Tower of Paradise

Chapter 112: Pure benevolence (2)

At some point, my vision returned. I raised my head with difficulty and surveyed my surroundings with caution. What I saw plunged me into deep desolation: Arceus was gone. That fool didn’t even ensure I was truly dead when he took the soul from my body. But suddenly, an icy panic gripped me.

My thoughts, once clear and rational, had become intensely emotional in recent days. When thinking of Arceus, a pang of deep, inexplicable loss seized my heart. In just a few days, that stranger had forged a tacit bond with me, an indescribable connection that somehow resembled a strange friendship. His departure awakened an emotion I couldn’t name, an echo of emptiness resonating in the depths of my being.

Had I been abandoned again?

—You don’t even want to say goodbye? Bastard…

I struggled to contain the whirlwind of emotions. My lips trembled, and I felt as if I were drowning in a sea of unwanted memories. A wave of loss, so intense it seemed like a colossal tsunami, enveloped me completely.

I forced myself to turn my head and then saw it: the horrifying silhouette of the Incarnation of Terror, its back turned, cruelly toying with its last prey. My ?ró: My eyes blurred, and my face darkened like a sky about to unleash a storm. That monster was the one who had killed me, but I knew I couldn’t let myself be swept away by fury at this critical moment. Time was slipping away. Though I could revive whenever I wanted, the mere thought of dying again terrified me; it was too horrifying an experience. I stood with an almost desperate effort and moved toward the nearest blue portal, spinning hypnotically in the air to my left. Each step echoed with the urgency to escape, to survive.

As I advanced, I recalled my mother’s sweet lessons, that warm voice assuring me with conviction that being good was the only path to true happiness. «The good always win, little one. Justice prevails, and kindness is a force that never fails.» Her words resonated like a mantra that had guided my steps for years.

But now, those promises echoed within me like a broken, meaningless reverberation. The more I had striven to please, to become the person everyone approved of and admired, the more I felt my essence dissolve until it vanished. It was as if my kindness, instead of elevating me, had transformed me into a blank canvas where others painted their desires and expectations without ever consulting me.

My mother hadn’t been the only one to whisper similar words to me, but I had believed them naively, perhaps because of the love she had given me—a love I now barely remembered—while a darker question took shape in my mind: What if it was all just a carefully woven tale to keep me docile, to chain me to a role I never chose to play? My kindness, instead of freeing me, had made me someone predictable, manipulable, a figure others could ignore without the slightest remorse.

In my heart, something stirred violently, an existential exhaustion that lacked a name but weighed like a sepulchral slab. It wasn’t the fatigue of a hard day but that of an entire life of yielding, silencing, bowing my head, and crawling like a worm. I recalled with bitterness the countless times I had swallowed my legitimate anger, letting it burn silently within me to avoid disturbing the false peace others valued. The smiles I had forced until my cheeks ached, even when my heart was in pieces, because I feared disappointing those around me. The moments when I had reduced my voice to a barely audible whisper, hoping someone—anyone—would recognize my humility as a virtue worthy of attention, desperately trying to be accepted, understood… loved.

But in each of those moments, a suffocating knot tightened in my throat, a silent warning that I was sacrificing too much of my true self. And no one saw it. No one stopped to ask what lay behind the mask I was forced to wear while I received crumbs of affection, while they subtly indoctrinated me to accept mediocrity as my inevitable fate.

My breathing grew heavy, as if each breath unearthed a truth buried deep in my soul. I realized that if I didn’t act now, that mask of servitude would fuse with my face forever. It would become my identity until one day I could no longer distinguish who I was without it. I wasn’t born craving to please anyone. That insatiable desire for approval, that desperate need to be seen as kind, understanding, harmless… it wasn’t mine. It had been imposed on me, molded by others’ expectations.

I didn’t want to hurt anyone with these corrosive thoughts. I wasn’t seeking to blame the world or those around me for my unhappiness. What I longed for, with an intensity I was only beginning to understand, was to awaken. To awaken from that exhausting dance of eternally pleasing, of repressing my authentic desires to fit into a mold I had never willingly chosen. Because deep in my soul, I knew that my kindness, though sincere, had been shaped by visceral fear: fear of rejection, of conflict, of being seen as different. And that paralyzing fear had turned me into a stranger to myself.

In my reflection, I evoked moments that pierced my memory like poisoned thorns. The times I had silenced my justified anger to avoid disturbing the false harmony, the painfully forced smiles I had drawn to avoid disappointing, the «yes» I had uttered when my entire being screamed desperately «no.»

Each of those decisions had been a brick in the impenetrable wall now separating me from my authentic voice. I had called that behavior virtue, but now I saw it with painful clarity: it wasn’t genuine kindness; it was mere survival. A desperate strategy to protect myself, to avoid the punishment of being seen as imperfect, human, real.

Each of those sacrificed moments had been an offering at the altar of others’ acceptance. But what had I gained in return? An existential exhaustion impossible to explain with words, a soul-deep fatigue born of living perpetually for others, of making myself insignificant so others could feel important. How many times had I softened my words to avoid seeming rude when what I really needed was to defend myself fiercely?

How many times had they praised my infinite patience when, in reality, they were only grateful I didn’t set firm boundaries? That perverse cycle had worn me down to the edge of the abyss because it was never, ever enough. I could give absolutely everything, and still, the world left me behind without hesitation, as if my presence were an entirely dispensable detail.