Chapter 5
Diary
I am falling through nothing... Floating... Falling... Peaceful...
Then the ravings began again.
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Aaaaaaaaahhhhh—
His eyes snapped open as he tumbled out of bed, kissing the floor.
"Ugh," he groaned, rubbing his back. Grumbling and sore, he limped his way to the desk.
The rickety chair creaked violently as he sat down, threatening to collapse under his weight. Just a few more kilos and it might actually give in.
Rubbing his head and being unable to remember what he dreamt of, but he felt it was a.... Good dream.
He looked over at the which was promised to be the door to a new world and just as he was about to grab it, he noticed a drawer in his desk. Feeling curious he found what seemed to be 34 bronze coins, a pen and a diary...
Looking at the coins, IAM was reminded—he hadn't eaten in a day or two. His stomach growled loud enough to wake the dead. Holding it with a wince, he muttered a promise, "I'll feed you right after this." Better to read something as cursed as a dead path on a full belly, after all.
He picked up the old diary, its cover fraying at the edges, barely holding together. With a breath, he opened it carefully.
Flip.
Flip.
Flip.
Thirty minutes passed like that. Not because the diary was long—but because he took his time. The entries were sparse, fragmented, almost like scattered thoughts rather than detailed records.
Still, a picture began to form.
'He'—the previous IAM—had grown up in an orphanage, just another forgotten child in a forgotten corner of Hope's End. But what stood out... was the second name.
Grimm.
Most in the slums didn't even have last names. That alone was strange enough. And according to the diary, it came from a woman—Mrs. Grimm—who used to visit the orphanage regularly. A beautiful woman, always smiling, always bringing sweets, always laughing with the kids.
She was supposed to adopt him.
She gave him her name.
Then one day, she just stopped coming.
Gone. No warning. No word. Just... vanished.
The diary didn't describe the emotions directly, but IAM could feel them in the jagged strokes of the pen. Resentment. Confusion. Hurt. The bitter sting of abandonment that settled into something deeper.
Sadness.
A sadness so heavy it bled through the pages.
For some reason, IAM felt a strange pang in his chest.
His brows furrowed as he reached up, rubbing the spot just above his heart, trying to soothe a hurt he didn't understand. His deep brown eyes drifted, unfocused—lost somewhere far from the small, dusty room he sat in.
A memory that wasn't his, but somehow was.
'He'—the IAM before—had been mocked. Shunned by the very children who were just as broken. And yet, when he had been given even a sliver of hope—just the smallest glimpse of escape—he had dared to believe.
Dared to dream of a different life.
Of being chosen.
Only for that dream to be ripped away. No explanation. No goodbye. Just a promise unkept, and a name that now felt more like a curse than a gift.
And now...
What was a family?
What did it mean to be loved?
How did it feel to say "I love you" and mean it, without fear, without pain?
To be bound by something deeper than blood—by something as fragile and powerful as unconditional love?
What did that even feel like?
...
Do I even deserve it?
IAM sat there in silence. His expression blank. But inside, something stirred.
Not anger. Not sadness.
Just... Nothing.
IAM sat motionless, the diary closed but still warm in his hands, as if the pages had soaked in the heat of a thousand dreams.
Tomorrow I shall reach my tomorrow.
That line. Those words. They echoed again, ringing like a prayer whispered into the void. So full of hope, of trembling belief… of something earned.
He swallowed. Hard.
That person—him—had written that with conviction. With hunger. After clawing his way through scraps of food, backbreaking jobs, cold nights alone, ridicule… He'd paid for a future with blood and bone. With everything.
And IAM… had just woken up into it.
The silence pressed against his ears. Heavy. Almost accusing.
What did happen to him? The IAM who wrote this? There were no signs of illness, no cryptic farewell. Just... a full stop. An end. No follow-up. Just IAM waking up in his bed with a spinning head and questions no one would answer.
Had he died?
Had IAM... replaced him?
He gritted his teeth and shook his head. No. Not now. He couldn't spiral into that—not with what was coming. He pressed his palm to his chest, still feeling that strange sting of pain he'd felt earlier. Was that grief? Guilt? He couldn't tell. He didn't want to.
He had suffered. He had endured. But he had left behind something—something IAM was now holding.
A name.
A book.
A tomorrow.
IAM turned his head toward the dusty desk where that strange book still sat, ancient and cracked.
Path of Cursed and Blessed Speech.
It didn't shine. It didn't pulse with arcane energy. It just sat there, quiet. Heavy. Waiting. Like it knew it would only ever be picked up by someone who had nothing left to lose.
IAM stood slowly and placed the diary down with care. His fingers hovered over the strange book now.
A deep breath.
"This… this was your path," he muttered.
And maybe it was foolish.
Maybe it really was a dead path.
Maybe he had been a fool, dreaming of hope past the stone wall that kept the slums caged like rats.
But IAM had read his words. Felt his longing. His hope.
He deserved to be remembered.
So IAM would walk this path—for the boy who wanted to reach "tomorrow."
Even if it led straight to hell.
He would regret ever making such a promise.
...
There was no tomorrow.
Twenty minutes later, IAM stepped outside for some fresh air. The sun beamed from above, its golden light pouring down on the slums like a silent blessing. It seeped through the cracks in the broken roofs, spilled over the narrow alleys, shimmered against the backs of stray animals, and warmed the caramel hue of IAM's skin.
Everywhere—no matter how broken, how forgotten—was bathed in that same light.
Where there is light, there is a path to walk.
No matter how sharp the rocks beneath your feet, no matter how cruel the journey, if there is light… you can see the road ahead.
IAM's eyes slowly drifted to the horizon.
There, rising like a silent judgment, stood the wall.
The one that divided Hope from everything else.
Not a symbolic wall. A real one. Massive. Grey. Cold.
It loomed in the distance—so far and yet so near.
They weren't even within reach of Hope's shadow.
To even get to the wall meant traveling through a twenty-minute stretch of barren forest—dry, unwelcoming, wild.
Hope wasn't visible.
Hope wasn't audible.
But they knew it was there.
They could feel it—like a whisper carried on the breeze, like a warmth just out of reach. Beyond that wall…
Was Hope.