In the Palesthenian slums, hygiene was terrible. The common cold killed men faster than war itself. The workforces were steadily increasing the total housing, making the streets all the more filled with illness.
The world was corrupt, and the gap between rich, and poor increased as time passed by. The slum's peasants were mere pawns in a world sized game of chess. Given enough coin, only to survive and repopulate. Rats scurried through the mud, in search of food, only to find little to none.
The world had turned it's back upon my own fortune, or rather my mother's. One year, a disease of no other, swept the kingdom, killing peasants, as well as nobility. Healers, hired to heal the nobility of the sickness, succumbed to the contagious disease. The apostles of Solomon's kingdom later named it, the 'Divine plague', claiming it to be a message from a greater being.
On my mother's death bed, she smiled bravely. Looking into my eyes, peering into my soul, she sadly stated, "You're going to grow up into a fine man, I just know it. You have to promise me tha-" she began, interrupted by a series of painful coughs. Hoping to not infect me, she turned away, only increasing the pain in which she was in.
"You can't leave..." I whispered in shock of the fact. "You can't leave..." I repeated, feeling as if my soul was ripped from me.
"Ryo... Promise me?" She asked hopefully, hoping to get an answer before she parted the world.
I never did answer her. I merely repeated the same words to her, falling into a pit of disrepair. I was broken without her. I could only think of the stray dog, years ago. The same glossy look on it's face, that my mother now gave me. A look of utter contentment, for there was no life left to enjoy, nor was there life to hate. I couldn't move my eyes from hers. She looked empty, as a hollowed shell of what once was.
There, I sat with dry eyes, staring at my mother's corpse. Why couldn't I cry? I felt like a hole was in my heart, yet i couldn't cry. She deserved for tears to be shed, so why couldn't I shed even one?
My mother was now gone, and there was nothing I could do to change that fact. What would I do? Was there anything I could do? I was lost, never to be truly found.