Down in the streets of Arcadia you learn real quick that the world isn’t fair. Some of the people living there have done so their entire lives, the only reason they survived is because they learnt to do so by any means necessary.
Which means a spoilt kid who had everything they ever dreamed of, finding true hardship for the first time was easy pickings.
Beaten down, broken and left for dead should’ve been the end for James Rijen. But the streets were where I learnt the biggest lesson in Arcadia.
It ain’t how hard you get hit, it’s how many times you can get your ass up.
So I did, I brushed aside the pain and torment, learnt how to fight, taught myself to survive. Because I had hope that things would get better.
That no matter how many times I got knocked down, I’d always be able to get back up.
But it’s easy to get back up from physical pain, you can recover, you can adapt, you can power through.
It’s the emotion losses, the devastating failures that rip apart the soul and leave you questioning everything you were that leave the scars.
And even if you stand up, they always take something away from you.
I recovered from the Pool but that took away my innocence.
I endured losing my dad but that took away any belief in hope I had left.
And now with the reality of my parentage being questionable, my entire life possibly being a lie, even the rage has faded leaving nothing but a numb shell.
I got knocked down again and I don’t know if I can get up, and now three hungry wolves surround me.
I might be down but I’m not out, and all three of you are just as broken as me.
Hana’s still that scared little child begging for life and making a bargain with a no good demon. Arcadia is still that idiot who believed a disembodied voice that he could be a hero. And Harold, for a man who loved his daughter so much, you sure gave up taking her to safety from a sociopathic monster.
The Princess with no identity and no purpose, the Captain who believed the lies of the same man who killed every person he ever cared for and The Nobody who may as well have put the straight razer to Michaela’s throat all those years ago.
You three are just as broken as I am, barely standing. Barely surviving and hanging on the last thread you have left. But the difference is James Jackson might get knocked down.
But he’s too damn stubborn…too damn stupid to stay down.
So what if Maxwell wasn’t my father? He was my dad and that won’t change a damn thing. Whatever truth is out there I’ll find it like I always have because inside this numb shell is the resilience you assholes don’t have.
It ain’t about hope or heroism or doing the right thing. It’s about surviving, it’s about how many times you can get up and ask for more.
And until I take my Final Breath, none of you assholes are going to take this away from me.