The rain didn't stop. It softened, maybe, but it never stopped. The streets swallowed it, the mud drank it, and I followed it wherever it went down the broken steps, through the narrow alleys, into the belly of the slums.
I didn't know where I was going. I only knew I couldn't go back.
The city lights above the slums looked different that night blurred and bleeding through the mist, like dying stars that had forgotten how to shine properly. I used to think they were beautiful. Now they looked like they were watching me and not caring what they saw.
My stomach growled. I hadn't eaten since morning. I passed the bakery that always smelled like burnt flour. They threw out scraps sometimes, but tonight the bins were empty. Even the rats looked hungrier than me.
I found a dry corner under an old bridge. The air smelled like rust and piss, but it was still better than the open road. I sat there, holding my torn cloth bundle tight against my chest. Inside was everything I had a cracked bowl, a sliver of bread, and the wooden carving I made years ago. It was supposed to be a bird, though it never really looked like one.
I turned it in my hand, tracing the rough edges. Mira once said I had "steady hands for a street brat." I used to take that as a compliment. Now I wondered if she was just measuring what she could make from me later.
The thought hurt more than the slap.
The rain outside kept whispering. It tapped on the stones like it was saying something in a language I couldn't understand. Every sound made me flinch the squeal of cart wheels, footsteps in the mud, laughter from a tavern across the street. The city was alive, but not for me.
I pressed my knees to my chest and tried to sleep. The cold crawled in instead. It found every gap in my clothes, every breath I took, every space where warmth used to live. I closed my eyes and saw the house again the firelight, the table, Ren's fake tears, Mira's face when she said I was a mistake.
I wanted to hate her. I really did. But hate takes warmth too, and I didn't have any left.
The hours stretched. I counted them by the sound of distant bells and drunk men stumbling home. Once, a group of kids ran by older than me, their hands full of stolen fruit. One of them saw me sitting there and threw a peel at my feet.
"New rat," he said. " he Wouldn't last a week."
They laughed and ran off before I could say anything. Not that I would've. Words didn't mean much out here.
Later, a man passed by, wrapped in a long coat. He didn't look at me, but I felt his eyes brush past like a knife. The kind of gaze that measures, not sees. I learned to recognize it even then the look of someone deciding what you're worth.
When he was gone, I curled tighter against the wall. The wind had teeth now. The water dripping from the bridge formed tiny rivers near my feet, carrying bits of trash and ash. I watched them flow until they disappeared into a gutter. I wondered if that's where I'd end up too washed away somewhere no one remembered.
Sleep came in pieces. Every time I closed my eyes, something pulled me half awake again a rat scurrying, a voice in the distance, thunder rolling far beyond the city. Somewhere in that half-sleep, I thought I heard Mira's voice calling my name.
"Zero," she said. Just like she used to, soft but sharp at the edges.
I opened my eyes. Only the rain answered.
When dawn finally came, it didn't feel like morning. The sky was gray, and the streets were quiet, as if the world had forgotten to wake up. My hands were numb. My lips cracked when I tried to breathe through them. I checked the bread in my bundle soggy, useless. I threw it away.
For a while, I just sat there, staring at the gutter water. Then I whispered, "I'm still here."
The sound surprised me. It wasn't a cry, just a statement small, stubborn, alive.
I didn't know why I said it. Maybe because no one else would.
I stood, legs trembling, and walked out into the slum's morning fog. The city smelled of smoke and wet stone. Somewhere a bell rang again not for me, but it didn't matter.
I had nowhere to go, nothing to eat, no one waiting.
But I was still here.
And somehow, that felt like enough.