Before she became Lunaria—the smiling idol who soothed the world—
she was simply Luna, a girl born far from laughter, far from people, far from mercy.
Her family lived at the edge of civilisation, in a crooked wooden house half-buried in forest shadows. No neighbours. No school. No friends. Only survival. Only work.
Luna was the eldest of three sisters.
She had two younger siblings, Mei and Risa—bright little girls with sun-soft smiles, the only warmth Luna had in her childhood. They weren't a wealthy family. They weren't even a stable one. Every day, Luna woke before sunrise to help her father with heavy labour: cutting wood, tending to the animals, gathering herbs her mother sold for coins that barely fed them.
She never held a schoolbag.
Never learned to write her name.
Her lessons were pain, endurance, and hunger.
But despite the hardship, there was love.
Her mother sang while cooking, humming lullabies that turned the cold nights gentle. Her father, though strict and silent, placed his large hand on her head whenever she finished her chores well. Her sisters clung to her arms, laughing, begging her to tell them stories she invented on the spot.
For a brief time, it was enough.
Then the accident happened.
It was sudden. Unfair. Cruel.
Luna's mother slipped down the rocky hillside while gathering herbs alone. The fall broke her bones and stole her breath before anyone could reach her. Luna remembered running to her mother's body—remembered the coldness already spreading across her skin, remembered screaming into the sky until her voice cracked.
After that day, the house no longer felt like home.
Her father, drowning in despair and desperation, made a decision Luna wished he never had:
He remarried.
The woman he brought into their home wore perfume too sweet and a smile too sharp. Her eyes were hard, calculating. The dogs she brought with her—three large beasts—growled at Luna and her little sisters whenever they walked past.
Things grew worse fast.
Her stepmother forced her to work twice as much, eat half as often, and sleep only after everyone else. Luna endured it quietly for the sake of her sisters.
But then—
a year later—
her father died too.
No accident. No illness anyone spoke of.
He simply didn't wake up.
And with his death, whatever thin barrier had protected the girls vanished.
The stepmother's cruelty bared its fangs.
---
Luna would remember that night for the rest of her life.
The lanternlight.
The barking dogs.
The screams.
Mei and Risa were dragged out of their shared bed before Luna could move. Their stepmother's voice cut through the house like a rusty knife, filled with hatred Luna never understood.
"You three are nothing but burdens. And I don't feed burdens."
The dogs lunged.
Luna's mind broke at the sound—those small, terrified voices crying for her, calling her name, fading too quickly. She tried to fight. She threw herself at the dogs. She grabbed her sisters' arms, but the stepmother struck her with the handle of a shovel, splitting her forehead open.
Blood blinded her.
When she lifted her head again, her sisters were motionless on the dirt floor.
And the dogs were already eating.
Luna screamed until her lungs burned.
Her stepmother turned toward her with the shovel raised again.
"It's your turn."
Instinct carried Luna's body before her mind could think.
She ran.
Through the door, into the trees, into the freezing night.
Her bare feet tore on branches, her breath caught with sobs, her vision blurred with blood and tears. But she kept running until the house disappeared behind her and the forest swallowed her whole.
That was the night she became alone.
---
Her life afterwards was survival.
She slept under bridges, or in abandoned sheds, or behind restaurants where warm air leaked from kitchen vents. She ate whatever she could find—rotting bread, wilted vegetables, food scraped from trash bins. She learned to move unnoticed. Learned which streets were safe. Learned which adults to avoid.
The world had forgotten her.
But she did not forget the world.
She saw suffering everywhere—homeless men coughing in alleyways, children crying outside hospitals, old women carrying burdens heavier than their bodies could bear. Every time Luna saw pain in someone else's eyes, it stabbed her deeper than her hunger ever could.
Why does everyone hurt so much?
Why does suffering never stop?
More than anything, she wished she could take it away.
All of it.
---
Then one night, while she huddled beneath an old bus stop with rain pouring around her, someone approached.
Not a man.
Not a woman.
Not something she could understand.
They wore a white cloak that glowed faintly in the darkness, and their voice was neither young nor old—only gentle.
"You look like a child who has lost everything."
Luna trembled but didn't run. She had nothing left to lose.
The figure crouched down to meet her eyes.
"Tell me what you desire most. If you could change one thing… what would it be?"
Luna didn't ask for food.
Or money.
Or a home.
Her voice cracked as she answered:
"I… I don't want other people to suffer. I know how pain feels. I know how terrible it is. I don't want anyone else to feel it ever again."
Her small hands clenched.
"If someone must hurt… let it be me instead."
The figure studied her—this starving, broken girl with determination burning brighter than her fear.
Then they touched her forehead, right over the scar from the night she lost everything.
"So be it."
Light poured into her. Warm. Terrible. Powerful.
"When people hurt, you will feel their sorrow. When they cry, you will carry their tears. Their pain will become your burden… and your voice will become their peace."
And as the figure faded into the rain, they spoke one final truth:
"This gift is not kindness. It is sacrifice."
---
Years later, the world would know her as Lunaria, the idol whose singing erased pain.
But only she knew the truth:
Her smile was forged from tragedy.
Her voice was shaped by suffering.
And her power—
the ability to take away the sorrow of millions—
was born from the night she lost everything she loved.