"A child is born, a soul shackled by mud. Ethereal given form, its journey's end. It is much too late." Responded the Iris of Fadela when asked about the path to attaining power.
The child limped forward, disrupting the silence of the alley with his own muffled steps as the dirt seeped through his toes.
"Why damn it," He muttered with a defeated tone, "Why can't I have anything?"
There was no answer, nor did he expect any. Oftentimes he begged and sniveled, as the needy are wont to do, only to then sit in the silence of his own thoughts.
His Achilles tendon was now dog's meat, forcing him to keep raising his knee high in the air or else the top of his foot would scrape across the damp soil.
He kept clumsily correcting his gait, and his head wobbled with each step he took; the fault of a neck too weak and thin to balance it. He felt his brain jiggling around, it banged against his skull like a prisoner wishing to escape. He could not blame it, not since he wished he could somehow escape his own flesh as well.
The child drove his fingers into his temple in an attempt to stop the incessant pounding, and felt a protruding nerve throb against his touch with every pulse. Each time, it renewed the feeling of a rod being thrust into his skull. And not a smooth rod, but a rugged one with splinters on each end and a serrated surface in between. He felt it tinkering behind his eye, the pain was so sharp and recurring that he wished his heart would stop beating.
Hunger was at the root of his troubles. Like his shadow, it always lingered by his side. It was a never-ending flame that raged within him. Doused from time to time by what his right hand begged for and what his left stole, but not once was it fully extinguished.
The boy once foolishly thought he had grown accustomed to it, that it could no longer faze him.
He was wrong, for the embers of a flame become the kindling for the next.
Three weeks have passed since he had last eaten. His most recent meal was a rat of the slums -much like him - he managed to trap with a moldy chunk of bread.
The child did not complain, not just for lack of ears but because he did not wish to insult the life he took to extend his own. He was beholden to that creature, and so he gulped it gladly — yet it hardly made a dent.
Already skin and bones from years of malnourishment, the lack of food did the boy no favor as it sapped what little strength he had.
As the days passed, the toll it took on his frail body started to show as he struggled to walk, stand, or even sit without becoming dizzy and lightheaded.
He mimicked others, those who take their poverty to zeal. Crazed men who believed their suffering to be a trial and their nearing end but a gate to their salvation.
The child did not share their views. How could he, when all the time he spent in prayer, with hands extended to the sky and nostrils pressed to the earth, was rewarded with nothing but silence.
If what they claim is true, if misery was worship, is he not the most devout of all?
Why then do his pleadings fall on deaf ears?
Why is it always so damn quiet?
Still, even their folly had its uses as the child tried their methods. Like them, he tied a rope around his stomach, hoping to relieve the pangs of hunger.
The trick worked at first, and it dulled his cravings. But the more his stomach caved in as his insides shrank and his body consumed itself in desperation, the deeper the rope sank into his flesh. By the tenth day, his insides started to be irked with a gnawing pain that refused to subside.
The child was not sitting idly by. He first looked to his right, the lower hand. Even though begging made him feel lesser he knew that it was not self-worth that would soothe what ails him. However, his right failed him before he could even extend it as he found the entrance to the city closed to him.
Herds of people were being kicked out of the walled settlement into the Vagren district that sprawled around the willow hills. He learned from the chatter of the expunged masses that a procession was to take place.
The corridor, a cobbled road that cuts through the slums and leads to the gates of the hill of timber, was now barred by pain of death to all but a select few. It was clear to him that the lord of the city did not wish to stain the eyes of his guests with the sight of the starved and homeless.
So with his right limp and withered, the child turned to his left, the upper hand. He strived to take from others what they had and attempted to scavenge and steal whatever he could find.
Vagren, the slum district, was like a small bowl of fruit where only the lowliest of status and most deprived of fortune dwelled. Many left hands reached into the bowl, but there was too little for them to pilfer.
So it was no wonder that when the boy reached in with his short, trembling arms, he found it all but empty.
Now, with both hands crippled, the boy was reduced to watching helplessly as his body withered with each passing day.
That was until yesterday.
The boy knew that his time was fast running out. He was no fool, no, far from it. He possessed a wisdom beyond his young age and a somber sense of reality forged through harsh experiences. He knew what was coming, he could feel it in his bones.
He had to do something now before it's too late. Fully aware that no one else could save him but himself, and that no one would even try.
The boy knew of another way into the city. A hidden path used by smugglers to smuggle goods away from watchful eyes.
He resolved to risk it all in one final sortie and try to sneak into the city. Once inside, he would surely find an abundance of food ripe for the taking.
The boy recognized the risks ahead. That if he went through with it, he might never see the light of day again. But reason could not hold sway as he longed to satiate the hunger that had plagued him for so long.
He decided that he would rather meet his end with a full stomach than spend another day living like this.
After all, even the rat was afforded a final meal.
-A break-
The boy tired of the pursuit that lasted through the night. He could still hear the shrieking sound of whistles and the barking of hounds that were frothing at the mouth ringing in his ears.
The many drops of blood that trailed his path were the proof of his failure.
He kept walking forward at a sluggish pace, his long trek far from ending. The child was seemingly asleep with his eyes sealed shut, his eyelids weighed heavy on him, fatigued and bloodshot from the strain of the long night.
He didn't just close them for comfort, but because the thick darkness that engulfed the alley made him blind to his own palm if planted to his face.
The child had no recourse to the chilling wind that slammed against his bare, narrow chest; for he had the shirt that used to cover it wrapped tightly around his neck.
It was not meant to be used to shut down his lights, although the thought did cross his mind, but to support an arm ravaged to the bone by the armaments of men and the canines of beasts.
The child was exhausted, having barely escaped their clutch, and trod the line between sleep and wakefulness as he swayed forward. He swung between the two and embraced neither as he relied on the pain to keep him awake. But even his suffering failed him as he dozed off mid-step, and the drop in his heel went uncorrected. At that moment his left foot got stabbed against a treacherous rock, causing him to trip and fall face-first into the dirt.
His wounded arm was the first to hit the ground, absorbing much of the impact, and was now lodged beneath him with all his weight crushing down on it.
The child gritted his teeth hard to contain the pain and silence his voice. He denied himself the relief of a scream, fearful of what may be lurking in the shadows.
He felt a warm saliva filling his mouth and a swarm of vomit he did not think his body could still churn out followed. It seeped through his clenched teeth and covered most of his face with his own gunk.
The boy had no time for disgust and instead rushed to wiggle his left arm underneath him to relieve some of the pressure off of his right. Even through the tightly wrapped shirt, he could feel that his wounds had reopened, and he was desperate to get off his wounded arm and flip to his side or back.
With the left arm in place, the child then laid his palm flat on the ground and tried to push himself up.
'Geuh!' He grunted as he pushed as hard as he could. His face hardened and his brows furled, but his strength was lacking.
Soon, his arm gave out from exhaustion as his vision turned foggy, and he collapsed onto the ground for a second time.
The boy felt the heat of the slimy liquid that escaped his stomach burning against his cheeks as he took a moment to regulate his panted breath before trying again.
This time, he lifted not with his hand, but with his elbow. He pushed through the pain and dizziness, digging with his knees against the dirt as he exhaled the long breath he took. He felt himself slowly rising, but again his arm started wobbling under pressure. So as soon as he got enough space, the boy tilted his body to the right with all the strength he had left in him.
However; the narrowness of the alley had slipped the child's mind. The sharpness of the turn caused him to slam against the wall. His arm, locked in place over his navel by the makeshift cast, was once again the first point of contact.
Unable to deal with the cumulative pain of his wounds, the boy's brain decided that it finally had enough. It decided to shut it all down, and the boy lost consciousness.