THE CHILD WHO WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO EXIST
Kael's first cry tore through the gloom of the hut where the stench of sweat, blood and alcohol hung heavy. There was no celebration, no smile, no hint of tenderness. His mother, with a weathered face and vacant gaze, barely gave him a glance before turning away in disgust.
-Damn you..." she muttered between her teeth, pushing him away with a cold gesture. To her, Kael was nothing more than an invisible chain that bound her to a miserable existence.
The man staggering in the corner, with a rancid stench permeating his skin, spat nonsensical profanities. His father. A man whom life had bent, who only found solace at the bottom of a jug of cheap chicha.
-Tsk, another parasite..." he growled, staggering toward the door without even looking at him.
Kael was born in a ghetto where death was a daily visitor and hope was drowned in screams and blows. The streets were narrow and dirty, populated by shadows that whispered promises of escape for too high a price. There, life was worth no more than the edge of a knife or the will of the powerful who ruled from their golden palaces.
From the moment he opened his eyes, Kael knew rejection. His mother fed him just enough to keep him from dying. His father beat him when he was sober enough to remember his existence. And the world...the world made it clear to him that he had not been welcome.
As he grew older, he learned to move by stealth, to disappear into the shadows when his father's screams filled the shack. He took refuge in rat-infested alleys and listened, enviously, to other children laughing as they played in the ruins of what were once decent homes. He had no friends. He had no one.
Hunger was his constant companion. His mother barely left scraps for him and, when his father wasn't sunk in liquor, he snatched it all away with a slap. Kael learned to steal. First hard bread and stale fruit from neglected markets, then coins falling from distracted pockets. Each failure cost him a blow, a chase, a night without food. But he learned fast.
Sometimes, deep in the night, when the cold made him shiver in his corner of the hut, the dreams would return. In them, a golden glow danced before his eyes, warm and furious. Voices in a forgotten tongue whispered his name, over and over again. Kael. Kael. Kael.
He saw towering towers bathed in sunlight. He saw shadows crawling like hungry beasts. He saw a golden throne engulfed in flames.
Every dawn was a new hell, but also a test. A spark beat within him, tiny, imperceptible, but unshakable.
The world wanted him dead. But something in his blood refused to die out.