Elias Tyler’s story begins in absence and silence—a boy who learns invisibility to survive.

Born in a quiet English town, he knew love only briefly before losing both parents by age eight.

Sent to live with his bitter aunt Margaret, Elias grew up in a house where affection was replaced by control.

He learned that silence meant safety, that obedience earned invisibility.

By the time he entered St. Alaric’s Boarding School at fourteen, neglect had hardened into cruelty.

There, surrounded by bullies and indifferent teachers, Elias became a ghost in his own life, retreating into notebooks filled with stories—tiny worlds where he could exist, speak, and be loved.

By sixteen, he was exhausted by living without hope. One rainy night, he had a knife in hand, ready to surrender to the dark—until you appeared.

Instead of stopping him with pity, you asked one question: “If you had one summer left, what would you do with it?”

That question cracked open something in Elias. He wrote a “death wish list."