My feet find purchase on the brick road, each echo a testament to a world stirring from slumber. The air, thick with impending heat, carries the scent of earth reborn. The dawn sky bleeds-orange and pink into blue. Hunger gnaws at me, a relentless specter, as the sun's rays lance the horizon, a herald of the day's birth.
The road unfurls, a ribbon to the unseen, the untold. It beckons-the path of the uncharted, trod by seekers and dreamers. With each stride, the past's specters diminish, their whispers fading into the day's burgeoning light. Today, I walk the brick road, propelled by an inner void and the celestial blaze overhead.
I halt, drawn by the bakery's scent. Bread warm, mouth watering. Through the window, a glimpse of dairy, white and cold. My belly speaks its need. At the backdoor, I knock. The baker emerges, anger in his stance, a rolling pin gripped like a weapon. "You the one at my door?" he accuses.
"Sir, I've nothing," I say. "A piece of bread to quell this hunger?"
"No scraps here. Leave, boy. Your stench keeps my patrons away!"
"Please, even the spoiled," I plead.
A blow from the pin, my balance gone. "OUT, VERMIN!" His strikes continue, relentless. I cling to him, desperate, as blood weaves its path down my face. A final punch, the world dims.
"Why does the baker treat him so?" she asks.
Her father watches, his voice a low rumble. "Poor thing, they're naught but pests. Shouldn't exist. The helpless are chaff; the throne's heirs, the wheat."
A bystander spits the words, eyeing the beaten figure. "They ought to be snuffed out, the weak. Preserve the strong, the ones who rule."
No hand is offered, no solace given. The boy lies alone, his bruises a map of his plight, his body a testament to the city's cold decree.
I tell myself, how can they lay claim to humanity, devoid of compassion? Hearts granted to them, yet they pulse not for those teetering on the edge of despair. Who are they to decree what constitutes humanity, when it is the downtrodden, the ones who endure against the blade's sharp kiss, who embody its truest form?
In the silence of my contemplation, I find a truth that burns brighter than the scorn of the masses: Humanity is not a title to be bestowed by the privileged, nor a crown worn by the callous. It is the quiet strength of the suffering, the resilience of the broken, the grace of the fallen. It is in the very act of clinging to life, to hope, when all else has turned away.
The night descends, a shroud over the city, the stars a faint chorus above. My footsteps are the only sound, a steady beat against the silence of the streets. Then, shadows converge-three men, their intentions as dark as the space between the stars.
"Hey kid, what's your business here at this hour?" The question is a snarl, a challenge. My face remains a mask, betraying nothing, even as pain blooms from my ear, now a vivid shade of hurt. "Cat got your tongue? Maybe this will loosen it," one sneers, fist raised.
But the blow never lands. A man emerges from the night, his forearms like steel beams, halting the attack with an effortless ease. The would-be assailant's momentum is arrested, his aggression met with an immovable force.
"A child does not possess the might to shift mountains, least of all when preyed upon by the weak," the stranger's voice is calm, a stark contrast to the tension in the air.
The aggressor whirls, surprise etched on his features. "What the! Where did you come from?!"
"My origins matter little. Remove your hands from the child," the stranger's command is firm, unyielding.
YOU ARE READING
ETERNAL
ActionIn the desolate labyrinth of his own existence, Leonard stood at the precipice of oblivion. His life, once a sturdy oak, had splintered into fragments-each shard a jagged memory of love, loss, and betrayal. The echoes of his family's laughter haunte...
