Young Master's PoV: Woke Up As A Villain In A Game One Day

Chapter 266: Nightmares [IV]

Now if his life were one of those movies Vince’s family used to watch every Friday night, he would’ve had a happy ending.

He and his siblings would have stayed together.

They would have had each other’s backs through it all, grown up side by side, holding one another up through both the hard times and the happy ones.

They would have carried their pain and learned to laugh in spite of it.

Okay, maybe they would’ve needed therapy. A lot of therapy.

But they would have been okay in the end. Or if not okay, then at least together.

Unfortunately, this was not a movie.

This was the real world.

And the real world is rarely kind.

The problem was simple — Vince was nine by the time he was put into the foster care system.

By then, he had seen a house filled with screaming, beatings, and bruises. It scarred him.

Because of that, he was small and jittery, angry without quite knowing why, and terrified of being touched even when no hand was raised.

His case file bluntly described him as: ”Heavily abused. Displays signs of emotional trauma. Possibly volatile.”

No adopting family wanted that.

But his siblings were different.

They were only five.

They were young enough that their pain could be overlooked, young enough to be shaped into someone else’s perfect kids.

They were adorable with shy smiles, big round eyes, and still knew how to laugh like children should.

So within three months, a well-off family downtown adopted them.

Vince remembered the day they left.

His little brother clung to him, burying his face in Vince’s shirt, sobbing and begging to stay.

His sister tried to be brave and clutched her stuffed rabbit tight like she used to, telling him she’d see him soon.

Vince forced a smile for their sake even as his chest hollowed into a cave.

The foster family promised visits and letters and emails.

And at first, there were some small visits once a month. A few letters written in crayons. Even an email or two when they couldn’t visit on time.

But as weeks became months, the gap between visits stretched thin, the letters stopped, and the emails he sent were never answered.

His siblings’ new parents didn’t want their perfect home stained by the boy with scars.

Eventually, his brother and sister were gone from his life as if they had never existed.

Vince remained in the system as just another child nobody wanted.

•••

It wasn’t until a year later, when he was ten, that someone finally adopted Vince.

The couple who took him in looked strict.

Strict wasn’t always bad though, Vince thought. He told himself this was his chance for a fresh start.

This was his chance to be in a family again.

...But he learned quickly that only damaged people wanted damaged products like him.

At first, his new parents were kind. Firm, but kind.

Then their kindness peeled away.

Then they started criticizing, complaining, and whispering disapproving sighs loud enough for him to hear.

They picked apart every mistake until he began to believe them. Until he began to swallow his words and stay silent.

And when words weren’t enough, they started punishing him.

It was nothing short of mental torture.

So Vince ran.

He decided he couldn’t return to foster care.

He couldn’t endure another cycle of promises that turned into disappointments, another family taking him in only to realize he wasn’t worth the trouble.

So he ran to the streets.

But the streets of the Southern Safe-Zone were not very merciful either.

Homeless children fought like wild dogs over scraps of bread.

Older boys cornered the younger ones for money, for crumbs, for anything they could take.

Sometimes Vince was picked on for no reason at all, simply for walking into someone else’s territory.

To survive, Vince learned to steal. He learned to lie.

He learned to hide from gangs, predators, and the kind of people who looked at children and saw nothing but profit.

He slept in alleys where the rats wouldn’t chew his fingers.

He prayed for dry nights, because rain meant shivering sickness, and winter meant frostbite, and frostbite meant death.

It was hell.

And after months of it, Vince had had enough.

He was ten years old and already done with life. He almost killed himself one night.

He put a rusty blade on his wrist and was about to slit it...

But he stopped.

Because if he had to die, he thought, then he would at least take with him the man who had ruined his family.

The cartel leader, Johan Valrek.

The man who had bled his father dry, who had broken his mother, who had turned their house into a graveyard long before death came.

So Vince began to plan.

He stalked Johan’s estate for days, memorizing guards’ movements, tracing gaps in their patrol, trying to be sneaky.

Then one day, he waited until nightfall to crawl through a broken grate like a rat.

But he only managed to get halfway across the courtyard when a flashlight hit him square in the face.

...He didn’t even get close.

The guards caught him and dragged him inside.

Bruised, shaking, and terrified, he thought it was the end. He thought he’d be beaten until he couldn’t move, or killed before he could scream.

But Johan, the cartel leader, only looked at him with amusement, as if a starving boy breaking into his mansion was the best entertainment he’d had in years.

”You’ve got guts, kid,” Johan said with a lazy smile. ”Most rats in these streets just scurry. But you came straight for the wolf! I like it. How about I give you a job, hmm? That sound good?”

”I’d rather die,” Vince spat, trembling on his knees but still defiant, ”than take anything from a man like you.”

Johan laughed louder, then narrowed his eyes and said something Vince would never forget. ”In this world, only two things matter, kid. A man’s worth... and how much he’s willing to bleed for it. Everything else is just noise.”

Then he threw Vince out, laughing again. ”Come back when you’re done starving. Let’s see if your pride keeps you warm at night.”

And Vince tried.

Heavens know he tried to hold onto his pride.

He scavenged, he stole.

He ran until his lungs burned, he tried to survive on his own.

But he was still just a boy.

Just a small child pretending to be big and tough in an indifferent world.

The streets didn’t care about his pride — they stripped it away piece by piece, until all that remained was hunger and desperation.

He held on until one night, after being beaten half to death by older boys over something he couldn’t even remember, Vince finally broke.

He cried until no tears were left and his chest felt like it would collapse.

Then he went back to Johan.

This time Johan didn’t laugh. He looked at Vince with something close to approval. ”Good. You set aside your pride to live. That means you’ve got sense.”

He handed Vince a bag of white powder and ordered him to smuggle it downtown, past a police checkpoint.

Vince hid it inside a dirty stuffed teddy bear he’d dug out of a trash heap and walked past the officers with his heart hammering like a drum in his chest.

He hugged the teddy tight and made it through.

It wasn’t a difficult task. But Johan was impressed.

From then on, Vince was given more jobs — errands, packages, deliveries. Nothing too big at first, but always enough to test him.

And Vince never failed.

Slowly, one successful job after another, he became part of the cartel.