Faustian Bargain: First Pact Winner - June 2025

I want to be loved by someone.

I want someone, anyone, to hold me in their arms and whisper the words: I love you.

Would it be like in the movies and books? Would there be fireworks? Sparks? Would my lungs lunge into my throat, would my gut do the salsa, would my legs do the waltz, would my jaw do the limbo, my knees do the splits, and my stomach do the can-can? 

I want to be loved by someone.

I want to know what it feels like for someone to look at me and confess that they love me. I want someone's eyes to light up when they see me, and I want my presence to be the reason someone smiles every day. I want to know that I am at least a person worthy of being loved by another human being. 

I want to be loved by someone.

Ever since I was a boy, that was all I wanted. As other children were adopted from St. Kizito’s, whilst I, frail and sickly, was overlooked time and again, I wanted to know what love felt like. Having watched as everyone fled during the hurricane warning, but I was forgotten, too slow and too frail to flee on my own, I wanted to know what love felt like. Having lingered beneath a wooden beam, screaming for someone to help me, watching the storm make landfall, I wanted to know what love felt like.

As the water swept me through the city and I lost consciousness to the dark and cold, I wanted to know what love felt like. As I woke up, atop a refrigerator adrift on the sea, I wanted to know what love felt like. As I floated for hours, licking my dried lips, fighting down the temptation to drink the seawater, I wanted to know what love felt like.

As I shivered from the cold, as my teeth chattered and I lost all feeling in my fingers and toes, I wanted to know what love felt like. A piece of debris floated by, the torn remnants of a body pillow caught on wood, and as I dragged it out of the water, hallucinating from hunger, I wanted to know what love felt like. As I squeezed it tight, as the image on the body-pillow supported me, as I heard her words, ‘Don’t give up! You can do it! You’ll make it!’ I wanted to know what love felt like.

As the coast guards found me, rushed to take me out of the water, and I passed out, still clutching that torn piece of the body pillow, I wanted to know what love felt like.

As I recovered in the hospital, received my fifteen minutes of fame, and was asked how I had held on, I told them:

I refuse to die before I know what love feels like.

As my words were twisted by the media, as headlines wrote, ‘Boy Survives Hurricane Because He Refused To Die A Virgin,’ as the picture of me holding on the torn body pillow went viral, as I transitioned from survivor to laughingstock, to otaku nerd whose hatred of his virginity was potent enough to save his life—

As I became a viral meme, my face plastered on internet pages captioned with: ‘The Indomitable Virgin Spirit’, as my very name became synonymous with the unloved and undesirable—

I wanted to know what love felt like.

All I ever wanted was to know what love felt like.

I want to be loved by someone.

Adopted by a philanthropist needing a publicity boost, I wanted to be loved by someone. Finding the name of the character on that body pillow, growing obsessed with her, buying merch of her, my room becoming an altar towards her, I wanted to know what life felt like.

As I worshipped a her, a person whose origins were from a Light Novel, a world I’d never read a single word of, a world I would never read a single word of, because I once I tried, I found her affections in that world were towards a fool who did not cherish her as I did, who did not care for her as I did, whose actions were unthinkable, blasphemous and impious. So I cared not what someone else had written of her, I upheld the pure image I had of her, because, to me, she was meant more than anyone, than everyone.

For she and she alone was the only one there, when no one else was, for it was her words that kept me going—

As I absorbed myself in content of her real-life counterpart instead, on the myths, the legends, her Roman alter-ego, on the rex sacrorum and flamen dialis, on the Vestales, the Festivals of Vestalia, the Homeric Hymns and Bacchylidean Odes—

As I did these things, and locked myself inside my room, closing my eyes, and trying, once more, to hear her voice again, to hear someone tell me, once again—

‘Don’t give up! You can do it! You’ll make it!’

I realized how so very deeply—

I want to be loved by someone.

Ah! Gods above!

I want to be loved by someone!

As my adopted mother grew disgusted by me, embarrassed by me, as she set my shrine ablaze, and tossed me into a boarding school to be kept out of sight, I wanted to know what love felt like. As my classmates called me “Indomitable Virgin” as I slogged through school, shoved between lockers, tripped between halls, picked last for sports, eluded by girls, dancing with myself at prom, I wanted to know what love felt like.

As I turned eighteen, and my adopted mother disowned me, disinherited me, called me a disgrace, a humiliation, I wanted to know what love felt like. As I took a job as a taxi driver to make ends meet, as I drove around passengers from one part of the city to another, I asked all who entered the back seat of my vehicle: 

“What do I need to be loved by someone?"

“Strength," said the Gym Rats, the Body Builders, the Athletes. “You need to be strong."

“Intelligence," said the Tech Entrepreneurs, the Startup Founders, the Blockchain Devs. “You must be smart."

“Wealth," said the Crypto Bros, the Hedge Fund Traders, the Stock Brokers. “You need to be rich."

“Charisma," said the Pick-Up Artists, the Playboys, the Life Improvement Coaches. “You have to be charismatic."

“Renown," said the Influencers, the Models, the Content Creators. “You need to be famous.” 

As I spent three years throwing myself into the gym despite my frail body to gain strength, four years pursuing a Business Degree, and five years trying to build wealth, charisma, and fame— 

As I stared in the mirror, thirty years of age, I believed soon, I would have all I needed for someone to love me.

For they said once I had it all, someone would love me.

But I soon asked, if someone were to love me only once I had it all—

Would that not mean what they loved was not me?

Sans strength, sans intelligence, sans wealth, sans charisma, and sans renown—

Could I not be loved by someone?

As I quit my job and cancelled my gym memberships, as I sold all my investments, and returned to driving a taxi, I wanted to know what love felt like. 

As a weeping girl entered the back of my car in the middle of the night and stopped at a suspension bridge, I wanted to know what love felt like. As I raced to climb up, doing what I could to talk her down, I wanted to know what love felt like. 

As I told her my life story, and she remembered me from the once-viral memes, she asked me, why I was still continuing, why, despite it all, I kept pressing on. I swore to her it was because of a set of words I had heard, because of a set of words that lingered in my mind, ever since that day I shivered atop a refrigerator, clutching unto a torn body pillow:  

‘Don’t give up! You can do it! You’ll make it!’

I told her could not, I would not, succumb. No matter what. No matter what.

I refused to die until I was loved by someone.

She laughed as she called me a true-blue virgin. She said the memes were accurate, that I really did have the Indomitable Virgin Spirit. As she forgot her own woes, as she made her way, slowly, away from the bridge, away from death, a part of me asked…

Is this what love felt like?

As she lost her footing, as she slipped, as my body moved on instinct, pulling her to safety, the momentum sending me over the edge, the pitch-black water fast approaching—

I want to be loved by someone.

As I fell, that desire, that yearning, ever since I was a boy, surged from the depths of my soul.

I want to be loved by someone.

With my dying breath, and before my final moments—

I want to be loved by someone.

For the first time, I prayed.

Gods! Gods please! Please!

Do not let me die without knowing what it feels like…

To be loved by someone!

I prayed.

And I prayed.

Only the crunch of bones against water answered.

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Is It Wrong To Crave Love (In a Dungeon)?

- A DanMachi OC-SI.

Suggestion by: Avidus Aureum.