“I know what you’re thinking,” I said aloud with a certain garble in my voice, “You think you have no way out of this alive, but I can tell you that you’re both wrong,”

I was still very dizzy, but I knew I could not miss this critical moment in the negotiations. Honestly, I was stalling for some time.

The more the adrenaline dwindled, the more Karl and Slim could thoroughly consider our current situation.

Slim shook his head in self-deprecation “We all know how this ends,”

And he was right… this was the slums and the only way out was through death.

Karl’s face was shifting between madness and sadness; he was no doubt struggling with the decision of taking me to hell with them both.

But I also knew what held him back, and it made me disgusted that I would be the one to stop his noble cause.

“I would be grateful if you let me live,” I stated, hoping both men were looking for some good deeds to lessen their time in Hell.

They had to die, but there was no need for me to die with them.

They were no doubt going to Hell, but perhaps a good deed before death could be the difference between the 1st Layer of Hell, and the 2nd Layer of Hell.

“We die either way… Both you and Rocky are more valuable to the ‘Adults’ than Slim and me. They wouldn’t take our side now that things have come this far,” Karl said, taking a step forward to show that his mind was made up.

I snorted at his idiocy and spoke a single name that threatened to tear my throat apart “Eliza!”

It pained my heart to say that name, but I was left with no other choice.

Karl’s steps slowed to a crawl and then after a couple seconds, he stopped moving entirely.

“H- Ho- Ho- How d-d-do you know that?” Karl asked, barely holding back the tears that threatened to leak from his eyes.

Eliza was Karl’s childhood sweetheart that was sold into prostitution.

Such a profession would usually have a bad ending for all inexperienced girls because the men in the slums either had multiple diseases or ‘damaging’ impulses.

It was not unexpected to see a random prostitute’s body in the gutter every morning.

The Brothels also welcomed such an event amongst new female arrivals because it meant the men who did the deed would become akin to an indentured servant.

It was a trap for men who could not control their violent impulses. They would beat the girls to death and then be forced to use every penny they made to pay for the transgression for years.

Karl was trapped in a different way though. Every month he had to give The Brothels a specific sum of money to ensure that Eliza was not be put to ‘work’.

Of course, the sum given to the Brothels would steadily increase, leaving Karl with no other options than to search for lucrative business ventures.

And that road led him here, waiting to ambush me. We were all a victim of circumstance in the end, with nobody to blame but ourselves.

I could tell that Slim was surprised by Karl’s decision to cease the madness. After all, Slim was both sly and slimy when things took a left turn. Slim was known to get away with almost anything.

He was obviously planning for the emotional Karl to rush in and die with me while he made a swift and unnoticed exit.

“Rammy!” I said as Slim’s face also turned white in fear.

Slim had the peculiar fetish of stealing young boys off the streets, but sometime last week, he took someone he shouldn’t have.

Rammy was the younger brother of another ‘Adults’ member. I am not that aware of how things in the ‘Adults’ work, but I knew that if the information got out, Slim was going to wish I killed him here and now.

Still, I knew that time was running out. My head was still dancing from the earlier battle, but my vision remained steadfast.

My entire body ached, which ironically made me feel more alive than ever before in such a deadly situation.

My leg leaked blood from Kim’s reckless stabbings.

‘Thank God the b*tch is dead,’ I thought.

I wiped the blood that smeared my vision. I could feel the swollen areas from the beatings I received earlier.

“Maybe, there is a deal to be made,” Slim said magnanimously.

As I said, Slim is a slimy bastard who could make black look white and his disadvantage into an advantage.

I eyed Karl intently, not willing to miss the moment he made his decision. Karl was the deciding factor in how everything would progress.

Thankfully, he made the right choice.

“Let’s look at it this wa…” Slim didn’t get to finish his statement, the next moment a knife was buried in his heart.

“I can’t have you knowing that name,” Karl said, holding the dagger in Slim’s chest.

*Puchi*

*Puchi*

With two more jabs from Karl, Slim slumped to the ground with a vacant look in his eyes.

I sighed in relief, holding back the ever-increasing feeling of disgust that welled up within me.

Tonight, I had killed, had someone killed, and threatened someone with something precious to them.

I slowly rose to my feet, not removing my eyes from Karl for an instant. Often times when you felt that you had won, was the moment when everything could be turned around.

Ripping a piece of my shirt, I swiftly bandaged the wounds on my leg using one arm. As I slowly backed away, I could see a resigned smile edge its way onto Karl’s face.

“A bit of advice,” He said “We were not here for you, but Rocky. Watch out for that guy, he is up for a promotion soon,”

Karl then hesitated for a while before saying “Rumors are that the adults have a certain piece of tech that can hide trauma from Corporation Tests…”

I could feel my heart pounding at that piece of information, almost to the point that my hand faltered around the grenade.

‘Mask Trauma?’ I thought disbelievingly.

The only reason anyone remained in the slums was that they had too much trauma. The Corporation Test would gauge your potential through several secretive methods.

Based on your aptitudes, the different Corporations would offer varying benefits to join their respective sections. However, such tests would also act as a way to weed out those ‘born-hindrances’.

Everyone could be accepted into a Corporation and subsequent school; such was the right of all humans. Still, there were no perfect systems in the world.

The Corporations Test had a very minor problem.

What would happen when you encounter a psychopath?

Someone who could not change even if they wanted to. The answer was easy – you kill them for the betterment of society.

For Slum-Dwellers, the final test would place you into a mind scanner that sifted through your memories and erased them one by one.

But Trauma could not be erased, and if the trauma was deep enough, it would affect your personality in adverse ways with your memories gone.

This would lead you to develop a personality based solely on the trauma.

So if your trauma was being raped, you would become the rapist… if your trauma was someone killing your parents, then you would become a murderer who kills other's parents.

The Corporations could not allow Slum-dwellers to keep their memories, and also could not allow slum-dwellers with advanced trauma to join them.

There were only two ways to solve the problem: send them back to the slums or kill them.

Often times, it was the latter.

Taking the Corporation Test and being sent back to the slums was akin to a carp leaping over the Dragon’s gate, only to become a worm on the other side.

That’s why people like me, who witnessed my parent’s death, and people like Rocky, who killed his parent, could not take The Corporation’s Test to make it out of the slums.

Seeing that Karl wasn’t moving, I made my way through the hollow wall.

I was prepared to throw the grenade and duck behind the wall. Being so close to the epicenter would injure me, but at least I wouldn’t be dead.

Before anything else, I had to ensure that Karl died here first.

But something happened that put a damper on my plans, and made me realize that I had f*cked myself in the ass.

Passing through the hollow wall, I heard a vague whisper that made my body turn cold.

“It’s a fake,” The voice said.

“The grenade is a fake… Why would I give you something that could kill me too?” The voice asked with sarcasm “If you throw it, we will both die for your stupidity!”

My body froze for a moment under Karl’s intense stare, but I regained my pompous atmosphere immediately with an even more nonchalant look on my face.

“Karl… you know, being as magnanimous as I am… I have decided to let you live so you can get out of here,” I said, gesturing a ‘shew-shew’ action with my hands.

But how could Karl, who lived in the slums, not know when the situation had changed in his favor? Slum-dwellers could smell blood, and I was sure that Karl was sniffing my own right now.

I am pretty sure it was the world ‘magnanimous’ that made him suspicious. I had unconsciously used the word Slim used before Karl stabbed him to death.

“It’s too light,” Karl murmured to himself in realization.

“What?” I asked, a frightening premonition inching its way to the forefront of my mind.

“A grenade weighs about a pound. You are an extremely fit child, but you still can’t carry a grenade with just your fingers in this weakened state… so you should have dropped the grenade, even by accident, unless the grenade was too light for some reason,” Karl said.

Karl was as educated as someone in the slums could be… so he was essentially stupid, but everyone in the slums was experienced when it came to weapons.

There was a genius person like myself, then there was a conditional-genius like everyone else in the slums.

Geniuses could figure stuff out at first glance, but Karl held weapons so much that he eventually learned everything about them.

Staring at the creepy smile edging its way onto Karl’s face, I knew that the ruse was over. The grenade was really too light, which meant that I had f*ucked up unconsciously.

“Damn!” I cursed aloud.

“Idiot!” I heard someone inside the hollow wall murmur.