I knew this moment would come. I always knew. Great deeds are not remembered without a price, and I paid mine with every drop of blood and sweat.
The road that brought me here was not peaceful; it was filled with misfortunes and hardships. I was born into an environment no child should be born into, surrounded by screams, coldness, and indifference. I was forced into hard labor from the moment I could walk, by the very people who gave me the gift of life, and with each passing day, I understood more and more that the blood that binds us means nothing when love does not exist.
The road that brought me here was arduous, but not without purpose. I was born into an environment no child should be born into, surrounded by screams, coldness, and indifference. I was forced into hard labor from the moment I could walk, carrying burdens that were not mine, serving those who should have protected me. But unlike what they expected, I did not break.
From an early age, I realized there was something different about me. I remembered everything—every word spoken, every detail of every scene, as if time had no power over my memories. At first, I thought it was a curse, a punishment that prevented me from forgetting pain, but soon I understood it was a gift. Where others needed repetition to learn, I absorbed immediately. Where others forgot, I stored it forever.
Knowledge became my weapon. Every keen glance, every page read in secret, every conversation overheard without being noticed... everything was a lesson. I took what was taught to the privileged and became more than them. I saw patterns where others saw chaos, understood mechanisms invisible to the common world. Numbers spoke to me, languages bent to my will, the hands that once carried weight began to shape ideas.
And that was how I escaped. Not with violence, not with desperation, but with intelligence. When no one expected it, when they thought I was just another soul doomed to the cycle of misery, I left. Alone, with nothing but a sharp mind and an insatiable thirst for knowledge.
What I once saw as a burden, I now understand as a gift. For those who forget stumble on the same stones. Those who learn slowly waste time. But I... I never forget, I never stop. And as long as the world keeps turning, I will keep growing.
The night I fled was like any other—dark, cold, and silent. But for me, it was the beginning of everything. I left behind the place where I was born, where I was never wanted, and I left without looking back. No money, no concrete plan, only what I had always possessed: my mind.
The days that followed were harsh. I slept on filthy streets, felt hunger gnaw at my bones, was treated as less than nothing. But I never bowed. I observed, I learned, I adapted. Where others saw only difficulties, I saw possibilities. I picked up discarded books and devoured them in a night. I listened to conversations of passing teachers and absorbed more knowledge than their own students. My name began to spread, first as the strange boy who knew too much, then as a prodigy impossible to ignore.
At six years old, I was accepted directly into the fifth grade, skipping four years. At eight, I completed elementary school and entered high school. At ten, I passed the national exams, and at eleven, I entered university with a full scholarship.
My first doctorate came at sixteen, followed by others. Medicine, engineering, chemistry, physics—fields of knowledge bent before me. The impossible became simple. The unattainable, just a matter of time.
They said I was a miracle, an unprecedented phenomenon. But the truth was different. I was not a product of chance, not a privileged child of fate. I was the result of pain, of necessity, of the refusal to be less than I could be. For those who bow before adversity conquer nothing. And I... I never bowed.
At twenty, I won the Nobel Prize in Physics and Chemistry for developing a material that eliminated energy loss and made nuclear fusion viable.
Shortly after, my research in regenerative medicine brought a treatment capable of curing neurodegenerative diseases and restoring damaged tissues, earning me the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
But I did not stop. At twenty-five, I was awarded the Nobel Prize in Engineering for creating a system that revolutionized space exploration, making interplanetary travel accessible and safe.
My inventions did not just change the world—they also destroyed empires. The energy market collapsed when my discovery eliminated the need for fossil fuels. The pharmaceutical industry lost trillions when my research rendered obsolete treatments that merely prolonged suffering but never cured. I knew powerful interests were watching me, waiting for a mistake, a weakness.
The first threat came disguised as advice. An executive from one of the world's largest corporations approached me personally. The man smiled as he told me, politely, that some knowledge should remain inaccessible, that uncontrolled progress could bring chaos, that I should be more... discreet.
I laughed. And I told him that the future waits for no one.
That night, I knew I had signed my own sentence.
The veiled warnings soon became explicit threats. My lab was invaded. Computers, destroyed. My data, corrupted. But none of it mattered. My mind was my true lab, and there was nothing they could take from me.
Then came the accidents. The car that lost its brakes on a deserted road. The elevator that plummeted just as I decided to take the stairs. The food that nearly killed me with an "accidental" poisoning.
But it was one night when everything happened. The lab was silent at that hour, the blue glow of monitors casting trembling shadows on the glass walls. Piles of notes were scattered across the desk, hurriedly scribbled calculations, promising results shining on the screen.
Exhausted, I ran my hands over my face and decided it was time to leave. I walked through the empty halls, the sound of my footsteps echoing on the marble floor. The reception was deserted, only the usual security guard lost in his own world, barely raising his head as I passed.
Outside, the air was cold, carrying the distant scent of rain. The streetlights flickered, casting long shadows across the nearly empty parking lot.
That was when I heard it.
Above me, footsteps approached. Precise. Cold.
The crack of the first gunshot still echoed when another followed right after, tearing through the night with a dry, brutal sound. The world spun, the cold asphalt embraced me with open arms, and the smell of gunpowder mixed with the iron of the blood flooding my mouth.
My vision flickered between trembling lights and dancing shadows. The weight in my chest grew, each heartbeat spreading warmth through the fabric soaked in red. The assassin stood there for a moment, watching, evaluating. Was the job done? My motionless body should have been answer enough.
But then, voices.
First a distant murmur. Then screams. Windows opened, doors creaked, and bare feet hit the ground in urgency. Someone had heard the shots. Witnesses.
The cold, calculated steps retreated. The shooter did not wait any longer. In seconds, they disappeared into the darkness.
And I remained.
Fallen, bleeding, listening to the world move around me like a distant dream.
Hands touched me, trembling, pressing against the wounds. A voice insisted I stay awake. Someone screamed for an ambulance.
Red and blue lights painted the night.
Darkness did not come immediately. First, there was the cold. Not the kind felt on the skin, but the one that crawls through the bones, numbing everything in its path. Then, the pain. At first, sharp, cutting, a cruel reminder that I still existed. But then, it became distant, almost illusory, as if my body was no longer mine.
Lights flickered above me, shadows moved, distant voices screamed my name. The hospital. I survived... for now.
The world around me flickers, distant, as if I were drifting between reality and oblivion. Sirens echo in the distance, voices blend into an indistinct murmur. Someone holds my hand, but the touch feels as far away as my own existence.
I feel the weight of blood flowing between my fingers, warm, thick, real. The metallic scent invades my lungs, and the pain? Ah, the pain is just a detail now. The true blow wasn't the bullet that tore through my flesh, nor the body collapsing against the cold asphalt—it was the corruption that condemned me.
I was admired, envied, celebrated... and then marked as an obstacle. My name, once etched in admiration, now echoed in the shadowy corridors of those who feared my knowledge. The fate of those who challenge the rulers in the shadows has never been different.
History always repeats itself. Socrates had the hemlock. Prometheus had the chains. And I? I will have eternity.
Because even if my body yields, my name will never be erased. My legacy will burn through the centuries, like a bonfire that no wind can extinguish.
My last breath is not loss, but return. I close my eyes and smile.
For every river meets the sea, and every fallen leaf one day returns to its root.
The darkness gave way to a golden glow. It wasn't ordinary light—it was something alive, pulsating, enveloping me like a veil of warmth and silence. I felt my body dissolving, yet at the same time, I became more whole than I had ever been.
I floated. Or perhaps walked. The concept of movement became irrelevant. Before me, a tunnel stretched out, made of something that wasn't stone, nor light, nor shadow—but all of these at once. It called to me, and I followed.
Footsteps echoed in the distance, but they weren't mine. A shiver ran through what remained of me. I wasn't alone.
And then, a voice filled everything.
"Welcome to the Elysian Fields."