Work Text:
“World of Rot,”
A dark blanket above glitters with freckled light. A chilling breeze bounces off cold stone walls. The sound of running feet across the beaten dirt path. A warmth hugging close to my chest as I run through a freezing night. In my arms, I hold a treasure so great: one loaf of bread. The shouting of beasts follows closely behind, stray light peeking its way around the corner. I slip into the shrouding shadows of an alleyway and stay silent, my breath whispering in the wind. Gone in the shadows, I watch the gleaming glares gloss by. A relief rushes through my body as I carefully leave the darkness.
As the warmth in my hands fades, being taken away by the chilling whispering winds, I rush through the sharp cobble streets. The cool stone stabs at my bare feet, the crisp wind slicing my skin with icy daggers. Running through this broken town, I see broken posts mimicking the ever-sprinkled light of stars. Lights that cling to life on the verge of death, flickering in suffering, old buildings creaking and shrieking in pain, roads so sharp they've been stained red. Skeletons of bodies lie groaning in the dirt. Rust eats away at every surface, devouring it with an insatiable hunger. The only ones thriving are the rats, which swarm the streets.
I reach the ragged building, barely holding itself together. Through the splintered frame, I find myself at the only place I can call home. The only light I have is the sprinkled stardust that leaks through the cracks of this decrepit place. My only warmth is the gracious sun, which fades when darkness comes. The sounds are squeaks of mice and rats, and the bed I have is a pile of cutting stones. My blanket is only the rags I wear, and my only scrap of a meal is this measly cold loaf of bread, which I stole. The thing I risked my life for so I might survive another day in this world.
With starving hands, I tear apart the bread and feed this ravenous mouth. So soft, I hadn’t had something like this for months, and I won’t again for a long while. Exhaustion overtakes my body and forces me upon the dirty, cold stone floor, and subjects me to a slumber. I hold myself tightly, trying to keep as warm as possible in this night, wishing to survive. The hot beams of light find their way to my small body, awakening it with a gentle caress of warmth. Rubbing my eyes as I adjust to the leaking light, I rise with the morning sun and go out into the world once more.
Through burning heat, I travel these familiar stone streets. A deathly silence still hangs upon them. Gasping and groaning, frail bodies reach out in plea, and yet all I can offer them is pity. I hear a hurried patter of feet hitting the hard stone road to my side. I look in the direction of the sound when I suddenly find myself falling to the ground. As I shake my daze away, I see sitting in front of me a tall man with greasy brown hair and shining crystal blue eyes. He hurried himself to his feet, and as he did, I saw the mob behind him. Their eyes filled with glaring daggers, and their shouts consumed with a boiling fury.
“Move it, kid!” The man jumped over me and rushed through the streets with a panicked hurry.
The raging sea of angry mobs continues their way, crashing through the road and towards me. I lift myself and run from the waves of people coming, trying to escape the incoming stampede. I glance around my surroundings, trying to find an alley or small place to slip into, but I find myself at a dead end in a dark alleyway with the man who bumped into me and a raging stream of masses behind me, and a gate locked with an iron bar to the side of us.
“Oh, hey there, kid. You followed me?” The man turned to me and spoke.
“Not on purpose, but I had to get out of the way of those people, and there was only one way to go! So thanks a lot!” I glare at him, tired of my horrible luck.
“Well, it looks like we're screwed together,” he laughed nervously as we heard the mob getting closer.
My eyes scattered around in a frenzy, trying to figure out a way out of this situation I was forced into. I had to survive. And I found a small crack in a building, the perfect size for a malnourished street rat like me.
I laughed as I waved to the man, “Nope, you can have your fate alone.”
“What are you talking about?” He seems confused by my sudden cockiness, which made sense because it seemed he gave up on escaping, but not me.
“See ya, dumbass,” I crawl through the crack and find myself on the other side of the locked gate.
He rushes to the gate and shakes it frantically, “Kid! You gotta help me! Unlock the gate, c’mon!” He was sweating and yelling, desperate for me to unlock it.
“I wouldn’t even have been part of this mess if you hadn’t run into me and led the crowd this way, and now I should help you?”
“Damnit, little rat! I’ve got a cache of food, kid! I’ll show you where it is if you open the gate!” The man begged more and more, as we could hear the yells of the crowd around the corner
I freeze when I hear of food, my mouth instinctively watering as I dream of eating more than scraps and trash like a dirty raccoon. I turn around and walk to the gate before lifting the iron bar with the little strength I have and letting it fall to the stone path with a reverberating clang.
The man kicks open the gate. “Thank you, now let’s go!” We run with all the energy we can muster.
Through streets and alleys we run before he stops at a manhole and throws it open, he slides down the ladder into the deep pit of darkness. I look and see him beckoning me to follow.
“C’mon, little rat! Hurry and close the door behind you!”
I climb onto the ladder and pull the lid closed. I descend to where the man is as he lights a match. He walks through the dark tunnels, and I follow behind him. Rust and muck swallow the pipes, which stretch endlessly across the stained walls. Our steps echo into the darkness as our feet hit the stone. I can hear the dripping of water from what seems to be miles away, and the squeaking of rats is loud as it carries across these tunnels. The man stops in front of a hard and heavy-looking metal door. He pushes it open, and inside is something amazing. A small stone room with no cracks and no holes, a table in the center with lit candles and cards laid out across it, and more amazingly, there was something I had only dreamed about. There I see a mattress lying in the corner of the room. I rush over to it and jump on it, my body filled with bliss as I lie on the soft mattress. A smile forces itself onto my face as I am filled with joy.
“Wow, the cocky brat is a little kid at heart. Want some milk and cookies too, rat?” He snickers and sneers, his tone mocking as he goes to sit at the table.
I sit and glare at him with the fiercest expression I could muster, “Shut up! Don’t forget who saved you, old man!”
He looks amused at the pathetic attempt at an intimidating glare, yet sounds a bit annoyed at the insult, “Old man? I’ll have you know I’m at the prime of my life in my early twenties, you rotten brat!”
“Sounds pretty old to me, lousy old man.”
“Stupid kid, and how old are you?”
I stop for a moment as I search my thoughts, “Well, I’m around ten, I believe.”
“Ten, huh? I see, you truly are a little brat.” He grabs a box of cards, “Hey, kid, wanna play a game?”
“What kinda game?”
“The kind grownups play, if you get good at it, you might be able to find an easy way to get money, take a seat.” He points to the other chair across from him.
I stand, getting off the mattress, and sit in the chair across from him.
“Oh, but I never play for only the fun of it. We’re gonna have to bet something.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a shining pearl necklace, white as clouds on a beautiful day, with a brilliantly blue sky. “If you win, you can have this.”
I stare at the necklace, its beauty mesmerizing to my sore eyes, which had only seen such a bright color in the pools of blood that drench the streets. A stark contrast to the grimey, rusted, disgusting environment I’ve always been in.
“What do I need a stupid necklace for?” I snap myself from the entrancing beauty of the pearls.
“Use your little brain, rat. You can sell it for money, you know what money gets you? Food.”
My stomach grumbles, and I swallow when I hear the mention of food, “Okay, I’ll play your stupid game.”
He puts the necklace on the table, and it rattles as it falls across the wooden surface. “Okay, but this is a bet, so you have to offer something too, kid.”
I pause, “I don’t have anything though.”
He stops and looks as though he is in thought, yet as he does, it gives me the suspicion that it was an act. “I guess you’ll have to work for me. I could use a nimble little rat like you to get out of tough situations.”
“Work for you?” I stop to think about it, the nights I’ve spent starving, clinging to life. The suffering I’ve endured through cold and heat, this deal was a way to win myself a way out of this fate, a way to have something I could get more food than only the scraps out of the trash. “Alright, deal.”
“Okay, let’s play.” He shuffles the cards and splits them among us. “Since you're a kid, we’ll play a simple game like Spades.”
He explains the rules as he prepares the game, and once he does, we play. I rack my brain with every little thought and strategy I could think of, determined to win. With each play, I feel the sliver of control I might have had slipping through these small fingers. Time after time, I found myself trying to reach a goal far beyond me, and in the end, it got away from me. I lost.
“You lose, Rat, so you work for me now.” He stretches out his hand over the table, “Seeing as how we will be working together, it’s time I told you my name. It’s Ivan.”
I stare in confusion at the gesture, “Ivan?”
“Yes, Ivan. Now stop staring, and shake my hand, Rat.”
I shake his hand, which swallows mine. He releases his grip and puts away the cards.
“So what’s your name, kid?” He looks away from the deck and at me.
“I don’t have a name; my parents threw me away when I was six. I’ve been surviving on the streets my whole life.”
“I see, well, I’ll keep calling you Rat, in that case. You little rat.” He snickers and smirks as he keeps his little nickname for me.
I scoff and glare, “Okay, old man.”
“It’s Ivan, now get to bed, kid. We’ll have work tomorrow. I got some intel from a few friends of mine telling me some stuck-ups are going to be passing through this rotting pit on their way to the city, and they're loaded.” His smirk grows with the mischievous light in his eyes to a devilish grin.
I drag my weary bones over to the comforting holy ground, the soft, embracing mattress. I find my body quitting on itself as my eyes shut closed and my overused brain shuts off as I fall and slam into the white cloud and retire into a deep slumber. Hours in darkness, I rest in a foreign embrace with a rushing relief, a pleasure so unknown to my thin body and tired soul. With the rising morning, a voice calls to me, shattering me away from the heaven I was blissfully in and into a depraved world full of monsters and pain.
“Wake, Rat. It’s time to go.” He grabs me by the rags and lifts me onto my sore feet, the cold stone clashing against my body, which still has remnants of the absorbed warmth from the mattress, as its stabbing chill rushes through the soles of my feet.
I wake my weary eyes and bruised body as I follow Ivan through the sewers once more, reaching the streets which I knew too well for my comfort, I could feel the scorching beams of new sunlight on my skin. Through chopped and unfinished streets we traveled until we reached a leftover of some disaster, wooden frames charred with black, splintering and stabbing out. Masked in a shadow, we hide ourselves within the ashen home.
“They’ll come through this road, I’ll distract them, while you go behind and steal everything you can, after which you run through the small opening on the other side, and I’ll meet you when you get through.” He explains his plan to me, "Understood, Rat?”
I nodded, “Yeah, I got it.”
Lurking in the shadows, we wait for our target to arrive. Whispering winds, creaking frames, squeaks of rats. These sounds fill the ambiance left in our deathly silence. A sound of wood rolling across these splintered stone roads drives it all away as we see a carriage draw into view. Shining gold which pierces through the darkness of this bleak place, a red unlike the dulled blood staining this town. A roof of some wonderful-looking black material. To say it was out of place would be too little of a word. It is out of a different world from the one of suffering I know. A world filled with hope and laughter, one I have always yearned for.
Ivan stumbles out of the darkness, his hand clutching his head as he wobbles in front of the carriage. It comes to a halt, stopping before hitting Ivan. A man with well-groomed grey hair, which contrasts with this disheveled place, comes out. Wearing a suit that covers him from toe to neck, and cleaner than I could ever imagine, he walks to Ivan.
“What are you doing? I beg your pardon to please move yourself from our path.” As he spoke, I could hear his stern and yet still proper voice; it was a strange wording I had never heard before.
“Hey, can I get some cash?” Ivan stumbles towards the man with a droopy expression and slurred words. He reaches out his arm and places it over the man’s shoulders. “I ran out buying drinks and could use some, if you would be oh so gracious.”
“Damn drunk, get your filthy hands away from me, you dirty street dog!” He pushes Ivan away.
“Oh, no need to get so hostile, my man. Let’s all be friends here, okie?” Ivan smirks as he stumbles back over to him.
I take this chance while they are arguing to sneak around to the back and find a compartment of sky colored azure blue. On this chest was a hard metal lock, and with my peripheral vision, I could see a key hanging from the man in the suit’s waist. With my small body, I crawl under the carriage, and with stealth, I steal the key. I unlock the chest, and the lock falls to the ground with a metal clang. The suit man turns his head with a quick jolt, and I feel shivers across my spine as I see his intense gaze of malice. With quick haste, I grab a purse of coins and some jewelry and bolt, slipping through the cracks in the wall. I escape as the man’s hand reaches for me.
I travel quickly through the dark passageway and find myself face to face with a wall, when I see Ivan running from my side with guards on his tail.
“Hurry, Rat! Help me over this wall!” He jumps and grabs the edge of it.
I push him with all my measly strength, and he gets over the wall. The yells of guards follow close behind. I catch my breath before attempting to climb the wall.
Ivan reaches his hand to me, “Rat, give me the loot! It’ll be faster for you to climb, and I’ll grab you right after!”
Without a second of thought, I hand him the stolen goods, as if my subconscious had put full trust in this man. The first person to give me anything except a beating, a person who had put their trust in me to carry out this job. With the guards right on my tail, I reach my hand to his, and he grabs me when suddenly I feel hands wrap around my ankles like shackles.
I look behind me, horrified as I see the guards tugging at my legs, “Old Man! Ivan! Help!” I look back at him.
His face expressionless as he stares at me with dark, remorseless eyes, “Thanks, Rat, you were a real help, you served your use well. I need only one more thing from you.”
“W-what?” I freeze in shock at these words and the look on his face.
His words cold, his eyes dark, and one word comes from his mouth as his grip fades, “Fall.”
I fall to the ground as the guards pull me and slam me against the stone floor, my head recoiling in pain as I do. “You should’ve known, Rat. You can’t trust or look out for anyone but yourself.” With those final words, he jumps to the other side of the wall, disappearing from my loathing sight.
The sound of wood striking my bones, scraping against my skin. My screams ring in my ears as I taste the thick blood running from my nose and head. It’s warmth flowing across my body, staining me red as cuts are opened everywhere. Glaring eyes stare at me with hatred as they bruise and cut me. Hours of pain from monsters who don’t care. As the sun sets and the chilling night begins, they toss me aside like garbage, leaving me to die. Exactly like everyone else. I feel myself becoming colder, the warmth of my body fading as my vision slips into darkness. I realize it, I’m going to please.
Death. It’s cold. I don’t want to die. No, I can’t. I won’t die. I refuse it. I haven’t come this far to give in and die here. I hate it. I hate it all. I hate them all. Why do I have to feel such pain, such suffering? I won’t die. Not until I watch all of them die. This world is cruel; all it sees me as is a rat. An easy prey to sink its greedy fangs into. If the world wants to try and hunt me, I will have to hunt them. Kill or be killed. Trust. It’s a fragile thing, promises easily broken. Loyalty is a shackle, kindness is a detriment, pity is a lie. Humanity is a chain. So forget it. I’ll have to rip apart everything in my way.