Ezekiel Solace was a young man who lost his father at an early age due to a tragic accident. His mother, Rebecca, became the only parent he had left. She worked herself to the bone to make ends meet, taking on multiple jobs just to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads.
But everything changed one fateful night.
A man broke into their small home, looking to steal whatever valuables he could find. Rebecca caught him in the act, but when the intruder realized she was alone, he didn't flee. Instead, he turned violent. He lunged at her, trying to overpower her. She screamed for help, shouting into the silence of the neighborhood, but not a single soul came to her aid. The walls were thin, the noise unmistakable, yet no one stepped in.
The burglar and Rebecca struggled in the living room. Just as he was about to pin her down, a twelve year old Ezekiel stood frozen in the hallway, his heart pounding. Then something inside him snapped. Fueled by fear and fury, he ran to the kitchen, grabbed a knife, and plunged it into the man's thigh.
The intruder screamed and turned toward Ezekiel with a look of pure rage. He struck the boy hard, sending him sprawling across the floor and knocking the knife from his hand. Ezekiel groaned, trying to rise, but the man loomed over him, ready to strike again.
That was when Rebecca tackled the man with every ounce of strength she had left.
"Zeke, run!"
she cried out.
But Ezekiel didn't run.
He saw his mother being beaten, her body crumpling under the weight of each blow. And he couldn't take it. He crawled across the floor, grabbed the fallen knife, and drove it into the man's abdomen.
Rebecca froze in shock, releasing the man. He stumbled backward, gasping and bleeding, collapsing onto the floor. But to Ezekiel, it wasn't over. His eyes were locked on the intruder's, and all he could see was hatred. Hatred for the man who had hurt his mother. Hatred for the people who did nothing.
He stabbed again. And again. Over and over, until the man stopped moving entirely.
That day, Ezekiel's life was shattered.
The people didn't care about the circumstances. The neighbors whispered, twisting the story with every telling.
"That's the boy who murdered someone,"
a woman hissed under her breath as Ezekiel walked by.
"They say he stabbed him nineteen times,"
another added.
"What kind of monster does that at his age?"
After the incident, the authorities took over the case. The burglar's family filed a lawsuit against Rebecca, demanding compensation and punishment. They claimed the man had simply been drunk and confused, insisting he had entered the wrong house by mistake.
The police conducted an investigation, but no evidence supported the family's claim. In the end, the act was ruled as self-defense. Ezekiel was not charged, but he was placed in counseling and ordered to complete community service.
Still, the stigma never left him.
People treated him like a criminal. Like a killer.
Everywhere he went, he was whispered about, judged, and avoided. Schools changed their tone. Parents told their children to stay away. Even teachers treated him differently. And because of that, Ezekiel changed too.
He withdrew from everyone. He stopped trying to make friends. His face, once bright with innocence, grew cold and unreadable. If anyone did approach him, they quickly backed away the moment they learned his name. His past followed him like a curse.
Silence became his companion. Loneliness turned into his world.
And Rebecca, his mother was never the same.
She had looked at him that night with tears in her eyes, holding him close while trembling. She never once blamed him, but the heartbreak in her gaze never fully faded. Not for what he had done to protect her, but for the innocence he had lost. A piece of him had died that night, and she knew it was something she could never get back for him.
Things only grew worse.
In his third year of high school, Ezekiel returned home one day to find his mother collapsed on the floor. He rushed her to the hospital, where the doctors told him she was terminally ill. Years of overwork and stress had taken their toll. She had to be hospitalized immediately.
Their financial struggles deepened. Ezekiel tried to find part-time jobs, but the pay was barely enough to cover her medical bills. He was often underpaid and overworked, treated like a machine rather than a human being. His days blurred into exhaustion. If he dozed off in class, his teachers scolded him. At work, his employers shouted at him to go faster.
He was a child forced into a life far beyond his years, carrying burdens meant for adults.
With nowhere else to turn and his mother's life slipping through his fingers, he clung to the hope that something, anything, might save them.
Then came a flicker of hope.
Ezekiel awakened as an E-rank hunter.
He thought it might finally be the answer. A way to pull his mother out of suffering. A way to rewrite his story. After all, even low-ranking hunters earned decent money if they cleared dungeons consistently.
But he had no idea it was only the beginning of a different kind of hell.