Chapter 1: Flames of the Past
The gray, gloomy London sky wept a persistent, cold drizzle. In a quiet, middle-class neighborhood of North London stood an old, red-brick Victorian house. The walls were draped in damp ivy, and the air inside carried the faint, nostalgic scent of dry timber and old bricks. In the small living room, a worn sofa was draped in a modest floral cover, while a kettle hummed perpetually in the tiny kitchen.
This was the home of an ordinary middle-class British family whose days were consumed by relentless labor just to keep the household running.
And within this modest home lived Anesthesia Carter—known to everyone simply as Ana.
Ana’s beauty was far from ordinary. She possessed an oval face, porcelain-white skin with a subtle rose flush, and full, berry-tinted lips. Her thick, straight pitch-black hair cascaded down her back, beautifully framing her elongated, deep black eyes that held an almost hypnotic spell over anyone who looked into them. Her posture was graceful, almost aristocratic. Yet, this divine appearance had been her greatest curse; it invited jealousy, malice, and cruelty wherever she went.
At just nineteen, Ana carried a lifetime of agony behind her breathtaking eyes. When she was merely eight years old, she witnessed her father’s horrific abuse toward her mother. Fueled by alcohol and unbridled rage, he subjected her mother to unspeakable violence until one night, he brutally took her life.
After her mother's murder, her father brought home a cold, scheming, and ruthless stepmother. Ana’s childhood dissolved into an absolute nightmare. The stepmother despised Ana’s very presence and constantly fabricated lies to ruin her. She would falsely accuse little Ana of stealing, disrespecting her, or breaking household items. Every evening, as soon as her father returned home drunk and hot-tempered, the stepmother would pour venom into his ears with bitter grievances.
Without giving eight-year-old Ana a single chance to defend herself, her father’s face would twist into uncontrollable rage. He would unbuckle his heavy leather belt, fold it in half, and beat Ana brutally until her tiny body was covered in bloody welts. He would lash her repeatedly with the metal buckle, leaving deep, purple gashes across her back and shoulders.
The stepmother joined in this torture by deliberately hiding food and locking Ana inside the dark, freezing storeroom for days without a drop of water.
On cold winter mornings, she forced Ana to do laundry with icy water, and if a stain remained, she would splash scalding hot water onto Ana's bare hands as punishment. Ana was forced to sleep on the bare, stone floor of the kitchen without a blanket, reduced to eating leftover scraps off the ground like an animal. The physical pain was agonizing, but the psychological terror was far worse, making Ana flinch at every heavy footstep or the clinking of a belt buckle.
Finally, at sixteen, after a night of severe beating that left her coughing up blood on the floor, Ana realized she would not survive another month in that house. Covered in deep bruises, bleeding, and carrying a heart heavy with grief, she packed nothing and fled into the cold, forgiving darkness of the London night, leaving that hellhole forever.
She slept on damp pavements alongside beggars and survived on whatever crumbs she could find. To afford her education, she worked grueling double shifts in local cafés, wiping tables and washing dishes until her fingers bled. Through sheer grit and endless sleepless nights, she earned enough to enroll in college at eighteen.
However, her high school days had already shattered her spirit beyond repair. Being a homeless girl who lived among beggars made her the primary target for ruthless, cruel bullies at school. Her jaw-dropping beauty combined with her impoverished background fueled an insatiable hatred among the popular girls.
One incident in particular remained etched in her mind like a bloody scar. It was the day of their final examination. Ana, having no money to spare, didn't even have a proper working pen. Desperate and terrified of failing, she timidly approached a group of wealthy girls in her class, begging to borrow a single spare pen. The leader of the gang handed her one with a condescending smirk.
After the exam ended, Ana returned the pen with tears of gratitude in her eyes. But the leader inspected the pen, her expression twisting into dark malice. She sneered, calling Ana a filthy street rat and accusing her of draining all the ink. She demanded a brand-new pen immediately. Terrified, Ana spent the last few coins she had saved for food to buy the exact same pen from a nearby shop and handed it to them, hoping to be spared. But cruelty knows no logic. The leader hissed at her, asking if buying a pen could ever cleanse her dirty beggar hands.
Before Ana could plead, the gang dragged her to the back of the empty classroom. They shoved her to the floor, kicking her viciously as she curled into a ball, weeping. They pinned her down against the cold concrete. The leader lifted the heavy metal handle of a heavy wooden bench and slammed it down directly onto Ana's leg. Then, with sadistic delight, the leader sat on top of the bench, putting her entire body weight onto it.
A sickening crack echoed through the room, and an agonizing scream tore through Ana's throat. The sharp, crushing pressure shattered her bone, the unbearable pain sending black spots across her vision. The girls laughed as they left her bleeding and broken under the desk, unable to move for hours. Her life felt like an inescapable sentence in hell.
Then, at nineteen, a miraculous ray of light appeared. A wealthy, respectable family approached her at college, expressing a desire to adopt her. Their warmth, kind words, and gentle promises moved Ana to tears. For the first time in her life, she felt as though she had won a lottery.
After three blissful days at their lavish home, they broke the news that they had found someone who co
