Proofreader: Pre-rewrite; Kagenesti Rewritten; 21. Sep 2018.

Prologue

Ending a life

“The strong live & the weak die” - Said by father, before he broke my jaw.

The last thing I remember before I died was the warm blood running down my throat, my hand pressing onto the stab wound to slow the blood flowing out even if it proved to be pointless I still by pure survival instinct pressed onto the wound. In the end I still died but with a smile on my face, since I got the bastard who stabbed me. Blood for blood, as the saying goes.

Where do I start? The coming of my ‘end’… no my death by another’s hand would be more correct to say. Ones ‘end’ is after all an unavoidable fact, humans are born, we live – good, bad, right or wrong, in the end we will all close our eyes and die. Yes, from young I knew my death would come at the hand of another. Did I fear my death? If I said no from the get go that would have been a lie, humans by instinct want to live, but as time went on I changed my view on death – well, my death that is. If I can’t avoid it then wasting time being afraid all the time is unproductive, with that in mind my ‘look’ on death changed to something I feared to being something that would happen with a hundred percent chance. To make a long answer short, I stopped fearing what I had no way to avoid and so, I began my struggle to live.

Hah, while I say live how I survived my first few years is still to this day remain an unsolved mystery to me, was it pity, was it pure luck, my mother’s fear of my fathers or was it a mixture of it all puddled together that made it so that I ‘lived’.

I lived with my mother, a young woman that at the time of my birth was fifteen years old. She was from a poor village somewhere that got either sold by her parents or kidnapped from her home. A human trafficking victim, one among many that lived in the ‘housing’ given to her by her owner – my father. She was nothing more then a plaything for his amusement, one of the many he kept around, to ‘pass time’ as he so nicely had once put it.

Did I hate my mother? To hate means that you would first need to care for that person, did I once care? Perhaps or perhaps not I do not recall a time where I did. What I did want from her was perhaps love or just the basic care – food and dry cloths, is that what you call love? If so then yes, I desired to be loved… Did my mother love me? I can without a doubt say that if there ever was such a feeling in that woman it was hidden or cast away long before I knew what love was. From her all I ever received was either cold glares filled with the desire to do harm to me or it was emotionless eyes glanced over staring at me yet looking past me, her eyes filled with a look of endless hurt, eyes that had given up on living.

The course of those eyes was my ‘dear’ father, an abusive bastard who enjoyed hitting people who were too weak to defend themselves against him, he especially seemed to enjoy beating up women, breaking them until all that was left was an empty shell, broken in body and mind. But then again it was to be expected of him since he was the head of the whole western mafia organization. Beating up my mother in front of me and raping her as she tried to resist him, her cries and his cold laugh mixing, he seemed to find great enjoyment in showing his ‘power’ over her to all in the room, which most of the times was his trusty bodyguards and me... If I didn’t mange to lock myself into a closet or the toilet, I got the front seat for the ‘show’ as he somethings called it or if he was in a bad mood I ended up beaten up so watching with my faced under his foot. Not that I would call either option a good one…

So, I can easily say that family bond isn't something I knew. My father’s way of teaching was to hit and break something so that the lesson would be remembered. I had my fair share of fractured and broken bones. At a certain point, you learn to ignore the kind of pain a broken bone brings with it, it becomes a dull sensation, nothing more than someone poking you. But make no mistake it still hurts, it never stops hurting even when you learn to bury and endure the pain.

From the moment it was decided that I didn't need a mother’s care anymore- not that I was ever given any, I was taken away from that house. Was it freedom I was given? Or was it just a new cage? From that time, I was brought to a man that I was told to call teacher, that man taught me how to fight with and without weapons. Many beatings and broken bones later I were deemed to be ‘ready to be of use’ and so sent to my father’s side. Did I hate my teacher? No, I would not call it hate, that man to a young child was the first person that would beat me up with a purpose in mind, every hit that landed and broken bone I got was the result of me failing at defending myself. But don’t misunderstand me, while it was not a feeling of hate I still found that just looking at him made my blood boil. He was the first person I burningly wished to bring down, did I wish him death? No, my desire at that time was just the pure desire to beat him and show him that I was the one on the top.

My father quickly found a use for me as his own personal ‘bodyguard’ – yeah let’s just put that out there his ‘bodyguard’ was, ‘hey go and kill that person’ in other words a weapon for him to use. His bodyguard work was me taking a knife or bullet instead of him or any of his closest men. Did I fail at protecting a person? Yeah, I mean who the hell is dumb enough to just stand a take a bullet instead of some random old person that is just leering at you. I did so only two times, once was the first time someone came running towards the man and me with a knife – the man got graced – he got a few stitches - with the knife before he was pulled away, that cost me a broken jaw and both my legs broken and a week in some cold long forgotten small room without food. More dead than alive I was put in the hospital my teacher – they had to rebreak my bones to set them right, young ones heal so fast they said. Second time… Well, in my opinion it was not my fault! When you take a knife in the leg most normal people go down! The man was ‘kind enough’ to pull it out as he gave a ‘fist of love’ knocking me clean out. I woke up to cold water being poured on my naked body, surrounded by that guys loyal dogs, I was beaten, cut up and when I passed out I was woken up again. How long did it last? I don’t know the mind shuts down when the pain received becomes too much. What I did get was long scars along my whole body more akin to whip marks, thin long scars zig-zagging and intervening like a spider’s web.

They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, I don’t think I became stronger, but I did learn to turn of my emotions to pain almost completely, a knife or a bullet, in the end my mind closed itself down the moment I received any form of damage to my body.

After that it was decided that I had to prove that I was still wort keeping around – in short if they should just kill me off or not. Did I wish for dead? No at that point I wished for nothing more then to bury them all six feet under. At twelve years old I killed my first person, a man who had turned on my father – slit his throat. So many more was killed by my hand after that. Assassinations, no one suspects a child of carrying a knife or a gun.

Sometimes he would make me point out young girls to ‘invite’ back to his house, he seemed to find amusement making me decide their fate. In the end they would mostly end up as a one time use or if he fancied them they would be shared with his guards – all the while he made sure to tell them the reason they were here was due to me, his sick joke of having me watch had not changed since I was young. Their eyes filled with pure hate and overflowing with tears, at some point I stopped caring about it… They where just giving up themselves in the end a few took their lives – Where they cowards? Where they too ashamed to look others in the eyes? What did they have to be ashamed off? They did have the strength to fight off a room full of well-built men, in the end it was just sex, did that make them any less worth then any other who had more partners?

At eighteen I was overseeing some of import and export – in other words his human trafficking business. Some nights where ‘pick up nights’, in short walking around the night life stores and beating up people for “safety money”. With power comes the people who hook up with you women and men, some I took with force some came to me to spend the night in return for protection from a lower ranking of my fathers’ men.

Even with all that I did not hate my life, I lived each day happily and satisfied with everything that I had, knowing that there were far worse ways of living. Killing, breaking bones, beating up people and raping, it all kind of fit my personality just fine, since I was never one to be bothered by ethics. Right and wrong is decided by the win a wise man once said in some book.

The strong rules and the weak serves, it was so for thousands of years. In the old Egypt, in the old China and the old Norse and the ships who ferried the slaves from the continent of Africa. No one said a thing as the Great Wall of China was built on the bone of the slaves. No one yelled up as the thousands of slaves died under the sun in the Egyptian dessert. No one looked twice when a young woman was dragged screaming into a hut and raped for all to hear. A time went by with such things being normal before the right of these people where acknowledged as ‘humans’, laughable if you ask me. In the first world war we deemed one side victors, while the other side was left utterly defeated with little to no means to food and other things – in the end sparking the embers to world war II, here human of one fait and look was hunted down like animals and put under inhumane treatment. Five world wars later and look at us now, we are back to the rich and powerful ruling the life of the poor. If you have no money, then you are fair game for all with power to take and do with you as they please.

That kind of makes me sound like a horrible person, but I’m not. I simply just don't care for those who do not fight for their own rights with their own strength.

I merely acknowledge this simple fact, I have seen the poor and the weak bow under the weight of the strong and the powerful and I’m no fool. If the strong live as they please and the weak live in fear, then I will become strong. If I must kill a few who stand in my way or if I have to bow my head to the man who is my father and do his bidding for some time then so be it, all hardships will come to an end if you stand up to in long enough.

I think that in the end it was my ever-defiant eyes and my never ending will to keep standing was what that in the end brought my father to fear me, and what ended up with him stabbing me. Well… at least he was personal about it.

So, that brings me to the predicament I'm in now. I am standing or at least I think I'm standing, it's hard to tell. On a white circular ring that lights up the surrounding blackness.

A black cloaked figure is staring at me and I at him or it. I will go to him for now, he looks like him.

“Welcome, to the realm of the dead child. I shall guide your soul over the crossing.”

He speaks in a muffled yet clear voice, like it's far away and at the same time right next to your ear.

With that statement, he reaches out for me or what I assume is me. I cannot see nor feel myself, yet I know that what he reaches for is me. Grabbing onto that which is ‘me’ he drags me along after him, well I say drag as I have no intention to come along with a hooded ‘thing’ I just met on a glowing platform.

In that moment I know one thing for sure and that is I'm not going to let him drag me along with him like some ragdoll, at least not without a fight.

So here goes nothing, I mean what can happen I'm already dead right, so with that thought I bring my fist or what I think might be my first or at least some kind of extension of myself, to his head. I seem to connect with something inside of the cloaked figure’s head as it cracks to the side, with the bone crushing noise. A sticky substance starts to spray out from the opening where the head is supposed to be. A happy surprise for me, well if you take away the part of me being covered in a sticky black goo like substance out of the picture. Yeah… Let’s overlook that part for now.

The simple rule of life is, if it bleeds it can die or so goes the saying. Well, Time to test it. I wonder if it even works on an already dead person… Thing?

I bring my arm around his neck and grab it in a headlock and with a swift twisting motion I break his neck, or at least what I think is his neck. The whole figure of the hooded being begin to collapse and that is my clue to let go of him and he of me.

That should've for the most part ended all my current problems, but in life or in this case in death it's not that simple. What I didn’t take into account was the little fact that he was the one holding me afloat. And by afloat, I mean holding me and himself above a pit of darkness. With him letting go of me and I of him, I invited a free fall into endless blackness.

My one thought going through my head at that point in time was something along the lines of 'Well this fucking sucks'. Most people might be having a minor freak out right about now but if I have learnt one thing from my life is that when it goes downhill all you can do it keep your mind clear and think of the least hurtful way to land. That and well let’s face it there not much you can really do free falling into the unknown.

Falling for what felt like countless eons, I hear the sound a river. A river of bluish green water with what seems like faces in it comes into my view.

Hmm…was it the old Greek’s that believed in a river of dead souls? With that being my last thought before hitting the surface.

My world becoming black once more.