Dawn never reached the slums.
The first sound that broke the endless night was not birdsong, but coughing wet, ragged, and hollow.
It came from every corner, every alley, rising together into a chorus that greeted the pale light seeping through the cracks above.
The air itself was heavy, thick with soot and the sour stench of burning refuse. Even the wind refused to move here.
The boy opened his eyes.
He did not gasp or stretch or shiver. He simply woke the same way a machine starts again after being shut down.
Around him, bodies stirred, thin silhouettes in the dimness. Some still breathed. Others didn't. No one checked which were which.
The chain at his neck shifted as he sat up. It clinked softly in a way it was the only sound that truly belonged to him.
His black hair stuck to his face, stiff with sweat and grime. The faint glow of his red eyes caught the dying firelight from a nearby barrel.
He waited for the whip.
And it came, as always.
A sharp crack that sliced through the air and through the morning haze.
Someone screamed. Then the overseer's voice, deep and cruelly casual "Get up, Filthy rats. You think dying gets you rest here? Move."
The shuffling began, feet dragging against the mud-caked floor.
The boy rose, following the pull of the chain that connected him to the others. He didn't look at their faces. There was no need as Faces were things that changed too often to remember.
Outside, the world was gray.
The sky above the slums was a veil of smoke and dust, a second ceiling pressing down on them. Far beyond it, the golden spires of the upper city glimmered faintly like another world entirely.
Their light reached the slums but gave no warmth, only mocking shimmer on the puddles of stagnant water below.
They marched through the alleyways, a procession of living corpses.
Children, elders, women, all with chains biting into their skin. The air was full of the iron scent of blood and the low murmur of hunger.
A woman stumbled ahead of him, one hand clutching her swollen belly.
The bald guard sighed not with pity, but with weary contempt.
"Keep moving," he said coldly, "or you'll be left where you fall."
Her knees buckled. She tried to stand, but the chain dragged her down again.
The guard's expression hardened. Without hesitation, his boot struck her ribs once, twice, a dull, sickening sound echoing through the narrow alley.
"You think you're allowed to rest?" he muttered, each word like a blow.
The woman cried out, her voice fragile and raw.
"Please… stop… please, it hurts… I have a child… please…"
Her trembling hand pressed against her stomach as if trying to shield the life inside. But mercy was not a word known in this place.
The bald guard did not stop.
Until she stopped moving.
The others didn't look. The boy didn't stop. The chain kept pulling, and so he followed.
Their path led to the Scrap Fields, a vast wasteland of twisted metal and shattered stone, where the remnants of old wars were dumped.
Machines that once roared across battlefields now lay in pieces, their shells hollow, their power cores long dead.
The slaves dug through them daily, searching for parts that could still be melted down or sold.
Work began with another crack of the whip.
And then, silence except for the clang of metal, the scraping of shovels, and the dull rhythm of suffering.
The boy bent down, his thin fingers clawing at the dirt. Every motion split his skin a little more, and the blood mixed with the rust until both were the same color.
He didn't pause to wipe it away. Pain was just the body's way of saying it still existed, A language he had long stopped listening to.
Beside him, a small girl coughed violently, her tiny shoulders shaking.
"Stop it," whispered an older slave. "You'll get us all beaten." The girl tried, bit her lip, and kept digging. Blood stained the corner of her mouth.
When the overseer passed by, his whip brushed lazily across her back, not out of anger, but boredom. She didn't cry out, not anymore.
Hours passed. Time had no meaning here, only exhaustion.
The sky above never brightened, and the air never cleared. When someone fell, the others stepped over them, too weak to care.
By midday, three bodies lay still near the edge of the field. No one dragged them away. The rats would or men hungrier than rats.
At the edge of the pit, smoke rose from a mound of burning trash. The stench was thick and oily, coating every breath.
The boy worked close to it, his eyes watering from the smoke yet his face refused to show any emotion.
Almost unable to.
Someone muttered behind him, "Another one gone… gods take 'em."
Another replied, bitterly, "gods don't come here."
They both laughed, a dry, humorless sound that broke into coughing.
When the overseers weren't watching, some of the slaves scavenged. A bent spoon. A piece of cloth. A few burnt grains of rice hidden in the dirt.
The boy never searched. He had nothing to hide food in, and no reason to eat it later. If he starved, the chain would pull tighter around one less neck.
That was mercy, in a way.
Evening came without sunset only the dimming of the already dim light. The overseers began to gather the workers, counting them with lazy eyes.
A man tried to run once, long ago. His bones still hung from the fence as a reminder.
The boy had seen them every day since he could walk. He no longer remembered the man's face, only the way the ribs looked when the crows came.
"Back inside!"
The order cracked like thunder.
They marched again, back through the alleys. The puddles were thicker now, black with oil. The boy's reflection shimmered for a moment before the surface rippled and swallowed it whole.
Dinner was a metal bowl passed from hand to hand, thin soup made from whatever could be boiled without killing outright.
He took his portion, drank it slowly. The taste was ash and salt. Someone beside him retched. A guard laughed. "Then starve, dog."
The boy finished the bowl, licking the last drop from the rim. Hunger was a constant ache that never dulled, only deepened.
Later, when the chains were locked to the wall and the torches died, the slum fell into silence. A silence filled not with peace, but the weight of countless heartbeats refusing to stop.
He lay down in the corner, his knees drawn to his chest. The dampness soaked through the thin fabric of his rags, chilling him to the bone.
He stared at the ceiling or what was left of it and watched the faint flicker of lightning far above, where the sky laid.
It was said that the nobles there rode beasts born of their powers, that they could split mountains and command storms.
The boy had seen one once, a shadow passing overhead, wings wide enough to blot out the sun.
Somewhere outside, a baby's cry could be heard. It was brief, muffled. Then silence.
He didn't flinch. The world had long ago stopped surprising him.
In the dark, an older man whispered, "Such a unfortunate girl..."
Someone else answered with a sob in their voice, "Lets bury their bodies together...its the least we could do."
Their voices faded into the hum of distant thunder. they carefully placed the body of the dead mother and her child gently together, Carefully burying them with a gentleness and slowness their weak bodies could muster.
The boy's eyes drifted to the faint silver line on his cheek that strange mark untouched by filth or light. It glimmered faintly, though no light reached it.
One of the others had once called it "a curse."
Another said, "Maybe the gods marked you."
The boy hadn't reacted. Whatever it was, it meant nothing.
Sleep didn't come. Only a heavy stillness, the kind that settled in graves.