusting," Brock teased.

"What?" Anna asked, curious.

"Bro just ate a cockroach," Brock explained, laughing.

"Eww! Don’t come near me," Anna chuckled.

"I'm going to school. Bye," Adam said, grabbing his bag.

His father, Nick, closed the newspaper. "You’re walking there?"

"Yes," Adam replied.

"Okay," Nick nodded.

At school, Adam walked through the hallway when Billy, the bully, bumped into him.

"Watch where you’re going, twerp," Billy sneered.

Billy had bullied Adam since he was adopted. His life was a cycle of misery at home and school, his grades suffering from constant mental stress, especially after what happened last week.

**Last week:**

Adam sat in the back row of his class, paying no attention to the teacher. His focus was on his crush, Tiffany. He believed she was out of his league and often imagined scenarios where she confessed her feelings for him, though he dismissed them as silly fantasies.

Tiffany was popular, a cheerleader, and came from a rich family. She was dating Billy, who knew about Adam’s crush on her. Billy concocted a plan with Tiffany.

Tiffany wrote Adam a letter, delivered by a classmate. It read, "Meet me in the basketball court after school."

*What??? She wants to meet after school? Something’s up. Anyway, I better go, but what would she want with someone like me?* he wondered.

After school, Adam went to the basketball court and found no one. As he was about to leave, Billy and his friends appeared.

"Whoa! Where are you going, dipshit?" Billy taunted.

"I just want to be left alone," Adam pleaded.

"But why are you here? To meet your little girlfriend, Tiffany? Yeah… I know," Billy smirked.

"But how…." Adam stammered.

"Dude, she’s my girlfriend. Of course, I know. Give me all your money and I might forget about it," Billy demanded.

"Come on, you took all my money this morning. I only have bus money," Adam protested.

"We’ll take that and your bag," Billy decided.

Adam tried to run but was cornered by one of Billy’s friends. They beat him until his nose and mouth bled, took his money, and threw his bag away. As Adam lay on the ground, his vision blurry, he saw Tiffany smiling at Billy as they quickly left the court.

"Wasn’t that a bit too much?" Tiffany asked,

"Don't worry, he'll be fine. He's used to it," Billy chuckled.

A guard entered the basketball court and found Adam lying there. He ran up to him.

"Hey kid, are you okay? Answer me," the guard asked urgently.

Adam groaned as he attempted to get up. "I'm fine. I'm alright."

"Kid, you can't even stand up straight…" the guard observed, concern in his voice.

Adam started walking out of the court. "Don't worry about it," he muttered.

*Back to the present*

After school, Adam went home, did all the chores, and went to bed.

While he was asleep, a man was running—running away from something or someone. He was injured in the leg and dressed in all black. As he passed Adam's house, he threw something into the yard without stoping.

He kept running; his name was David. He stopped and looked back.

"Come and get it," David taunted.

He pulled out a knife. Out of the shadows stepped a woman with a sword.

"This is your last chance, Dave. Tell me where the artifact is, and I'll make this quick," she demanded.

"Hell no," David replied, getting into a stance.

The woman came running and threw two nails at him. He blocked them with his knife. She rotated, swinging her sword at his chest. He backed up, but she quickly used both hands to push the sword, trying to stab him. He flinched to the side. She raised the sword upward, aiming for his chin. He lost balance and fell, dodging it. She tried to stab him while he was on the ground, but he rolled away, making her stab the ground repeatedly as she missed.

David quickly got up.

"You have never been good at the offensive, have you? You're hurt, but I'm surprised you can still move like that," she remarked.

*She's right, and I'm losing a lot of blood because of it,* David thought.

"Let's end this quickly. Wouldn't want to wake up the neighbors," she said.

David smiled. "Sure," he agreed. *I'm gonna die here. I'm exhausted. At least she can't find it, and I hope it doesn't fall into the wrong hands.*

She ran at him, and he charged at her. He swung the knife at her neck, but she slid down on her knees, narrowly avoiding the blade. As she passed him, both turned to slash at each other, but David was too late. She turned, swinging her sword, and stood up immediately, decapitating him. David's body fell.

The woman started searching David's pockets for the artifact.

"Damn, where is it? I can't leave without it or they'll…" she muttered, interrupted by an old woman coming out of a nearby house.

"What's going on outside? Pringles, is that you?" the old woman called out.

She saw David's body on the ground with his head inches away. The woman was already gone. Screaming, she ran back into the house, alerting the neighbors.

*Next morning*

Adam lay in bed, contemplating whether to get up or just curl up and die, unaware of the homicide in the neighborhood.

His brother came up and threw a bag full of books at him, hitting him in the chest. Adam grunted in pain. His sister and brother never got in trouble for treating him like this.

"Get up. The police want to ask us questions downstairs. Oh, and you have to go to school after that," Brock said.

"The police?" Adam asked, puzzled.

He went downstairs and found two detectives.

"Good morning. I'm Detective Morgan, and this is Detective Derick. We'd like to ask you some questions regarding the homicide in your neighborhood," Morgan introduced.

"There has been a homicide?" Adam asked, shocked.

"Yes. We'd like to ask those questions now," Derick confirmed.

They questioned Adam, who genuinely didn't know anything about the incident last night, but Detective Morgan couldn't shake the feeling that he was hiding something.

"Thank you for your time, sir. We must be going. More neighbors to ask, damn this is gonna take long," Morgan sighed.

Adam had lied about one thing. He did hear something while trying to sleep. When David threw the artifact into the hedge of the yard, he had dismissed it, thinking, *It was probably that old lady's dog.*

After some time, he prepared to go to school again. Before he left, he went to the hedge and found a very old figurine.

"This looks weird. Is this one of those figurines they sell from anime shows? No, this is old and made out of clay. Should I leave it here? No, I should take it," Adam decided.

As Adam approached the school gate, memories of Billy, Tiffany, and all the people who tormented him flooded his mind.

"Nah, I'm not going in there," he decided, veering away.

He headed to his favorite hot dog stand in town and bought a hotdog.

"It's been a long time since I used my lunch money for myself," he thought. "Billy always beats me for it, so I have to bring it to school to minimize the beatings."

He went to a bridge to rest, finding his favorite grassy spot. He dozed off without realizing it and woke up at 6:47 PM.

"Oh shit, I have to go," he muttered, scrambling to his feet.

As he walked, he realized someone was following him. He started running, soon noticing he was too far from home. His pursuer, dressed in all black, threw a knife that struck Adam's leg. He quickly turned and fell on his back, breaking the figurine. Adam screamed in pain, but no one could hear him. He started crawling, and the broken pieces of the figurine turned to dust, entering his ears, mouth, and eyes. He fainted, unaware of what had happened. His pursuer didn’t notice either.

Adam woke up strapped to a chair in a warehouse, with a woman and a man looking at him.

"Good morning. Sleep well?" the woman asked.

Adam tried to move his legs and felt pain from the wound. He groaned.

"Where is it, kid? Where is the artifact?" the man demanded.

"What? Please let me go. I don't know what you're talking about," Adam pleaded.

"Don't force me to do this. We know where you're from. We know your family and your…" the man started.

"He's adopted," the woman interjected.

"But he still cares about them. Don’t you?" the man continued.

"Please, just spare my life. I don't know what you're talking about," Adam begged.

"Looks like I'll have to do it," the woman said, stepping for forward. "Look kid, I'm trying to save you here, okay?" the man said.

"I…" Adam stammered.

"He may be one of them," the woman suggested.

The man, wearing a suit, left the room. The woman, who looked Asian and wore all black with a ponytail, approached a table behind her and returned with a knife.

"How old are you, Adam?" she asked.

"I'm eighteen. Please let me go," he begged.

The man left. The woman approached with the knife.

"Oh god, please let me go. I'll do anything," Adam pleaded, realizing they might be looking for the figurine. He gasped. "It's in my bag."

"There's nothing there," she replied.

"What? What do you want exactly?" he asked, confused.

"A bracelet. A golden one," she clarified.

"Huh?" Adam mumbled, bewildered.

She immediately stabbed him in the knee, and he screamed in pain.

"We can keep playing this game, you and I. You're one of them, aren't you? Even if you don't answer, I'll keep torturing you. And you want to know something? I enjoy it," she said, her voice cold and detached.

Adam couldn't hear her through the pain. She stabbed his other knee, making him cry out in agony.

Outside the warehouse, the man waited in a black SUV.

"Why is she taking so long?" he muttered.

Inside, Adam was beaten and stabbed half to death. He couldn't see or hear clearly anymore.

*Why is this happening to me?* he thought.

"You really don't know anything, do you? Well, sorry kid, since you've seen him, I can't let you live to see another day," the woman said.

*My life has been one bad thing after another. No friends because people were afraid I'd drag them into getting hurt by Billy,* Adam thought, despair filling his mind.

The woman turned to grab a gun from the table. Adam couldn't speak; she had plucked out most of his teeth.

*Am I really gonna die like this? Not truly happy even once?* he thought, tears streaming down his face.

She pointed the gun at him. Adam looked down and saw his legs drenched in blood. He started crying.

"Oh kid, don't make it harder than it has to be. They all cry and plead for someone to come and save them," the woman thought, her cold demeanor unwavering.

Her thoughts were wrong; those weren't tears of sadness but tears of anger. Adam's pupils suddenly turned red. The woman pulled the trigger, and the bullet left the gun.

Outside, the man saw the warehouse explode.

"Oh my God," he gasped.

It was Ragna, and he had slightly awoken.

The man watches in disbelief as Adam emerges from the fire unscathed. Panicking, he throws the car into reverse. Suddenly, Adam shoots towards the vehicle like a fiery missile, smashing through it with explosive force. The car erupts in flames as Adam lands behind it, his flames extinguishing as he collapses unconscious.