The night has a way of pulling me in—closing in on me, until I feel the suffocating weight of its silence. It's almost comforting, this void. No questions, no expectations. Just the hum of my thoughts, flickering like the broken streetlights that used to illuminate this city's heart.
I lean against the cracked brick of the building, my back pressed to the cool surface. The world below is a nightmare, but up here, I can breathe. It's been six months since everything collapsed. Six months since the virus, since everything changed. The decay of the city doesn't seem to bother me anymore. I've grown used to the stench of death, the whispers of the infected clawing at the edges of my thoughts.
But sometimes, in the quiet, I find myself sinking into memories. The shadows stretch and flicker, bringing the faces of those I once knew. Faces I haven't seen in years. I close my eyes, and the memories come flooding back. They don't fade easily. They never did.
I remember the orphanage. I was just a kid, no older than eight, too small to understand the cruelty of the world but old enough to feel its sting. The building was cold, and the walls felt like they were made of stone. It wasn't a place meant to nurture children. It was a cage, meant to house the broken, the forgotten.
I remember the other kids, the ones who had faces like mine—pale, hollow eyes that stared out at the world with no hope. They'd grown used to it. The beatings, the hunger, the way the adults barely looked at us, as if we weren't worth the effort of being seen. We were nothing but bodies to fill space, shadows that wouldn't matter when they were gone.
The memories come in flashes. I can still feel the dampness of the worn mattress I slept on, the itch of the threadbare blanket that never seemed to keep me warm. I can still taste the dry, tasteless food they served us, the kind that made my stomach twist in protest. But the worst part, the part that still haunts me, was the silence. The silence between meals, between beatings, between the moments where even the most desperate cries for attention seemed to fall on deaf ears.
My fingers graze the scar on my eye, a remnant of a time long gone but not forgotten. The foster home wasn't much better. In fact, it was worse.
I remember her, my foster mother. Her name was Cynthia, but I never called her that. I never could. I just called her "her"—as if naming her could somehow soften the way she made me feel. She never cared for me. She didn't care for any of us. We were tools—tools she used to make money. I was no different from the others, just another little slave to help her make ends meet.
I was used for one thing: to run errands. Her "business" wasn't about love or kindness. It was about drugs. We weren't allowed to question what was going on. I remember the smell of the room—stale, thick with smoke and chemicals. It was the air of corruption. A sickness that clung to everything.
Sometimes, when I closed my eyes, I could hear the sound of the packages being wrapped in plastic, the rustling of the money she stuffed into her pockets. It felt like I was suffocating under the weight of her existence. I was a pawn in her game, and there was no escape. She never asked me if I wanted to live there. I was just another mouth to feed.
And my foster father? He was no better. Lenny was his name, and I hated him with everything I had. He was the kind of man who thought he could push people around—who thought that power came from cruelty. He wasn't interested in the well-being of any child. He was only interested in one thing: control.
Lenny didn't take kindly to children who resisted. And I resisted. I remember the sound of his heavy boots stomping on the floor, the way his hands would grab me with that tight, unforgiving grip whenever he thought I wasn't doing enough. He'd beat us. Beat me. I remember the strikes landing on my skin, the way the pain would burn through me, leaving me breathless, almost wishing for it to stop.
But it never did.
I remember the day Raven was caught, the day everything changed. She was my friend, the only person who knew what it felt like to be trapped like that. We spent so many nights talking, sharing our dreams of escaping, of finding a place where we could finally be free. Raven was always so full of life, so full of defiance. She wasn't afraid to stand up to the monsters that haunted our lives.
But that day, everything fell apart.
She was caught by the police, peddling drugs—just like we all had to do. She was taken away, her tiny frame dragged out the door by officers, her eyes wide with terror, but also with the fury of someone who had been cornered. She screamed for me, but I couldn't help her. I couldn't save her.
They took her. They took all of them—her parents, Lenny, and Cynthia, the people who had shaped my life for so long. They were all hauled away in handcuffs, and for a moment, I thought maybe it would be over. I thought maybe I could finally breathe. But then I realized something. The world didn't care about us. The world never did. We were just disposable.
I remember the fear gripping my chest as the police entered the house. I was shaking, terrified that they would take me, too. But there was one thought that flashed through my mind—the same thought that had kept me alive through all of it. Run.
I ran that night. I didn't wait to see if they came for me. I didn't wait to say goodbye to Raven. I climbed through the window of our small apartment, my heart racing, my thoughts jumbled, but that single, desperate instinct guiding my every move.
The streets were dark and cold. The world was suddenly too big, too dangerous for a kid like me. But it didn't matter. I had nowhere else to go, nothing left. I had learned to survive by being invisible, by hiding in the cracks of a world that didn't care about the broken, the hungry, the unwanted.
I remember those early days, the nights I spent hiding under cardboard boxes, scavenging for food, begging for scraps. I remember the way people looked at me—like I was nothing. Nothing more than a shadow. But I learned how to use that. I learned how to disappear.
I glance down at my hands, flexing my fingers. They are still steady, still capable of destruction. I think about all the people I've killed, all the lives I've taken in my rise to power. I've become something I never thought I would—someone who has learned to thrive on pain, on fear, on the things that should have broken me.
But here I am. The Beggar King.
The irony isn't lost on me. From a child who had nothing, from a boy who was thrown away like trash, I've become the one who controls it all. The world that once cast me aside now trembles at my feet. They don't see me as I once was. They see only the monster I've become.
I don't feel guilt. Guilt is for the weak, for those who believe in redemption. But there's something else—something I've never been able to name. It's the emptiness that fills me, even now, as I sit in this broken city. I've become a king in a world of ruin, but I still can't escape the ghosts. The ghosts of the past—of Raven, of the children I left behind, of those who once held me down and made me feel small.
I close my eyes and let the memories flood over me. I can still hear the sound of Raven's laughter, the way she never gave up on me, even when the world seemed determined to break us both. I wonder where she is now, what happened to her. Was she one of the infected, lost to the chaos? Or did she find a way to survive, just as I did?
The thought lingers, but I push it aside. There is no room for weakness in this world. I've learned that lesson too well.
I take a deep breath, pushing the memories back into their corners. Tomorrow is another day. And there is always more to do. Always more power to claim. Always more people to bring to their knees.