The apartment reeked of cheap alcohol and stale cigarettes. Cracks snaked along the walls, and the ceiling fan creaked with every slow rotation.
Ethan Caldwell, a frail boy of seven, sat in the corner, knees drawn to his chest, staring at the flickering television screen.
His father lay slumped in an old armchair, an empty bottle dangling from his fingers, while his mother laughed loudly on the phone with some stranger, ignoring the child who hadn't eaten since the morning.
"Mom," Ethan's voice was barely above a whisper. "I'm hungry."
His mother waved him off, rolling her eyes. "There's bread on the counter."
There wasn't. Ethan knew because he had checked.
His stomach twisted in hunger, but the coldness in his mother's tone hurt more. This was not the first time she would be doing this to him, and it would probably not be the last either.
He turned away, curling deeper into himself.
He had learned that asking for anything only made them angrier.
They would also scold him while calling him a mistake, his father would blame his mother for not aborting him while his mother would blame his father by saying he inherited his uselessness from him.
So, he remained silent, listening to the static of the television and the distant laughter of happy families through the thin apartment walls. He always fell asleep trying to imagine being born in another family.
Everyone else except him was happy.
It was somehow different in school.
The classroom was warm, filled with the scent of chalk and freshly printed paper.
Ethan sat at his desk, his fingers gripping a dull pencil. His teacher, Mr. Calloway, paced the room, eyes scanning the students as they worked on their math problems.
For once, Ethan felt safe as the other kids did not discriminate against him due to his poor family.
Until the accusations started to come in.
"Ethan stole from my desk!" a voice rang out.
He looked up, eyes wide. It was Oliver, the boy who had shared his sandwich with him just yesterday.
Mr. Calloway's stern gaze landed on him. "Is that true, Ethan?"
"No! I didn't take anything!"
Oliver smirked, shaking his head. "I saw him. He took my lunch money."
"I did not take his money!" Ethan scream out, he knew it was probably a prank from Oliver or someone else's.
"Explain how it got into your backpack then"
Ethan felt his stomach drop, when the teacher searched his backpack and found the money. He had not taken the money but could not explain how the money got into his bag.
The teacher knew his parents would not give him money, and he only survived due to the state funding basic education for every kid.
As a responsible teacher, he had often reported Ethan's parent to the principal and they have invited them to school a lot of time with the cops in attendance, but his parent would resume their uncaring attitude after a week.
After repeated sessions, he had grown tired of both Ethan and his parents.
The classroom buzzed with murmurs. This was not the first time that lost or stolen items would be found in Ethan's bag or desk.
His teacher sighed, disappointment evident in his face. "Come with me, Ethan."
⃝⃝⃝
Ethan sat in a stiff wooden chair, staring at the peeling paint on the principal's office walls.
Mr. Calloway stood beside him, arms crossed, while Principal Reed—a heavyset man with graying hair—glared at him over his glasses.
"This is a serious accusation, Ethan," Principal Reed said. "Stealing from other students will not be tolerated."
"I didn't do it," Ethan mumbled, gripping the chair's edges.
The principal sighed, rubbing his temples. "Given your family situation, I want to believe you. But this isn't the first time someone has reported you behaving suspiciously."
Ethan nodded weakly as his heart pounded.
He knew what was coming.
Detention.
Probably a suspension.
A call to his parents, who wouldn't care anyway.
It was this period that Ethan discovered the emotion of hate.
Ethan barely scraped through his state-funded compulsory education. The day he graduated, his parents made their decision—they split up.
Neither of them took him in.
His father vanished without a word, and his mother packed up and left with her new boyfriend, abandoning him in their empty apartment.
He was just a nine-year-old boy who did not receive love from home.
He spent weeks scrounging for food, knocking on neighbors' doors, but no one wanted to take in the son of neglectful parents.
The state eventually found him and placed him in an orphanage.
The other kids in the orphanage were okay and were all getting adopted. When it was his turn to be adopted by a kind old couple. Their visits to him in the orphanage were like a light in the dark tunnel of his life.
But love, kindness—it all felt like a trap. The couple suddenly died in a car accident.
When the matron informed him about the situation.
This was the moment Ethan decided that the world hated him. After all, everyone involved with him was getting infected with his bad luck.
To his childish self, nothing could explain the series of bad luck except the world wanting him to suffer.
To prevent others from being hurt by his luck, he ran away the first chance he got, disappearing into the streets of New York.
At twelve, Ethan joined a gang of street kids. They taught him how to pickpocket, how to slip unseen through crowds, and how to survive by taking from those who had more than he ever would.
He believed he was fighting back against those that the world loved, and he gladly followed them.
By sixteen, he had graduated from stealing wallets to breaking into houses. One night, he found something that changed his life—a gun.
Having seen that people who had guns in the gang earned better money. He was grateful for his luck for the first time.
He decided on his first target and began to watch it.
That night.
The gas station's neon lights flickered, casting eerie glows on the rain-soaked pavement. Ethan, now sixteen, stood outside, hoodie pulled low over his face.
His heartbeat pounded against his ribs as he gripped the pistol in his pocket.
Inside, a lone cashier stacked gum packets.
Ethan swallowed hard, pushing through the door. The bell chimed, and the cashier looked up, uninterested.
"Give me the money."
The words felt foreign in his mouth, but his hand was steady as he pulled the gun. The cashier's eyes widened. "Shit, man, okay, okay."
Cash rustled as the register opened. Ethan could already imagine the warm meal this money would buy, the relief of not starving for one more night, or even having enough money to rent a room.
Then—
A siren wailed outside.
Panic clawed at his chest. Red and blue lights flashed through the windows. Footsteps pounded against the wet pavement.
"Drop the weapon!"
His fingers trembled. The gun clattered to the floor. Two officers swarmed in. Cold metal cuffs snapped around his wrists.
As he was shoved into the back of the police car, reality sank in.
He had tried to survive the only way he knew how, and now the world would make him suffer for it.
He was not at fault. It was the fault of the world for hating him first.
Ethan expected a trial, a fair sentence for armed robbery. But unluckily for him, corruption ran deep in the state system.
A week after his arrest, a grizzled officer entered his holding cell. The man's badge gleamed under the flickering light, but his eyes were cold.
"You've got two choices, kid," the officer said. "Take the fall for someone else, or rot in here for the rest of your life."
Ethan's throat went dry. "What?"
The officer smirked. "We got a big case—a real nasty bastard. But the higher-ups need someone to take the blame. You've got no one. No family, no friends. No one will miss you."
Ethan clenched his fists. It wasn't fair. But then, when had life ever been fair?
The trial was a farce. His state hired lawyer barely spoke. The judge looked bored.
And then the words fell like a hammer:
"Ethan Caldwell, you are hereby sentenced to death by hanging."