The truck rattled like it had forgotten how to be whole.
Metal coughed with every rut and bump, dragging its cargo—children and consequences—down a dust-choked road. The air inside reeked of rust, sweat, and war that had lost its urgency but not its hunger.
Adyanth sat curled in a corner. Knees to chest. Bandages blooming red in patches that hadn't been there yesterday. His body was a furnace—not with fury, but fever. Not fire, but infection.
He didn't speak.
Didn't move.
Didn't blink when the tires shrieked over loose gravel or when someone coughed behind him.
Opposite him sat the four boys who had beaten him yesterday.
Erwan, the tall one. Leader by temperament, not kindness.
Janu, the anxious observer.
Tarpan, wide-shouldered, tightly-wound.
Mishal, all elbows and sarcasm, always watching.
None of them spoke either. Not yet.
But they all looked. Once. Then again. And again.
It wasn't guilt. Not fully.
It was fear. The kind kids conjure when they still believe their cruelty might get noticed.
Adyanth's bandages looked worse than they remembered. Maybe he had reopened the wounds. Maybe they'd done it.
Maybe they'd already broken something that wouldn't knit back.
---
Erwan couldn't take it anymore.
He cleared his throat.
"I'm Erwan," he muttered toward the boy in the corner.
No reply.
"I mean, I don't know if you—look, we didn't mean it like that. Yesterday."
Adyanth didn't blink. Didn't flinch. Just kept his eyes locked on a patch of rusted metal where someone else's breath had long since dried into silence.
Erwan's voice tightened.
"We lost people too. I lost my mom. Mishal's house got shelled last month. We're not trying to say it's worse for us, but..." He fumbled. "You're not the only one who hurts."
Still nothing.
No reaction. Not even disdain.
Just that stare—vacant and too still. Not superior, just... done.
Erwan's jaw twitched. He wasn't used to being invisible.
He tried again.
"You're probably gonna end up with us. Same room, same ration line. So maybe don't act like we're diseased."
That landed. But not as intended.
Adyanth turned his head slightly—not to respond, but to consider whether responding was even worth the effort. His eyes—black with streaks of amethyst and now rimmed with red from fever and tears unshed—landed briefly on Erwan.
Then drifted back to the floor.
And with that, the olive branch cracked in Erwan's hand.
He laughed, short and bitter.
"Whatever. We offered. You think you're too good for us? Fine. You'll learn."
He didn't shout. Didn't lash out.
But he marked him.
In the quiet way that boys do when they promise themselves revenge they can't yet afford.
---
Adyanth hadn't heard half of it.
Not really.
He was still tangled in last night—still crouched in the corner of his tent, hands trembling, stitches torn. He'd clawed at his own chest trying to pull the grief out. When that failed, he'd screamed. At nothing. At himself.
Stop crying.
Stop being in pain.
You don't deserve to feel this.
You're making it about you.
They died—and this is what you do?
He hadn't taken the medication.
That would've dulled it. Given him some ease.
He didn't want ease. He wanted penance.
He hurt because he let himself cry. Because the pain was his. Not his parents'. His.
His ribs screamed every time the truck hit a bump. Each jolt was a confession he hadn't meant to make.
He remembered their kindness—his mother's patience, his father's tired warmth. And he couldn't even mourn them properly.
Couldn't cry for them.
Just for himself.
And that made him the worst of all.
---
The truck slowed.
Then stopped.
The building outside looked like a confession half-buried under bureaucratic neglect.
A rusted sign overhead read:
"GOVERNMENT CHILD AID—ZONE 17"
Except the paint had peeled so precisely it just read: "GOVERN. CHI. DIE."
The gate hung half off its hinges, and the walls had been patched with corrugated tin and mold-streaked cement. Windows were either shattered or sealed with wood. Above it all, a crooked tower with no bell sagged like it had forgotten how to warn anyone of anything.
This wasn't an orphanage.
This was containment.
The truck coughed one last time.
Then exhaled.
---
Inside, the air was heavier. Sticky with heat, oil, and the kind of sweat that never fully dries.
Director Harun met them halfway down the corridor. Crisp shirt, clipboard, no welcome.
"Four new ones?" he asked, already writing. "Anyone coughing blood?"
"No," muttered Mokir.
"Shame. That cuts paperwork in half."
Harun didn't look again.
Didn't notice Adyanth's limp. The blood. The tremor in his hands.
Or pretended not to.
---
The rules were nailed to a pillar.
1. Don't cry or fight too loud.
2. Listen to adults.
3. Follow orders the first time.
No one explained them.
No one needed to.
The building enforced its own commandments. Kids whispered through cracked teeth. The floor was stained where fights had happened. The walls didn't echo—they just absorbed.
The dorm room was worse.
Six metal bunk beds. Three boys per. Sheets like tissue paper. Mattresses that had soaked more nightmares than anyone dared count.
Adyanth was given the top bunk by the broken window.
Because of course he was.
He climbed slow. Not from hesitation. From pain.
No one offered help. No one even watched.
Not even the boy who'd tried to be kind that morning.
---
He lay back.
The frame groaned.
Wind slipped through the busted window and ran its fingers across his fevered skin. Dust stirred in corners. Somewhere down the hall, a child cried once and was immediately shushed.
Adyanth closed his eyes.
And for the last time—allowed himself a memory.
His mother. Humming as she stirred lentils. Brushing his hair flat before school. Her voice saying, "Even beggars must look noble."
His father. Tapping the doorway before entering. Always. A rhythm. A ritual.
Home.
Safety.
Gone.
He whispered their names once. Not as prayer. Not even as wish.
Just as echo.
Because tomorrow—he would stop remembering.
He'd already decided.
He wasn't meant to survive.
He wasn't built for it.
And now that they were gone, all that remained was him.
The boy who mourned wrong. Who hurt for the wrong reasons. Who let shame rot everything sacred.
He curled inward.
Not to sleep.
Just to hide what was left of him from the world that didn't ask and never would.
Let the world move on.
Let the war swallow another village.
Let the bones ache.
He wouldn't fight it.
Because monsters don't deserve mercy.
And that's all he was now.
A bruise in the shape of a boy. Waiting to fade.