After I Amazed the World the Cold Alpha Regretted

Chapter 184

The first syllables of the piano echoed softly, pulling me back to a time long past.

As my fingers traced the familiar keys, memories washed over me, vivid and haunting.

I had been ostracized by my foster parents as a child, and my only refuge was a broken piano stowed away in the dusty attic.

It was my escape, the one thing that could alleviate my loneliness when no one else was there.

On my seventh birthday, I had crept to the top of the stairs, hoping for a surprise, hoping maybe this year they would remember.

read. I saw my foster parents, arms around Alice, leading her out the door to play, laughing as they left me behind. Forgotten. Unwanted.

I had crept back to the attic with tears in my eyes and sat at the piano.

It was then that I composed my first melody.

A simple, fragile tune that whispered the only birthday wish I'd receive that day.

Happy birthday to me. That small song became my secret, a balm for the wounds I carried from my so-called family.

Later, as the years went by, my foster parents would drag me along on visits to other packs, parading me in front of strangers to show their kindness

A cruel irony, really. They would never treat me with kindness themselves, but to outsiders, they wanted to appear generous.

visit to

away from the group and stumbled upon a grand piano in the

were drawn to it,

and started playing the melody I

the first time I played it anywhere other than

softly through the open

in golden

sitting alone and lost, overlapped with the me of this moment, standing here at this

the keys again, lost in the melody I had composed all those

riff that I noticed a change in

went pale, and a look of disbelief washed

if he'd seen a

into silence, I turned to face him, only to find him staring at me with a mix of shock

hear that song?" Leo asked, his voice barely a whisper, but his tone was heavy, filled with an urgency that

pounded. I had guessed

said softly, "I wrote it when I was a child, on my birthday. No one else has ever heard

his eyes. He staggered back a step

broke, "It wasn't Aira... It was

at me, his face etched with regret, and I knew

egretted

Chapter 184