Chapter 1

Just because I played video games for an hour on the computer, my mom decided I was a gaming addict.

She forced me into a troubled-teen behavioral reform camp.

She said, "I won't let games and the internet ruin your life. Go in there and get reformed."

"Once you've changed for the better, I'll bring you home."

What she didn't know was the truth.

There was no redemption in that place. Only electroshock torture, brutal physical punishment, and endless "mind reprogramming."

Three years later, standing outside the gates of that soul-crushing reform academy, she reached out her hand to me with tears streaming down her face.

"Jesse, I know I was wrong. Please come home with me. I swear I'll never push you again."

I took a step back on pure instinct.

I never told her that I had found a brother in that hellhole.

The first thing he taught me was simple: Never trust the people who personally drag you into hell, even when they cry and swear they love you.

"I know I messed up. I'll never force you to do anything again. Just come home with me, okay?"

The moment her fingers brushed against my sleeve, a familiar, bone-chilling dread shot straight up my spine.

Almost instinctively, I took a swift step back, dodging her touch with practiced precision.

My reaction caught her off guard. Her hand froze in midair, the expression on her face completely rigid.

I just stared at her with dead eyes, looking at her as if she were a total stranger.

Go home? Could that place even be called a home anymore?

"Jesse, why... why are you pulling away from me?"

"Did someone hurt you in there? Tell me!"

She reached for me again and caught my arm. I tried to pull away, but her grip was tight.

"No," I replied flatly, my voice so raspy and dry that it sounded alien even to my own ears.

She seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, though her fingers tightened even more, as if she were terrified I would bolt.

"That's good, that's good... I looked up so many articles online. They said places like that... aren't fit for human beings... As long as you weren't abused..." she murmured, her eyes welling with thick tears that threatened to spill over.

Watching her look so relieved and heartbroken, I could only let out a mocking, bitter laugh on the inside.

Mom, wasn't it you who pulled every string and paid thousands of dollars to dump me in that exact place that wasn't fit for human beings?

Isn't it a little too late to care about whether I was abused now?

Three years of electroshocks and beatings had taught me one undeniable truth:

Tears and apologies are the cheapest things on earth.

She forced a fawning smile and steered me toward her sleek, brand-new sedan parked by the curb.

"You used to love gaming, didn't you? I cleaned out your room, and I even bought you the newest, highest-end gaming PC!"

She tried to use my old hobbies to spark some warmth in me.

"I also cooked all your favorite meals. Let's go home and celebrate your fresh start."

I glanced back one last time at the bleak, gray, prison-like compound behind me.

Razor wire lined the top of the concrete perimeter walls.

Inside, I had met an older boy named Hank, who became like a brother to me.

He was thrown in there to be "re-educated" because he refused to take over his family's corporate empire. He still had about two months left before his release. We made a pact: when that day came, I would be there to pick him up.

Holding onto that promise gave me the only real anchor in my chest.

Plus, there was still an old collection of game discs my dad had left me before he passed away, still stashed at the house.

It was the only physical remnant tying me to the happy moments of my past.

In the end, I gave up resisting. Silent and passive, I followed her into the car heading toward that so-called "home."

The car glided down the highway in an awkward, suffocating silence.

She kept stealing anxious glances at me in the rearview mirror.

After a while, half as a gentle reminder and half as a warning, she reached over and lightly ruffled my buzzcut:

"Jesse, let the past stay in the past. From now on... you can't get addicted to the internet again, okay? Take this as a lesson. You have to remember it."

My hands clenched against my knees, my fingernails digging hard into my palms.

Over the past three years, during the rare days we were permitted to write letters, I had written to her over and over.

I told her I wasn't an addict.

I told her I just liked playing games, that it was my only hobby and my only way to decompress.

She had never written back once.

To her, I had long been stamped with the indelible label of an addict.

So now, I didn't even have the urge to explain myself.

I just nodded submissively, playing the obedient child she wanted, and whispered:

"I understand, Mom."

A look of sheer relief washed over her face, satisfied, as if the behavioral reprogramming had genuinely worked.

Pleased with herself, she accelerated down the road, driving toward the home I could never truly return to.