Episode 1 – The Welcome That Wasn't
The rain hadn't stopped all day, but he barely noticed it anymore. The world seemed to mirror the way he felt: cold, gray, and relentless. Five years. Five goddamn years locked in concrete and steel, punished for a crime he hadn't committed. Framed. Abandoned. Forgotten. Every sunrise in prison had reminded him that the world outside had moved on without him. And now, finally, freedom tasted… hollow.
He dragged the prison-issued bag through the city streets. The straps bit into his shoulders as if they wanted him to remember every step of the path that had been stolen from him. Every familiar street corner was a cruel echo: places where he had imagined he might walk again someday, places that now felt foreign.
The taxi stopped. The house appeared through the rainy haze. Windows glimmered with warmth, laughter spilling faintly into the streets. He remembered this place from a time when he had thought he belonged. When he had believed in family.
Welcome home, his sister had said over the phone.
The words had rung with hope. He clutched the straps tighter and stepped inside.
The smell of cake hit him first. Bright colors and balloons filled the room. Laughter bounced off the walls. Music played in the background, cheerful and deafening. For one fragile second, his heart dared to believe it was for him.
Then the banner.
"Happy Birthday [Adopted Son's Name]!"
The room froze—or maybe it had never moved. Everyone's eyes flicked to him, then looked away. His mother's smile was polite but empty, like a mask. His father's hand stayed rigidly at his side. The laughter of his sister hit him with a strange, hollow weight, a sound that should have comforted but instead pierced him like shattered glass.
The one person he had thought might care—the girl he had loved since childhood—stood at the edge of the room, sharp in a lawyer's suit, face unreadable. Her voice cut through the music and chatter:
"The evidence was clear. He had nothing to prove. The CCTV footage is gone—deleted. The family supports the rightful claimant."
No mercy. No hesitation. No flicker of the girl he had trusted, the one he had believed in all those years. Just cold words, precise and fatal.
His stomach dropped. Every pulse of his heart screamed, why?He searched for an ally, a trace of regret, any flicker of doubt—but found none.
And then he saw her. The girl. His childhood sweetheart. The one person who had ever remembered him. She wasn't apologizing. She wasn't pleading. She didn't even look away. Calm, collected, sharp. A knife in human form. She had chosen.
Not him.
Someone shoved a plate of cake toward him. He didn't move. He didn't speak. The adopted son laughed, oblivious. A child ran past, clutching a balloon. He wanted to scream. He wanted to break something. But he didn't.
He understood, in that instant, what his life had been: a series of invisible moments, a rehearsal of obedience and hope for people who had never wanted him to belong.
His sister's voice cracked behind him:
"I… I didn't know…"
Too late. Every apology in the world would not undo the years of absence, the months of isolation, the endless prison nights where hope was a luxury.
He turned, slowly, deliberately. The bag felt lighter now that he no longer needed it to carry hope—only the weight of reality. No one stopped him. No one followed. No one called his name. No one cared.
Outside, the rain slicked streets reflected the city lights. Each step he took felt like a heartbeat of rebellion, quiet and sharp. The betrayal had carved him into someone new—someone still human, still fragile, but awake in a way that nothing before had ever allowed.
For the first time in years, he was free.
But freedom tasted like ash.
And as the wind hit his face, carrying the faint echoes of laughter he had once wanted to be part of, he whispered:
"Remember me—not for who I was, but for what I will become."