Inside the repurposed fire station, Tomas wiped his face using both hands to show his stress and disbelief over the matter of Tysiff's serious transgression against the Scorpions.
With a deep audible sigh, he put down his hands and looked at Ukas who sat across him.
Tomas retained his snarky tone and said, "See Ukas? I told you, I keep telling you before to leave that kid alone since the start. Do you really want to keep a bomb that would go off near you?"
Raising both hands in his defense, Ukas expressed his views on the matter. "It's nothing too serious because Olto isn't that mad at him. He just needs to stay low and we can instead deal with our current situation because of the current food shortage which I'm sure you've heard about."
"Yes I've heard. It's only in our state because of that damn sewage leak. It's like misfortune followed us after that kid went here." Tomas clenched his fist shakily with his lips pursed before letting go.
Ukas scratched his head in irritation. "Seriously now? That's what you're still focused on? Alright, let's set aside the food, are we not going to talk about what he did to Nenka?" He gestured outside the fire station where Kedcy and Nenka were talking to each other not too far away from them.
"It was only one person who grabbed her. And just like what she said, Kayron didn't go all the way through." Tomas's expression suggested that he didn't see anything noteworthy out of it.
"That's not the fucking point, alright?" Ukas shot back with a glare.
Tomas calmly moved his tongue around his mouth before replying. "Then what is the fucking point? Do the same as Tysiff? Wow, that sure sounds like the best course of action." He sarcastically gave a thumbs up.
As patient as he ever was, Ukas couldn't stand it anymore as his tone suddenly became colder.
"Tomas, listen. I don't care how much you hate Tysiff, I don't care if you hate me because I took him in, but you have to remember that Nenka is still part of us. We should be there helping her instead of going into an extreme like Tysiff. If you understand that, don't act like a fool."
"So lick our wounds? Why didn't you say so? Kedcy can do it, they're the ones together, not me." Tomas tried to remain dismissive until he saw Ukas looking at him with an icy stare.
Raising both hands as he backed down, Tomas knew that he had gone too far. "I'll drop the attitude. As your friend, I'm just annoyed that you didn't think straight at that time… Sorry for my words, I've been insincere."
Ukas looked away from him and mumbled.
"Then why aren't you just happy that I'm happy? Why couldn't you just accept that Tysiff is my burden?"
Tomas spoke out truthfully even though it felt uncomfortable for him. It was like his pride took a hit.
"Because you're going to make yourself suffer by shouldering a child alone. Not only that, you know that Denver can't help it if one of us suffers, so he'll naturally lend you a hand."
Ukas nodded and turned to look at him straight in the eyes. "Is that what you thought of Mino?"
Tomas was taken aback before he hurriedly denied it. "What–? No! I cared about Mino as if he's my nephew. I know that it's hypocritical of me to not think the same way about Tysiff, but it was the circumstances… We weren't in good shape and still aren't, so I admit that I was pissed." Tomas forced himself to then say, "But I respect your decision and you'll still be my friend till the end. That didn't change and just… I hope you can still see it."
Tomas breathed out, feeling his chest grow a little lighter.
"Of course." Ukas looked away once more and stayed silent for a while.
Tomas felt a little guilty and decided to make it up for him. "Also, I'll take the case about Nenka more seriously, I'm also sorry about that. I shouldn't have let my mouth ramble on without thinking."
"That's good." Ukas replied tersely.
Tomas didn't say a word and decided to stay put and give Ukas some company.
It took a while until Ukas spoke once more.
"About when I first saw Tysiff… I knew I was making a mistake. I just didn't know how to abandon my nature."
Tomas placed his hand on Ukas's shoulder and patted it twice. "Man, you don't have to. It won't be the same with a different you, a different Ukas. I'm just telling you all of this from me in private because I at least have the common sense not to be a scumbag towards a child."
"I'm glad you finally decided to look at it that way." Ukas waited for his response.
Tomas deliberated and found the right words difficult to find. "Ehhh, depends… I like the kid, he's funny, but not when he's going to kill himself and possibly provoke guys with guns. And honestly, that's just my general view towards people. If they don't fuck with me, I like them. If they do fuck with me, then I don't."
Ukas stole a glance at Tysiff who was sitting down and talking to Denver about something.
He felt envious seeing how respectful he was to Denver's authority and reprimands when he could cuss and scream at his face.
Recalling Tysiff's words from earlier, Ukas couldn't shake off the feeling of discontentment.
'We were happy, yeah… we were really happy at times. And that's it.'
'Maybe this is where we'll rot.'
…
Upstairs, in the bedroom filled with crack ridden walls, two people were lying down and sharing the bed closely.
Kedcy wore clothes that could be considered rags if it weren't for the fact that they were cleaner than the average outfits that the residents wore.
On his right arm, Nenka is currently resting her head, completely silent. And yet, she seemed to cling on him with both arms to seek the only physical comfort that she knows.
Seeing how meek and unresponsive she had become, Kedcy felt nothing but thorns in his chest.
He felt extremely guilty that he hadn't been with her all the time. They were supposed to be together, but because he was exhausted again after helping Ivan catch fish, he couldn't go with her and decided to rest his aching body.
And Nenka being Nenka, she was just too kind and hated wasting time. During certain days, she and Kedcy would try to go to the border and find useful items to collect. But if Kedcy was tired, she would take it upon herself to go alone.
He guessed that maybe it's because the residents of the Timeless Slums were a community who knew each other very well. If one of them wronged another person, it was easy to find whoever did something to be punished by the people collectively.
And as for the Scorpions, Centipedes or minor gangs, women including Nenka had long seen that they do not have any interest in them because of the fact that these gang members still had a place in the city, somewhere clean unlike here.
That's why what Kayron did to Nenka was too unprecedented, but at the same time, preventable if they weren't too complacent.
Kedcy internally believed that he should've been more of a man, a protector who shouldn't be negligent in such stressful times where a gang war can suddenly erupt any time.
The feeling of uselessness continued to sink in. However, he didn't express any of that to Nenka, especially now that she needed to deal with her trauma.
'Should I ask her if she's alright? Gods… Kedcy no. She's obviously not. Do I tell her that I'll be with her no matter what? No, that's just bullshit, I wasn't there when it mattered the most. Why can't I speak? I want to say something, anything! If I keep this up, who knows what kind of bad things she might think of. That wouldn't help at all… Agh–! Kedcy, think!'
His thoughts were cluttered, unable to act on a single decision.
"Do you blame yourself for what happened?" Nenka suddenly whispered.
Struck and unsurprised by her intuition, Kedcy replied honestly, "It's hard not to."
Nenka hummed in understanding.
She then asked softly, "If my heart suddenly failed because of some disease that I didn't know I had, would you blame yourself for it?"
"What? Why would you ask that?" He was confused how she made such a comparison.
Nenka sighed and buried her face in his arms. "Just answer damn it."
Contemplating his answer, Kedcy's eyes looked away and answered, "Maybe…"
Clearly expecting such a reply, Nenka remarked. "You said that because it's not within your control."
"But a disease is different." Kedcy's gaze remained unfocused as he used his right hand to comb through Nenka's hair to straighten up some clumps.
Nenka emphasized, "Point is, whatever that asshole did is not something we saw coming. That's why you shouldn't blame yourself much."
"But it could have been prevented…"
"Isn't that the same for any accident?" Nenka looked him in the eyes and added, "Seriously, all I want to tell you is that I'm not mad at anyone or myself. I'm just… frustrated with my bad luck."
Kedcy decided to believe her.
He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear as he posed a question, "Can I ask what exactly happened? I mean, if you don't want to talk about it…"
Nenka didn't think much of it and reassured him. "It's alright. I wasn't lying when I said Kayron didn't do anything else except touch my ass. Lucky for me, I thought fast and threw random garbage and managed to run away."
Kedcy sighed, "It's still unacceptable. And to be honest, that's the reason why I envy Tysiff."
Nenka placed her hand on his forehead and flicked it.
"Kedcy, you're not going to waste your life for me. Not even Tysiff should." She replied, her piercing gaze solemn.
He rubbed his forehead and chuckled as a response. "Don't worry, I wouldn't do the same as him. I just can't help but feel compelled by that kid's sense of justice even though it's short sighted."
He then added, "The only reason why most of us here can't think like him is because we know it would bring unnecessarily large amounts of death. And we're scared of that becoming true."
Nenka didn't refute him. "Of course. Living conditions here are awful, but at least we can still have fun and smile. Who would want to waste that for a single moment of anger?"
"Except Tysiff, it's anyone who has nothing to live for." Kedcy answered as a matter of fact.
"Well, I still have a reason to live." Nenka slowly moved her hand to his chest.
Kedcy's eyes softened. "... I'm looking at my reason to live right now."
"Heh." Nenka grinned.
Meanwhile, as they continued to converse, Tysiff pondered at the stairs leading to the second floor. He listened to everything that Kedcy and Nenka talked about, making him realize something important.
'So that's why no one's like me… Even though it's little, everyone has something to live for.'
'I guess I'm just that different...'
He inwardly remarked scornfully.
***
Sitting on the windowsill, the man in a black robe flicked the two blue string knots near his left breast pocket out of boredom. He watched Tysiff, still soundly asleep.
"That does not explain why you're here, killing lowly miscreants for their weapons. The motivation does not align."
His calm, hypnotic voice reverberated like deep echoes inside the room as he talked to someone that didn't exist.
Using his other hand, he opened a compartment in his utility belt and took out a purple paper talisman filled with symbols written using dark blue pigment.
Holding it up with his index and middle finger, his blue eyes became sharper as they started to emit a faint glow.
Almost instantly, the purple paper talisman lit up in ghostly light blue flames before turning into white ashes mixing into the air.
Tysiff furrowed his brows out of discomfort.
The man's voice rang out once more as he said,
"Recount the reasons for your arrival."
***
Tysiff continued to walk in a dark and empty road covered in thick black fog with the only light source being a purple flame in the place of the moon.
He didn't seem to notice everything around him shift. Every brick, rubble, trash and piece of metal fell in reverse, floating back to form broken street lights, houses, garbage littering the pavements and a familiar fire station.
The black fog retreated as the purple flame flashed golden to become the sun at high noon.
Regaining the flow of reality, Tysiff went on like an actor in a play, subconsciously ignoring what just happened in front of his eyes.
Compared to his previous dreams, he looked much older and appeared to be between fifteen to sixteen years old.
He walked inside the fire station holding a torn black shirt in need for stitching.
"I'm home." Tysiff walked past the aluminum door cover filled with brown patches of corrosion and saw Tomas and Ivan playing chess with bottle caps of different colors as pieces.
"Hey, welcome home." Ivan greeted him as he picked up a bottle cap representing a bishop to take a pawn.
"Is Nenka here?" He glanced upstairs and didn't see anyone from his angle.
"Upstairs, I think. Kedcy is out doing errands for her." Just as Ivan answered, Tomas finally made his move.
'That crap Kayron pulled really stuck to him after all these years.' Tysiff thought to himself.
"And Denver?"
Tomas took the initiative to reply. "Ukas and Denver are both in the city either stealing or selling items to pawn shops."
As a normal occurrence, Tysiff didn't think much of it.
"Then hopefully they don't miss lunch."
Tysiff went to the back where the fire station's storage room is supposed to be. However, it has been repurposed to fit their clothes, supplies and food. In that sense, it never truly left the fate of being a room to store items.
It was quite organized because Denver insisted they be placed in similar categories.
When Tysiff stepped inside, he walked past the cabinets for clothing and canned food and directly went to a plastic crate on the floor. He crouched down and opened it to be greeted to the familiar sight of screwdrivers, wrenches, metal lubricant, a bottle of rust remover half empty, bleach, and a roll of thread with a long needle stabbed to it.
He grabbed the roll of black thread and closed the plastic crate before going upstairs.
Sitting on her and Kedcy's bed, Nenka was laying down on her back with a pencil in one hand and an eraser on the other while drawing on a piece of white paper.
She noticed Tysiff's footsteps and casually greeted him. "Hey Tysiff."
"What's up sis? Whatcha' doing?" He asked in turn.
Nenka shrugged and looked at the headshot portrait of a short haired woman in a flowery dress. "Just drawing whatever comes to mind."
"Oh? Can I see?" Tysiff tossed the roll of thread to Ukas's bed.
"Sure." Nenka sat upright and held the drawing in front of Tysiff who observed it quite keenly. "You seem to have found that shirt to your liking."
"Oh this? Yeah, it was a waste to leave it from the dump, so I just took it home. It needs some fixing though, so I need your help with that." Tysiff showed her the seam that began to come off with loose thread.
Nenka placed the paper back into the floor and didn't really feel letting her creative fire burn out for something else. "Didn't I teach you how to sew your own clothes together?"
Tysiff sat down cross-legged. "I'm not good at it. Plus, a little uh.. what's that word? Supervision. Yeah, some supervision is nice."
Nenka was amused. "Where'd you learn that word?"
"Old Fisher's radio." He could still remember those educational commercials after the old man's programs are done.
Silently blessing Old Fisher's kind soul, Tysiff waited for Nenka to respond.
"That's cool, you're learning a lot." She said while shading the woman's hair.
Tysiff flicked his head to the side and clicked his tongue with arrogance that didn't suit him, "Hehe, I'm just that smart."
"I believe that." Nenka watched as her hand continued to move with a mind of its own.
Tysiff waited patiently for her to finish drawing and observed how one would do to trees swaying in the wind.
"Aaaand– done." Nenka blew on the paper to get the eraser shavings off of it. She smiled and presented Tysiff with her work. "What do you think?"
Tysiff got a good look at the short haired woman wearing an off shoulder dress. He assumed that she was blonde due to the lighter shade of the graphite pencil.
"Well for starters, she's pretty. Who's she?" He asked for the woman who felt very familiar.
"Ah, she's the actress Ohlia Lutive. The one who mainly acts in Mendie Lutive movies, I'm sure you've seen one." Nenka set the drawing aside.
"Yeah, yeah, I've seen some movies on those public televisions in bus stations. I think it's great, but I don't understand most of it." Tysiff remembered a scene where she was dancing in the arms of a man in a dapper suit and bowtie. "I guess the acting is good? The lovey dovey and happy parts were fun to watch."
"Around what time do you watch movies there?" Nenka was curious since she barely went to the city with Tysiff. She also doesn't see him go there often because of how much of a hermit she's become.
"Begging in the city is not something I do often, so probably one time every two weeks? Maybe more? I don't count days like that." Tysiff perfunctorily replied.
Nenka quietly observed how messy Tysiff looked and felt a little bad. "Alright, give me the shirt you want fixed."
Tysiff pumped his fist in victory after convincing Nenka. He took it off without a worry and tossed it over along with the thread and needle.
As the needle was thrown, the dream collapsed into black fog. Nenka's figure and her relaxed expression dissipated into darkness as well as everything in the room.
***
The black robed man no longer sat in the windowsill and was now standing across Tysiff who was still sleeping.
"You were not lying, but your answer is incomplete." The man's blue eyes shone like sapphires under the moonlight as he took another purple talisman.
It lit up in bright purple flames as his voice grew less distinct.
"What drove you to such lengths, Tysiff?"
Those words echoed in the room three times, allowing for something incorporeal to take effect.
…
Tysiff furrowed his eyebrows in discomfort.
His face appeared as if he was suppressing a bad memory, something that inflicted him great pain.
Black fog rose up from his mind in an attempt to conjure up a scene, but it all turned into a cloud of flies buzzing incessantly.
The flies flew around the black robed man and began to whisper angrily in a choir of hatred.
"Kill…" "They must pay!" "Why..?" "So unfair!" "No more of this…!"
The man unsheathed the weapon in his waist and used his right hand to raise the two bladed sword before swinging it vertically in a short distance.
*Hum…*
A high pitched sound resonated inside the room, dispersing the flies back into black fog.
He finally understood the situation.
"So that was the reason…" The black robed man chuckled.
He didn't overstay.
After getting the answer that he wanted, he sheathed his sword and walked towards the window and jumped off.
His robe fluttered as he descended into the concrete wasteland.
Taking three steps, he turned around to take one last look at Tysiff's room before he disappeared into the streets under the cloak of darkness.
…
— The Next Day, 3:24 AM —
Tysiff's eyelids fought against the crushing weight of sleepiness as he sat upright. He yawned and looked at his surroundings.
Reaching out his hand for a bottle of water, Tysiff uncapped it and gargled the water and stood up to spit it out the window.
Outside, he saw smoke coming out of lit barrels near Scorpion territory. There were scouts holding SMGs carefully patrolling the area and a group was even approaching Tysiff's nest. Or more appropriately, his camp.
Tysiff didn't give much of a reaction and merely hid behind the concrete wall as he wiped his mouth. Going ahead and checking his belongings if something went missing, Tysiff lifted up the mattress and saw that the antique lighter was still there.
Fortunately, everything seemed fine and nothing was stolen.
He walked to the corner of the room and lifted a piece of tarp to take out the guns that he stole yesterday. The scratched SMG was a Mac-10 and the Glock is still in good quality.
Tysiff pocketed them both and grabbed a bottle of water alongside other stuff that he wanted to keep before leaving the room. He didn't have too much sentimental emotions towards it even though there was a little admiration for how this eight story tall apartment complex stood still in spite of the Timeless War.
He walked through the hallways with burnt doors and broken walls and walked down the stairs. He made sure to avoid the rusted railing and minded the glass shards. It'll be a sad day if he went through all that effort just to die from a piece of broken glass.
Upon reaching the ground floor, Tysiff surmised his surroundings and heard the patrol group's conversation getting closer.
With a casual sigh, he went into the streets and began walking.
…
Three men holding guns in their arms walked through Polmock Street discussing the strange deaths of their men last night.
"What exactly happened last night?" A man with two charcoal lines on each cheek asked.
The leader among the three answered almost as clueless as they were. "I don't know man, all I heard was that someone killed Sting's entire gang last night and helped the five Centipedes get away." He deliberated before adding, "There was also a random slum dweller who got shot in the beginning. His corpse went missing for some reason."
He spotted an eight story apartment and gestured for the two to follow.
"Who could've possibly killed our own? I wasn't paying attention to the rumors too closely, so I wanna know if they're caught." Said a guy wearing a yellow tank top and a denim vest over it.
While climbing the stairs and checking each room, the clean shaven leader answered, "Probably other Centipedes or lower ring gangs trying to curry favor with those hundred leg insects."
The leader climbed up the stairs and kicked away a shard of glass after clearing another floor. "But the weird part is that the perpetrator used a nailed bat or somethin' to whack down Danef and Lucian. And to add insult to injury, the bastard slit their necks like chickens on a chopping block."
"Damn. What about the rest?" The man with charcoal lines kicked open a door and saw a room where a snake was coiled on a corner. "Don't open this one, it has a snake." He held the doorknob as he pointed using his gun.
The leader leaned over and confirmed before locking it.
"Let me think.. Ah, someone probably used a bomb because the bodies lying around were mushy." Yellow tank top wriggled his fingers like worms to disgust the two.
"I did not want to imagine that in my head damn it." Charcoal stripes also vomited at the mental image as he opened another door. "Hm? Someone's been here."
The leader and yellow tank top turned towards him at the same time and checked out the room that he found.
It had a mattress, empty water bottles, tarp over a bucket, leftover charcoal, an old pan, and empty cans of food.
The leader didn't like the implications of this sight.
"Don't tell me there's been a rat here this entire time."
…
Tysiff passed by the Nostin Sports Stadium a few blocks ago and later saw the repurposed fire station.
Usually, there would be some people around the place, but because of the ongoing gang war, there was no one around these places.
The large piece of aluminum that used to be their door was on the floor, abandoned like everything else.
Tysiff clutched the SMG on his arms tightly as he remembered Ukas rotting in a random alley. That sight conflicted with the memories that flashed before his eyes.
Times when they'd play chess on the stairs and Ukas would wince upon seeing Tysiff make amazing moves that he didn't even see. Times when Tysiff practiced drawing under Nenka's guidance and failed, but it was filled with laughter. Times when Kedcy taught Tysiff how to sing only to find out why he shouldn't.
Even Denver. He was someone who didn't talk too much, but he'd provide the most insightful talks when Tysiff was down. Ivan was the one with the most interesting stories about the city and how great it was before he ended up with them. But even so, Ivan accepted what misfortune had befallen him.
As for Tomas? Tysiff had some conflicts with him, but it wasn't to the bitter end.
They were all amazing times.
Tysiff didn't know if it was truly him who brought bad luck to the ones he truly cares about. But he didn't let that cloud his judgement.
His eyes remained focused on one thing, the ones who truly destroyed his life.
Tysiff muttered under his breath, "Scorpions… why do you like taking things away from me?"
He didn't linger and left immediately, only giving his old home a look in passing.
His true destination was somewhere deeper into the Timeless Slums.
The Central Canal…