The Day Everything Broke
The name Sharank was never supposed to mean anything. It wasn't glorious. It wasn't sacred. It wasn't even rare. Just a simple, middle-class name given by a mother who believed in modesty and a father who worked far away. Growing up, Sharank was like most boys in his dusty neighborhood—skinny, hopeful, and hungry for stories about pathways, gods, and parks.
At seventeen, he still believed he might awaken something useful. Something decent. Maybe a minor fire spell. Or a +6% focus buff. Nothing grand, but something to help him get out of his narrow street and into a respectable job. His father, calling twice a year from the workers' compound overseas, always said, "One name is enough to change everything, Sharank. You just need the right one."
Sharank believed him.
His mother was a quiet woman with tired eyes and rough hands. She worked long hours stitching uniforms at a local factory and came home smelling of dye and exhaustion. But she smiled at him every day. Every single day.
On his 18th birthday, she cooked his favorite meal—flatbread and fried eggplant, the way he liked it, salty and soft—and sat with him on the small balcony overlooking cracked rooftops and distant clouds. She brushed his hair, even though he said he was too old for that now, and kissed his forehead.
"Your time is close," she whispered. "Tomorrow, we go to the Naming Hall."
---
The Naming Hall was a marble building in the heart of the district. Large statues of divine animals and elemental sigils surrounded it like ancient guards. Every 18-year-old walked in with hope, and most walked out at least mildly satisfied. A few cried. Some were chosen by strange or rare names. Others, just functional ones.
Sharank sat among the rows of waiting teens in dull uniforms. Some boys muttered guesses about what they'd get, bragging about their bloodlines. Girls braided charms into their hair for luck. Sharank clutched the form his mother had filled out two months earlier, his name printed clearly at the top.
The priest stepped forward. A woman with a shaved head and glowing fingers. She spoke with divine authority, calling names one by one. When Sharank's turn came, he stepped forward, palms sweating.
He placed his hand on the polished stone altar.
A cold light ran through his veins. His breath hitched. The priest narrowed her eyes and whispered, "Oh..."
The divine name appeared above his head in red light, floating:
> Pathway: Homeless
Park 1: Never Grow Hungry
Park 2: Never Grow Sad
Curse: Luck -9999999 in Home
The hall fell silent.
One boy snorted. Another stifled a laugh. The priest stared a moment longer than necessary and motioned him away. "Next."
Sharank walked out of the hall like a ghost. His feet felt detached from the earth.
His mother waited outside with hopeful eyes. "What did you get?"
He showed her the stamped paper. Her face broke like glass.
---
That night, she cooked again. The same meal, but the eggplant was too salty. She didn't eat. She just watched him, hand trembling on her glass of water.
"You're still my son," she whispered. "We'll manage. We always manage."
Later, Sharank lay awake on the thin mattress beside the kitchen. He heard her crying in the bathroom, barely audible. He didn't move. He couldn't.
At 2:14 AM, the neighbors knocked. Something was wrong. Screams. A broken sound.
By the time Sharank got to the bathroom, she was already gone.
The doctors said it was a heart attack. A sudden one. But Sharank knew better. His curse had taken hold the moment he walked into that house. Luck -9999999 in home. His only home. It was his fault.
At the funeral, he stood with his aunts and uncles who whispered too loudly. He couldn't feel his feet. Couldn't speak.
When the priest said, "We commend her soul to the divine, in the name of the Beast God, Gairin," Sharank felt something twist inside him.
He walked away before the prayer finished. He left the town that day. No note. No explanation. He walked all the way to the city with one shirt and a pocketful of coins.
---
The city didn't welcome him.
He slept under benches, in old construction sites, in gutters and corners. People ignored him. Stepped over him. Some spat. He was too weak to fight, and too broken to explain anything to anyone. He begged. At first out of necessity. Then out of routine. Then because there was nothing else.
But he never starved. Never Grow Hungry, the Park whispered into his cells every day, delivering strange internal warmth. Even when he hadn't eaten for days, he felt full. Just enough.
And he never cried. Not once. Never Grow Sad, the Park ensured. He could feel anger. Shame. Confusion. But sadness—true, deep sadness—was locked away from him like a closed door he couldn't open, no matter how hard he pounded.
One winter, another beggar froze to death beside him in the alley. Sharank looked at the stiff corpse for hours, wondering why he felt nothing. Not fear. Not sorrow. Not even cold.
He wrapped the body with a blanket and continued begging the next day.
---
Decades passed.
People came and went. Names were praised on screens and murals—pathways of light, steel, lightning. Teenagers flaunted their Parks on social media. One girl could command ten hawks with her Lifeform park. A boy could create glass with his breath. Another teen was sponsored by a soft drink company because of his +22% Charisma Buff.
And Sharank? He begged. Watched. Survived.
His beard grew long. His skin folded like creased paper. No one called him by name anymore. Just "old man," "beggar," or "move."
He sat at the edge of metro stations and busy plazas, humming tuneless songs. Kids pointed at him sometimes. Some threw coins. Some mocked.
He didn't mind. He couldn't be sad.
But he remembered. Every day, he remembered.
The food his mother made. The scratchy couch. The Naming Hall. The cursed paper. The eggplant.
He couldn't mourn her. Not really. He had tried. Once, he held a sharp bottle neck to his throat in a dark alley, just to feel something. But the Park didn't allow sadness. And without sadness, death meant nothing.
So he lived. Quietly. Meaninglessly.
The world kept spinning.
---
Now, he was 60.
His bones ached, even if he didn't show it. His breath came slower. His eyes had fogged with time. He had a blanket, two shirts, and a bent metal cup with three coins inside.
He still believed he was Sharank.
Still believed he was nobody.
He was a name the gods forgot.
But the gods hadn't forgotten him.
Not yet.
And not forever.
Sharank sat by the metro station wall with his bent metal cup. The sky was overcast, but the air smelled fresh after light rain. People passed by in waves—shoes clicking, phones in hand, laughter in distant corners. No one looked at him. No one ever did.
He stared at a half-eaten sandwich someone had dropped nearby. He didn't reach for it. He wasn't hungry.
Then the air changed.
It began with a light humming. Faint at first, like wind brushing a wire fence. Then the temperature shifted—too warm for spring. The ground under him pulsed once, like a heartbeat.
A Rift opened.
It wasn't loud. Just a tear, vertical and silent, hanging mid-air five meters away. Black mist leaked from its edges. Colors bled around it—dark reds, deep greens, and violet threads that shimmered like oil on water.
People noticed. Phones came out. Cameras flashed. Some stepped back. Some gasped.
But no one ran. No one helped.
Sharank looked up at the Rift, blinking slowly.
From the swirling mist, five figures in dark clothes stepped out. Robes. Hoods. Their faces were painted like bone masks. One of them pointed directly at Sharank.
They walked toward him.
No one intervened. A child recorded everything while eating chips.
Sharank stood up, instinctively taking a step back. But there was no point. One of them raised a hand. Something hit his chest like a soft hammer. The world tilted.
He collapsed.
---
When he woke, the sky was gone.
Above him, vines draped from glowing trees, tall and thin, with translucent bark that pulsed with soft blue light. Leaves were the color of deep amber and moved without wind. Strange flowers bloomed between stones, releasing glowing spores into the still air. The grass beneath him was warm and soft like moss. Insects with crystal wings hovered silently.
This was not Earth.
This was inside the Rift.
He was in a forest—silent, slow, sacred. Every branch bent like it knew it was being watched.
They dragged him forward.
He saw it ahead through the foliage—a structure of dark red stone, shaped like a low, angular pyramid with no roof. Vines crawled along its base. Four wide pillars held up its outer walls. The walls were etched with spirals, claw marks, and faces too distorted to read. Moss clung to the crevices like old memories.
The shrine's interior was simple: a sunken circle with stairs leading down. The floor was made of obsidian glass, carved with hundreds of names in languages he couldn't read. In the center stood a black altar, shaped like a tree stump but made of bone. A narrow channel ran from the altar across the floor into a drain.
They placed him on the altar.
His hands were tied with something that looked like rope but moved like worms. One of the robed figures stepped forward—a dark elf, skin like old marble, eyes pale silver. No mask.
She spoke in a tongue that vibrated in the chest more than the ear. The words wrapped around his head like a blanket of smoke.
Symbols lit up along the shrine floor.
The ritual began.
The sky above the Rift forest turned darker, though no sun had been visible before. Winds started to circle. The trees bowed. The flowers closed.
The dark elf raised a dagger made of white stone and cut across Sharank's chest. Not deep. Just enough. Blood ran down the altar and into the groove. The altar glowed red.
The elf leaned forward and whispered a word directly into his forehead:
> "Mahan."
He felt it burn into him.
His body locked in place. The name flooded his veins like fire. He couldn't move. He couldn't think. But the Park activated—
Never Grow Sad.
The sorrow of death, of helplessness, of sacrifice—none of it reached him. He blinked once.
Inside him, the name Mahan took root. He saw flashes—horned figures, cities burning, chains, a throne of eyes. And behind all of it, a shadow larger than anything, whispering promises in the shape of screams.
Ashuric Gentesu. Demon God. The one trying to enter this world through his soul. Trying to break in.
But he didn't want it.
He didn't want to be a vessel.
The Park activated again.
Never Grow Sad.
The ritual faltered.
The altar cracked slightly.
The elf's expression shifted—but before she could react, a new warmth spread through Sharank's chest.
A second word formed inside him. Gentle. Heavy like mountains.
> "Gajanand."
A voice like growling rivers. The name exploded into his soul.
Gairin. God of Beasts.
A second divine name settled into his being. He felt fur, fang, bone, heartbeat. Wild forests. Pack instincts. Roars from unseen mouths.
The two names—Mahan and Gajanand—started to tear at each other. They weren't compatible. Not even close. The demonic corruption and beast divinity clashed in every corner of his soul.
His veins screamed.
The shrine began to shake.
The trees outside trembled as if the forest itself was afraid.
Symbols shattered. The altar cracked in half. The blood reversed in the channels.
Sharank convulsed. His mouth opened but made no sound. The Parks inside him blinked erratically.
Never Grow Sad. Never Grow Sad. Never Grow Sad.
Then the sky opened above.
Not torn. Not broken.
Just opened.
A third voice descended—not loud, not violent. Quiet. Curious. Deep like an empty sky. It didn't demand.
It asked.
And then it named him:
> "Madhagaza."
The name didn't arrive through pain. It arrived like sleep. Like forgetting. Like being carried.
His soul stopped tearing.
The beast quieted. The demon stilled. And something new rose inside him—unknown, unclaimed, unnamed until now.
Madhagaza.
Five Parks formed in his blood.
Name Devouring
Name Analysis
Park Generator
Pathway Store
[Locked]
Then everything went black.
---
When he opened his eyes again, the sky was dark in night.
He was in a small room, lying on a thin mattress. His hands were young. His skin was smooth. A school uniform hung on a chair nearby.
Lights was on. Near him laid some highschool books.
A mirror on the wall showed his face—seventeen years old.
Memories rushed in. His mother was alive. His father was still overseas. Today was the day before his Naming.
His chest was hollow.
He knew what would happen tomorrow.
He knew what name they would give him.
He didn't want to go.
He didn't want to be named.
Not anymore.