Power grows through moral compromise.
He ran. He ran like his life was on the line.
It was.
His breath was ragged, like his clothes--torn, yet irreplaceable. Air scraped his throat like he had swallowed embers.
His bare feet slapped against the frozen stone beneath him. He didn't have the opulence of shoes, so each step sent a jarring pain up his bones that were too thin to hold him.
It hurt. God it hurt.
To be this pathetic. To be this cursed. To live like this…
A ragged cough tore out of his lungs, it rocked his whole body. He wasn't sure if it was because of the cold that would swallow him the moment he stopped running, or if it was the fever he had woken up with one morning– that day when the world had become too bright, too sharp… too intolerable.
The day he realised his place; the day he refused to obey.
But that left him right where he started.
He was hungry. God, he was so unbelievably hungry. It had been at least 3 days.
Maybe that was why his fever persisted. Or maybe it was a reminder that no matter how hard he tried it would never change.
The alley twisted and turned, but he wasn't paying attention. Too dazed, too hungry, too tired. He didn't even see the stack of crates until he collided with them. They clattered loudly, then moments later a door burst open.
"There he is! The same rat who stole from us a few days ago!"
He was bleeding now, but he couldn't stop. He fled before the man could reach him. The man began to scream and shout, not dressed well enough to pursue.
What a luxury.
The world throbbed as he continued, unsure if it was his head or the sound around him. He wasn't sure if he had lost those who were chasing him over a slice of bread he stole. But it didn't matter.
Run away. Run away from everything. If I can't see it, it can't hurt me. If I can't see it, it's not there.
Everything pulsed as he felt a certain type of weakness kick in. Ringing in his ears came first, then his body began to slow, flopping like he was made of tallow. His heart began to feel sharp--he couldn't run anymore.
Faint voices were still encroaching, but as he took his next step, his ankle twisted.
His vision swam as he fell to the floor in the middle of the cobble-stone path. He rolled over looking at the snow crusted rooftops. At least in such a cruel world, the snow from the sky was soft. But why did it have to be so cold?
His hands stung as he looked at them. His sweat barely steamed. They were burned red from the unrelenting icy breeze, as did his skin split at the knuckles. They didn't resemble hands capable of holding anything--not hope, not the single slice of bread that was now laying beside him, soaking into the dirty water running through the gutters.
He wasn't sure if he would make it through the night.
Shadows passed near the corner he had rounded before he fell. Holding his breath, figures came into view. Children, not the people he was worrying about. But they were richer ones. Their coats were lined with thick wool.
They looked so warm.
"Why do they let that thing stay near the quarter? He's such an eyesore."
"Because no-one wants to drag it out."
Laughter followed.
"It'd be better if it just died."
He curled into a ball. Weak and fragile. He had accepted that things just weren't fair. Yes, that had happened a while ago. It wasn't so bad once upon a time--but since they came, since his parents were killed for just speaking out about the suffering in the slums…
The footsteps finally retreated, fading until the fever could no longer intensify the throbbing.
He grit his teeth. He couldn't die here.
He pushed his frame upward. He tried to get onto his feet--but it was in vain. His legs trembled and he fell.
The world tilted once more as he landed knees first into the slush on the side of the road.
He pressed a fist to his stomach. It was no longer hunger. It was something more akin to a monster clawing at him from inside, desperate to escape. Even the bread he stole could no longer be eaten, at least not with his fever. He'd have to hope he could scavenge something tomorrow, but not even the church would spare him anything.
They had turned him away before he had even made it to the steps.
"We don't feed the unsanctioned. Go back to where you crawled from."
But he didn't have a 'where'. He didn't have anything but the clothes on his body. And now the snow that only became heavier.
Large white flakes began to slowly drift downward before landing on his feverish skin through his torn clothes. He blinked up at the dark grey sky, only illuminated by small flames in the lampposts guarding the streets.
"I don't want to…" He whispered.
His voice was cracked and pitiful, as expected of a child.
"I don't want to die." It was barely a breath but saying it out loud made something inside him break. Because he had admitted it, he acknowledged that he was so weak it might be the last thing he would ever manage to do.
But… maybe that way the suffering would finally end.
Not yet.
A tremor rolled through his whole body. But it was different. Darkness crowded the edges of his vision. But he felt… warm?
Not yet.
He didn't know if he had said it or thought it. He didn't know anything until the snow around him seemed to still.
The world seemed to slow down. Like it was holding its breath. Just like he had been.
Then it came. A sound, no louder than a faint whisper.
Quiet. Soft. But undeniably there in this frozen world.
It was like a voice speaking from the very essence of the cold itself.
"Do you want to live?"
Flinching, he managed to move his head up, like the exhaustion was never really there. Like the lag of the fever had never affected him in the first place.
No-one stood near him, only a shadow near the corner of the street from a passerby yet to come into vision; yet he heard it again.
It was everywhere. Like it was inside him–-it filled his ribs, head and every inch of his skin.
"I said, do you want to live, little one?"
His hands pressed into his ears, like he could block out the voice, "Go away."
But it was patient and warm. Warmer than the body he could no longer feel. Warmer than anything he had felt in years.
"You have been forgotten," it murmured. "You were never chosen. Never spared. But you could be something more. You could take what was denied you."
He could almost taste blood where he'd held his tongue.
It was right.
"Do you want strength?" the voice asked. "Strength to deny anything less than what you deserve?"
His eyes flickered. What did he deserve?
"Deserve is a word taught to the powerless so that they will accept hunger."
A small shock ran up his spine. It could hear his thoughts.
And almost as if the voice began to grin–
"You deserve whatever you can take."
"You deserve to live."
"You deserve strength."
He grabbed the snow that now lined his pants.
"And if the world requires you to be weaker than others so they may endure—"
The voice lowered.
"—then the world is wrong."
He sat there for a moment.
He swallowed, throat raw.
"So what do you want?"
"...take it all. I want to take it all." His voice was hoarse and quiet, but more determined than he had ever been.
Strength. Food. Warmth. Safety. Such distant things they may as well have been myths.
"So… you want power?"
The alley seemed to darken, shadows stretching toward him like long fingers.
"Power that nothing can take from you. That no one can deny…"
His vision blurred. His lungs burned. His bones felt hollow.
He didn't know why the voice came. He only knew that he had nothing left to lose, even if he was merely hallucinating.
His breath fogged faintly in the cold.
"…yes," he whispered. "I want to live."
A shiver moved through the air.
"And if the price is steep?" the voice asked gently.
His lips trembled. His heart hammered. He didn't know what price meant. He only knew suffering; that survival surely couldn't cost more than what he already endured every single day.
His fingers curled into the slush.
"…I'll pay it."
The shadows deepened. Light drained from the edges of his vision.
"And if no cost is enough?"
The voice was almost curious now. Almost delighted.
He lifted his head. Something flickered behind his eyes. Not hope. Not courage.
Only the certainty of someone who would rather damn the world than vanish inside it.
"…then I'll do anything."
The world went silent.
The voice exhaled—almost a sigh of satisfaction.
The darkness rose to meet him.
"Good."