The boy walked home from the bar nibbling on scraps of food he'd nicked from the violent fools, too busy mobbing a poor man to notice him filling his pockets.
He didn't know anything different but he knew for a fact that these streets weren't made right, it was all too intimate. Rather than the cities or streets told in stories, the people here lived in a labyrinth of containers.
Within the walls of the labyrinth, the hopeless whispers of the damned. The streets right outside the bar were the worst.
First leaving, the boy was jeered at by a group of street women, scantily dressed in patched up clothing and laughing at the disgruntled face of the boy. A lady who was plump in all the right places with a face of make up that nearly made it bearable to look at, likely older than even his mother took the lead. Come on kid, give us a cute smile and maybe we'll show you something too. The rest of them cackled as the boy's face contorted even more in disgust.
The boy kept his disdain to himself, these ladies were rarely on their own, often accompanied by men who would lie in wait for a lustful swine to fall prey. He endured their teasing and carried on his way. As his boots clattered daintily on the pavement, he heard the sarcastic groans of disappointment from the ladies.
The boy continued with a look of contemplation.
Thinking back to those women of the night, whether or not they truly enjoyed that life he couldn't say. But one thing was for sure, the lessons he could learn from them weren't so different from the ones imparted to him by the strange man.
The people of this planet have been abandoned, unwelcome in the kingdom of gods. They live on the periphery of a dead planet, where the husk of a dead god lies, in its shadow is a land where the subjects are not ruled by a king or a god, but by their Carnal Desires
Here, the ones who understood this and knew how to move others based on those desires were the rulers. The prince of rats began to feel his understanding increase.
A strange scene. A small boy barely five feet tall and wrapped in patched tunics, raven black hair and emerald green eyes burning in the dark. He walked through dust and broken glass, the words on his lips like a prayer or mantra. Carnal desires. Carnal desires. Carnal desires.
The boy did not soon snap out of his disturbing trance, as if he would never break free until he grasped the true essence of the words.
The boy walks entranced stumbling upon a scene. A tightly packed market stall is toppled over, goods on the floor, fruits and trinkets among other things. An old shopkeeper is crumpled on the floor, grovelling at the feet of four young children a couple years the boy's senior.
The boy came to a stop to observe, still muttering to himself with great strain and intensity in his eyes. The boy asks himself out loud, Why did they do this?
The boy wasn't asking this out of a shocked sense of justice, such a thing did not exist on this planet. He was curious, observing with a new and twisted perspective.
A ruffian grasps the shopkeeper's collar, sends him flying back. It's a big late to apologize now fucker, your piece of shit prices are pissing me off, the teenager with dirty blonde hair screams at the frail old shopkeep.
The boy hears this with a look of disappointment. If the shopkeeper truly did try to scam them, then you can say that their anger was justified.
But the boy looked closer, in their eyes there wasn't an ounce of retaliatory anger, they were simply taking their anger out on the shopkeeper because they could. So begs the question, why were the boys violently angry, and why are they lying about their reasons?
The first question you could answer simply, this planet wouldn't leave you wanting if you were looking for reasons to be angry.
The second question, why were they talking about the prices when they didn't seem to care about the goods?
The boy thought back to the fight at the bar. The patrons didn't really think that the man had been able to sneak meet on him, when people are dumped on this planet, they're inspected thoroughly. No, they were all just drunk and needed some senseless violence to blow off steam and the strange man had given them justification with his claims.
That was it, justification.
These rats were still desperately clinging to the last remnants of their humanity. They didn't want to believe that they'd truly been reduced to animals at the whims of their carnal desires.
The prince of rats smiles to himself in understanding, he now understood that to control these rats, he needed to give them a purpose and a justification.
The prince of rats lifted his right leg, about to step onto the scene, eager to test his new understanding. But a flip switched in his mind as clarity returned to his eyes, and he hurriedly turned back around and continued on his way home.
The boy scolded himself for the rest of the journey, occasionally he would smack his palm on his head, hammering in the stupidity of his actions today. He'd been lulled into the rhythm of that strange man. His curiosity had gotten the better of him.
The stories of humans, real humans that he'd always been tortured with. They were nothing like that man, that sinister man, that devil.
Even more importantly, getting involved with a bunch of hooligans just to satisfy his curiosity would be stupid. It wasn't how he'd learned to live.
The boy's demeanour eased at that thought, yes, since meeting that devil he'd been acting strange, but he told himself that he wouldn't be influenced any longer.
At this thought the boy smiled at himself, he'd proven himself different from those rats. He was curious about the true nature of the rats, on how to control them. He'd even been provided a purpose by the devil, saying that he was the prince of rats who'd become the king and lead these people away from this prison.
But the boy didn't give in to these temptations, because he was a human and not a rat.
With self satisfaction filling his lungs, the boy finally reached his home in a confident stride.
The boy returned home and found the door ajar, swinging lazily in the stale breeze.
Inside, the thin scraps he had hidden were gone. A few muddy footprints led out into the dark.
He stared for a long moment. He wasn't surprised nor angry.
Rats would steal from each other if they could. It was their nature.
Outside, he heard the sounds of a scuffle. Angry, desperate voices fighting over something that wasn't worth the breath spent to claim it.
The boy closed his eyes, listening.
His face reflected his pity and disgust at these beasts.
His heart did not ache.
His fists did not clench.
He felt only the quiet confirmation of what he already knew:
He was not one of them.
He was their prince.
Their better.
Their inevitable king.