The journey to the countryside started peacefully.
The Vance family carriage rolled smoothly along the winding mountain route. The roads here were narrow, carved directly into the sides of the massive green peaks. On one side of the carriage, a solid wall of gray stone reached up toward the sky. On the other side, were deep cliff with heavy food covered the view of below.
Inside the carriage, the mood was light. Elian and Clara had done a wonderful job cheering Note up. The terrifying titles in his Status Window were still sitting in the back of his mind, but looking at his parents' smiling faces made him feel safe.
"Are we almost there, mother?" Note asked, looking out the window at the endless trees.
"Almost," Clara smiled, reaching over to brush a messy lock of black hair out of his eyes.
"Grandma's village is just on the other side of this mountain pass. She is going to be so excited to see you. She baked your favorite meat pies yesterday."
Elian chuckled from the opposite seat. "You had better eat all of them, Note. If you leave even one pie on the plate, she will scold me for not feeding you enough."
"Hehehe..."
Note giggled.
"I will eat ten of them!"
Suddenly, the carriage jerked hard.
The horses let out a loud, panicked whinny. The carriage skidded along the dirt road before coming to an abrupt halt. Note bumped his shoulder against the wooden wall, completely caught off guard.
"What is going on?" Clara asked, holding onto the window frame.
Elian frowned and pushed the carriage door open.
"Stay inside. I will check with the driver."
Note watched his father step out onto the narrow dirt road. He could hear Elian talking to the hired carriage driver. Note curiously poked his head out the window to see what the problem was.
Just a few yards ahead of them, a massive, pine tree lay completely flat across the road. Its thick roots were torn violently from the earth. The trunk was so large that it entirely blocked the path forward.
"We cannot go over it, my lord," the driver said, scratching his head.
"It is too heavy to move, even if we unhitched the horses."
Elian looked back down the narrow road behind them.
"Can we turn the carriage around and take the lower valley route?"
"Impossible," the driver sighed.
"The road here is far too narrow. If I try to turn the carriage, the back wheels will slip right off the edge of the cliff. We are stuck."
Note opened the door and stepped out, with Clara following closely behind him.
"Is everything alright, Elian?" Clara asked, wrapping her shawl tighter against the cold mountain wind.
"Just a fallen tree," Elian said, putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
"We cannot move it, and we cannot turn around. We will have to walk the rest of the way down the pass and send someone from the village to fetch the horses tomorrow."
Note looked up at the steep mountain wall beside them. The soil near the top looked loose and muddy from a recent rainstorm.
*Rumble...*
Then, he heard a sound.
It started as a low, deep rumble. It sounded like thunder, but the sky was completely clear. The ground beneath Note's feet began to vibrate. Small pebbles bounced off the dirt road.
Elian looked up. His eyes widened in absolute horror.
"Look out!" Elian screamed.
Everything happened in less than a milliseconds.
There was no time to run. There was no time to cast magic. There was no time to even take a single breath.
A massive chunk of the mountain simply gave way. Thousands of tons of jagged rocks, wet mud, and uprooted trees crashed down from above with the force of an avalanche.
The landslide hit them directly.
Note felt a crushing, unimaginable weight slam into his side. The world spun violently. The sound of tearing wood, screaming horses, and shattering stone filled his ears. The landslide swept the carriage, the horses, and the entire family clean off the narrow mountain road.
They fell.
They were dragged off the edge of the cliff, tumbling down into the dark, rocky gorge below.
Note hit something hard. His vision flashed white with pain, and then everything went completely black.
Silence.
A cold, heavy silence filled the bottom of the cliff. Dust and dirt hung thick in the air, slowly settling over a massive pile of rocks and broken trees.
At the bottom of the cliff, the luxurious white carriage was completely unrecognizable. It was smashed into thousands of wooden splinters. The horses were buried entirely.
Note lay near the edge of the debris.
He was half-buried in the wet soil and heavy rocks. His neat black suit was torn to shreds, soaked in a horrifying amount of his own blood. He looked like a beggar who had been tossed into a meat grinder. His right arm and left leg were bent at unnatural angles. His ribs were crushed.
He was half-dead. His breathing was so shallow that his chest barely moved. He only had seconds left to live.
Suddenly, a faint light began to pulse from his chest.
Beneath his torn and bloody shirt, the silver locket resting against his skin began to glow. The metal heated up, shining with a brilliant, blinding golden light.
The light quickly spread from the locket, wrapping completely around Note's broken body like a warm cocoon.
A miraculous scene unfolded. The massive, bleeding gashes on Note's arms and face instantly stitched themselves closed. The horrible, crunching sounds of bones shifting echoed in the quiet gorge as his bent limbs forcefully snapped back into their perfect, natural angles. His crushed ribs expanded, filling with air.
Within five seconds, the golden light faded away, returning to the dull, ordinary silver of the locket.
Note gasped loudly.
His amber eyes shot open. He violently sat up, pushing the heavy rocks off his chest. He breathed heavily, grabbing dirt in his hands.
'What... what happened?'
His mind was a complete blur. The disaster had happened so incredibly fast that his brain hadn't even processed it. One second he was looking at a fallen tree, and the next second the entire world had collapsed on top of him.
Note looked down at his body. His clothes were ruined, stained dark red. But there was no pain. He wasn't bleeding. He didn't even have a single scratch on his skin.
He stood up on shaky legs. He looked up and saw the terrifyingly high cliff they had just fallen from.
Then, the memory hit him like a physical punch. The rumbling ground. The falling rocks. The carriage slipping off the edge.
"Mom?" Note called out, his voice cracking.
Silence...
Panic instantly gripped his heart. It squeezed his chest so tightly he felt like he couldn't breathe. He spun around, looking at the massive mound of debris.
"Mom! Dad!" Note screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Mom, where are you?!"
*whoosh~*
Only the wind answered him.
Note sprinted toward the pile of rocks. He fell to his knees and started digging. He used his bare hands to pull heavy stones away. He clawed at the dirt, throwing pieces of shattered wood over his shoulder.
"Dad! Please answer me!" Note sobbed, his hands getting covered in mud.
He dug frantically. He didn't care about the dirt under his nails. He didn't care about anything else in the world. He just needed to find them. He crawled over the ruins of the carriage, tossing a broken wheel aside.
Then, he saw a piece of blue fabric sticking out from under a fallen tree trunk.
"Mom!"
Note scrambled over to the trunk. He dropped to his knees and dug the dirt away.
What he saw made his blood run completely cold.
Elian and Clara were trapped beneath the massive weight of the tree and several large boulders. Elian was lying on top of Clara. In the final fraction of a second before the rocks hit them, Elian had thrown his entire body over his wife to shield her from the impact.
But it wasn't enough.
Elian's eyes were closed. His head was bleeding heavily, and his chest was completely crushed. He wasn't breathing. The proud, smiling man who had just promised Note they would eat meat pies was gone.
"Dad..." Note whispered, a fresh wave of tears spilling down his face.
"No... please wake up."
He grabbed his father's cold hand, but there was no response. Note let out a gut-wrenching sob.
"Cough!..."
Suddenly, a weak cough came from underneath Elian's arm.
Note's head snapped down. "Mom?"
Clara slowly opened her eyes. She was incredibly pale. All the color had drained from her beautiful face. A thick trail of blood leaked from the corner of her mouth. Her lower body was completely crushed by the tree. It was a miracle she was even conscious.
"N... Note..." Clara whispered. Her voice was so quiet it was barely louder than the wind.
"Mom! I am here! I am right here!" Note cried, leaning down close to her face. He grabbed her trembling hand with both of his.
"Hold on, okay? I will get you out. I will use my fire magic to burn the tree! Just hold on!"
Clara weakly squeezed his fingers. She gave a small, heartbreaking shake of her head.
"Do not... waste your mana, sweet boy," Clara breathed out, her gray eyes staring up at him with endless love.
"It is... too late for me."
"No!" Note screamed, shaking his head wildly.
"No, you cannot leave me! You said we were going to Grandma's house! You promised!"
Tears fell from Clara's eyes, mixing with the dirt and blood on her pale cheeks. She knew she only had a few seconds left. The pain was fading, replaced by a cold numbness that was creeping up her chest.
She looked at her son. Her perfect, beautiful boy. The child who had brought life back into her silent, miserable home twelve years ago.
"Do not cry, Note," Clara whispered, forcing a tiny, weak smile onto her lips. "I am so... so incredibly proud of you. I have loved every single second... of being your mother."
Note sobbed uncontrollably, pressing her cold hand against his wet cheek.
"I love you too, Mom. Please don't go. Please..."
Clara used the very last ounce of strength in her dying body. She slightly lifted her head from the dirt. Note leaned down immediately, pressing his forehead against her lips.
Clara kissed his forehead softly.
"Take care... my dear son," she whispered against his skin.
Her head fell back onto the ground. The weak grip she had on Note's fingers completely vanished. Her gray eyes stared up at the sky, blank and lifeless. The tiny smile remained on her pale lips, frozen forever.
Clara Vance was dead.
Note sat frozen in the dirt. He stared at his parents' lifeless bodies. The silence of the gorge returned, louder and heavier than before.
Ding!
[Title: Cursed by Destiny]
[Description: Tragedy will follow your footsteps. Peace is an illusion for you. Disaster is drawn to your soul, and those who stand too close to you will eventually be pulled into the abyss.]
Note looked at the crushed bodies of the only two people in the world who loved him. They were standing too close to him. They loved him, and the World punished them for it. The system hadn't lied. He really was cursed.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!"
Note threw his head back and let out a broken, agonizing scream.
His voice echoed off the high walls of the mountain pass, filled with pure, unfiltered despair. He screamed until his throat bled. He screamed at the mountains, he screamed at the World, and he screamed at the cruel destiny that had ruined his life.
Flames suddenly burst from his trembling hands. The fire was purely instinctual, fueled by his overwhelming grief and rage. The bright red flames quickly turned into a dark, violent crimson, burning the trees and rocks around him.
The happy boy who had left the city of Vane just a few hours ago died at the bottom of that Cliff.
What was left sitting in the ashes was exactly what the World's Will had predicted.
A boy with nothing left to lose.