The night was silent — the kind of silence that presses on the walls like weight.
Moonlight spilled across Apollo's desk, glinting off the faint scratches on his knuckles. His breathing slowed as sleep crept in, dragging him somewhere between memory and nightmare.
The Faded Memories
Sleep came slowly, like drowning.
And when it did, it brought him to a place he didn't remember — or didn't want to.
And then, the dream began.
His past life memory
It started with rain.
Cold. Endless. The kind that sinks through clothes and bone.
Apollo stood beneath a cracked bus shelter, his schoolbag clutched to his chest. He was small — eleven, maybe twelve. The streetlamps blurred in the downpour, the city reduced to shadow and silver.
Three older boys laughed nearby, their voices cutting through the rain like blades.
> "Hey, little hero. Still saving losers?"
"What's next, you gonna protect the janitor too?"
Apollo said nothing. He'd already learned that silence was the only armor he had left.
The leader kicked his bag, spilling its contents into the gutter. Papers soaked, sketches dissolving into gray streaks.
They laughed, and the sound mixed with thunder.
But even then — even as fear trembled inside him — something else stirred.
A question. A whisper.
Why do they get to feel safe… and not me?
The Teenager Who Kept Standing Up
The dream shifted.
He was older now — fifteen. His voice deeper, his shoulders broader, but his eyes… still the same.
He sat alone in class, drawing in the back corner while laughter echoed around him.
Every day, someone had something new to break — a sketchbook, a pencil, his patience.
Every day, he told himself the same thing:
It doesn't matter. I'll get stronger.
But he didn't know what that meant yet.
That afternoon, he saw it again — a kid being shoved into a locker, crying quietly while others looked away.
He didn't think. He stepped forward.
"Let him go."
It was that simple.
And just like that, his fate repeated.
A fist.
A laugh.
The thud of his body against the wall.
But this time, when he hit the floor, he didn't cry.
He grinned — blood mixing with rain on his lip.
Because something inside him finally clicked.
He realized pain wasn't what he feared.
It was the powerlessness behind it.
That night, he stayed awake, staring at his reflection in the dark window.
Outside, lightning split the sky. Inside, he whispered to his reflection:
> "I don't want to be good. I want to be strong."
A schoolyard.
Rain.
A younger version of himself — small, quiet, clutching a torn backpack.
Voices laughed nearby, but their faces were blurred, faceless shadows of a time long gone.
He couldn't recall their names anymore.
Only the sound — the laughter, the rain, the sting.
Then — silence.
The boy turned, his soaked reflection in a puddle trembling.
And just as Apollo tried to reach out —
the image scattered, washed away.
The dream skipped ahead like a damaged tape.
---
The Life That Went On
Now he was older. College years.
Cheap coffee, long nights, bruised ambition.
He'd grown used to solitude — not by choice, but by adaptation.
Friends came and went; relationships ended before they began.
He didn't hate people, he just… didn't need them.
The world became mechanical. Predictable.
Wake, work, sleep, repeat.
The only time he felt anything genuine was on his phone, reading panels of people fighting for something.
Lookism.
He remembered stumbling across it one sleepless night.
Something about it made his chest tighten.
It wasn't the violence.
It was the feeling. The raw, unfiltered power of characters who refused to stay weak.
People who stood tall even when the world spat on them.
He envied that.
While others saw entertainment, he saw memory.
Not of events, but of emotion.
The same old ache buried deep — the kid who once stood up for someone, got beaten, and never understood why it felt both wrong and right.
---
The Quiet Decay
Years blurred.
The boy who wanted to be strong had grown into a man who'd stopped trying.
Not because he lost hope — but because he forgot what it felt like to have any.
He buried himself in routine.
He smiled when required.
He talked when spoken to.
He lived without ever living.
His co-workers called him dependable.
Neighbors said polite.
No one said alive.
Sometimes, on train rides home, he'd stare out the window — watching reflections flicker over dark tunnels.
Faces of strangers.
And somewhere between their silhouettes, he thought he saw his younger self — eyes bright, fists clenched, unbroken.
But by the time the train stopped, the image vanished.
He'd sigh and get off, like always.
---
The Dream Returns
That night, as exhaustion pulled him under, the dream began again.
He was standing in a classroom.
Empty. Dusty.
The old school he'd forgotten.
A single desk remained in the center.
And seated there was the boy — the younger Apollo — staring down at a torn sketchbook.
When the boy looked up, his eyes were calm but sharp.
Not accusing — just knowing.
> "You forgot us," the boy said quietly.
Apollo froze. His voice didn't work.
> "You grew up. Worked hard. Became good at surviving. But you stopped fighting. You stopped caring."
The adult Apollo wanted to speak — wanted to explain that growing up meant moving on, that there was no point clinging to anger or dreams.
But when he tried to move, he realized his feet were rooted to the floor.
> "You think forgetting makes you free?" the boy asked.
"No. It just makes you hollow."
The lights flickered.
The classroom morphed — desks melting into office cubicles, walls turning into apartment windows, the air heavy with monotony.
And standing across from him now wasn't a boy — it was another version of himself. Older, sharper, cold-eyed — the man he could've been.
A version that never forgot.
> "You read stories about strength," that version said. "You admire power. You call it fiction, but you crave it. You always have."
The world around him shimmered — images from Lookism flashing like lightning: Daniel's determination.
Icons of power.
Symbols of something he'd lost.
> "You could've become something," the voice continued. "Instead, you watched others live for you."
The words hit harder than any punch.
> "You think admiring strength makes you strong? No. It makes you a spectator in your own story."
The Awakening Within
The office walls shattered like glass.
He was back in the rain again — the first memory, the bus stop, the sound of thunder.
Only this time, he wasn't watching.
He was that boy again. Small, trembling, furious.
But something felt different.
The fear was still there — but behind it, something darker pulsed.
A quiet defiance.
A voice whispering from somewhere deep inside:
> "Even if you forget, the blood remembers."
His fists clenched.
The world slowed.
He didn't know why, but suddenly the rain didn't feel cold anymore. It felt alive — every drop like a heartbeat, every sound like a call.
And from the puddle, the reflection looking back wasn't a child anymore.
It was him.
Older. Stronger. The man he wanted to be.
He stepped forward, merging with the reflection.
Light exploded.
Then silence.
Reality – Present Day
Reality Returns
Apollo shot awake.
Apollo woke with a sharp breath.
The sound of rain still echoed outside his window, faint but real.
He rubbed his face, disoriented, half convinced the dream had followed him.
Sweat clung to his skin. His heartbeat pounded like fists against his ribs. The room was dim, the early dawn light barely breaking through the curtains.
For a moment, he didn't move. He just sat there, the fragments of his dream bleeding into reality — the rain, the bruises, the faces.
The child, the teenager, the man — all of them the same person.
All of them him.
He stood slowly, walking toward the mirror.
The bruises from his recent fight with Tae-min were nearly gone, his body healing unnaturally fast. But it wasn't the physical change that caught his eye.
It was his expression.
The same cold calm as in the dream.
> "So this is what I've become," he whispered.
He stared at it.
Then at his hands.
They were trembling slightly.
Not from fear — from memory.
Something had changed.
Not a system update, not an awakening — just awareness.
He realized how much of himself he'd buried under the weight of forgetting.
Every scar he'd dismissed.
Every insult he'd turned into silence.
Every time he told himself "it doesn't matter" — it did.
Because the boy in the rain never left.
He just waited.
Apollo leaned back in his chair, eyes drifting to the city beyond the window. Neon lights blurred against the mist, painting his reflection in pale colors.
> "Maybe I never stopped caring," he whispered. "I just stopped believing it mattered."
A faint smile crossed his face — tired, ironic, but real.
The world outside kept moving.
People hurried. Lights changed. Cars passed.
And somewhere in that endless motion, Apollo felt something he hadn't in years.
A spark.
Not of hope — but of hunger.
> "They fight for pride," he murmured. "Maybe I'll fight for something else."
He didn't sound proud. Or ashamed.
Just… resolved.
And deep down, he knew: he didn't fight because he hated bullies.
He fought because he understood them. Because somewhere inside, he carried the same hunger — to never be weak again.
He opened the window, the dawn air washing over him. Seoul stretched below — loud, alive, indifferent.
He looked at the people walking, laughing, living, unaware of how close they all stood to breaking.
> "People only respect what they fear," he murmured.
The system didn't flicker. No reward, no sound, no stat increase.
But he could feel it — the faint hum beneath his skin, the quiet pulse of potential.
The blood didn't forget.
The characters he once admired weren't gods. They were mirrors.
Reflections of what happens when pain doesn't fade — it evolves.
Later that Night, Apollo sat on the Room of his House , legs dangling over the edge, the city spread beneath him.
The dream still lingered, vivid and electric.
He thought about all those years — the people he'd helped, the bruises he'd collected, the times he'd gone home wondering if kindness was a mistake.
And he realized — maybe he was never meant to be a hero.
Maybe the world didn't need one.
Maybe it needed something else.
Something colder. Sharper.
A person who understood that light doesn't exist without shadow.
> "If being feared means being free," he muttered, "then I'll take fear."
He closed his eyes, the memory of rain still echoing in his head.
Every drop a reminder of what weakness cost him.
Every scar a reason to never go back.
He wasn't the boy who stood in the rain anymore.
He was the storm that came after.
He leaned forward, the blue light of the screen washing over his face.
Somewhere deep down, he could hear the echo of the boy's voice again.
> "Don't forget this time."
A faint smile tugged at his lips.
It wasn't arrogance. It was acceptance.
Author's Note: "The Faded Memories"
This chapter isn't just about Apollo's dream — it's about the quiet death of youth.
It's the moment when idealism fades, and what replaces it isn't wisdom, but emptiness.
When I wrote this, I wanted to capture a kind of pain most people don't notice until it's too late — the pain of forgetting who you were.
Apollo's dream represents that slow erosion: the boy who stood up against cruelty, who believed kindness was strength, eventually became the man who learned to survive by silence. He didn't lose hope overnight; he simply buried it under years of routine.
The reason this chapter is important is because it shows that strength doesn't always come from ambition — sometimes it's born from remembering.
Apollo isn't trying to be a hero. He's trying to reclaim something human inside him that the world took away.
That's what makes him different from the typical protagonist. His motivation isn't revenge or fame — it's the need to matter again.
The dream sequences — the rain, the reflection, the voice of his younger self — are metaphors for his internal reckoning.
Rain symbolizes both cleansing and decay. The reflection is his guilt. And the younger Apollo's accusation — "You forgot us" — is the embodiment of every dream we abandon to survive.
By the time he wakes, Apollo isn't "reborn" — he's reconnected.
He doesn't vow to be a savior or a saint. He simply accepts the darkness inside him as part of who he is.
That's what makes him an anti-hero — not because he rejects good, but because he no longer believes goodness survives without strength.
If there are any mistakes, inconsistencies, or pacing flaws here, feel free to point them out — I'll correct and polish them.
My goal with Apollo's journey is to make each chapter feel alive — not just to read, but to feel.
The boy who stood in the rain is gone.
But the storm he became is only beginning.