Pain travels through families until soone is ready to feel it.
In Fork’s family, no one was ready to feel it.
Zane figured out why the man was non-chalant and not guilty of hurting Mickey.
It was normal.
"Do you an to say your father did the sa to you?" Zane asked.
Fork scoffed. "Where do you think I got the idea from?"
In place of Fork’s right eye was a white stone and now Zane figured why his eye was whiter than the other one. Not to ntion, the stone had a black spot in the center completely covering the fact that it wasn’t a real eye.
Zane hadn’t thought much about it at that ti but after Fork ntioned his father, things made sense.
"Your father stabbed your eye as well?"
Fork nodded. "When I was three years old or probably younger I don’t even rember. He wanted to beg better."
Is this ancestral?
Zane looked around.
"Yes." Fork spoke. "They have the sa story."
Zane said nothing and Fork called out:
"Walter, tell him about your mother."
The man with yellow teeth shrugged. He was the sa man who sold his daughter for 2 Silver Luns and whose wife died because he tried to make her pregnant the very next day in hopes of creating more prostitutes.
He looked at Zane and began:
"My mother used to wash the dirty dishes in a rich household. One day she found out that the owner of that house, whom she was also sleeping with, was also interested in children, boys and girls alike.
So the next day she also brought with her when I was six and I stayed with the owner for two years, not knowing what he was really doing with every night.
One night he used a sword as he wanted to hear my screams louder than usual but I lost consciousness one day due to blood loss. The owner was annoyed because of that so he threw and my mother out of his house and she abandoned after that for another owner. Thankfully, a priest found , called a Healer and sent here."
Walter stopped talking and resud his drink.
Zane wasn’t even finished registering that until Fork laughed and called another man.
"Ragar, your turn."
Another man stepped forward and Zane rembered him too.
He was the man who cut off the genitals of his newly born sons because he thought if their foreskin was in such demand then their genitals would be even more valuable. But he ended up killing both of them. And called himself an idiot as if he had only spilled a drink.
Ragar looked at Zane as well and said:
"My father used to play cards with his friends and one day, he lost all the money, his house, and everything he owned. But in hopes of earning everything back, he kept playing and ended up betting and my mother as well. He lost us too and when he had nothing, he finally stopped playing and went to sleep in the Ashen Slums leaving us with his friends.
I was seven at that ti so I wasn’t of any use to them but they had my mother. My father lost her ownership to his friends so inside our house, they fucked her one by one and sotis all at once, and they also made sit beside her and watch that. This kept on happening for a few days until she died and my father’s friends left alone."
Zane’s mouth barely opened.
He watched Ragar saying all that with normal expressions as if it didn’t an anything.
Hairs stood all over Zane’s body as this went deeper than he imagined.
He looked at Ragar and asked: "Didn’t you do anything?"
Ragar frowned as he scratched his cheek but then his eyes lit up. "Oh. I understand. No, I didn’t do it. She was dead. They told to do it but she was my mother so it was kind of weird to do it."
Zane’s brows shot up.
He tried to form words but it was of no use.
Fork laughed and Zane only paid attention to him.
"Your values an nothing here. Kindness, love, parental love, compassion, empathy, all things have drowned inside the ocean of survival. We are gutterborns, the mont we stop to feel anything that isn’t about money or survival, we will die. The world wants to rip us apart and yet, we keep hanging on even if it ans soone else dying before us or because of us."
Zane went silent.
Fork’s words were harsh but they were the words of people who lived in the gutter for centuries. Zane couldn’t just discard them as they ca from a place familiar to him as well.
He also prioritized his survival over anything. He bowed to Jaryun, he called himself a descendent of a thief. All his life, he survived. But he never let anyone die because of him. Except the old man he t in the city in the morning.
Also, hearing Fork, Zane rembered Xavier’s words as he also ridiculed his kindness.
The system had told him to set an example. He tried to use force and fear to do that.
But after Fork got to know the reason for his punishnt, all his fear had vanished that Zane planned on using.
He churned his mind with all his thoughts, ideas, stories and ntality of the people and after a few seconds, he reached a conclusion.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and opened them again.
The crowd watched him, including the children as Zane raised the hot stick again.
He brought it closer to Fork and the man shook his head with a scoff.
"You found as an easy target. Fine. Have your wish. Blind and watch nothing change. Even after living among us, you couldn’t understand us one bi—"
He stopped talking as the hot stick didn’t reach for his left eye and instead went to the tire around his body.
Zane placed it there and in no ti, the tire lted and Fork beca free.
The crowd groaned all at once as they wanted violence.
Fork stretched his body left and right and looked at Zane.
Zane threw his stick away and road his eyes around the crowd.
The crowd had already begun dissipating as so n already held the prostitutes, dragging them to their shacks.
"You will grow up soon, kid. You will learn to accept things." Fork said and proceeded to leave as well.
But...
THUP!
Fork stopped.
Not by his will.
Soone grabbed his hand.
Fork looked over and it was none other than Zane.
"Wha—"
"Everyone!"
Zane shouted.
People stopped.
They again paid attention to him and Zane wasted no ti.
"You should know about . I am not a leader. I am not a saint. I am not a Priest. I am not a teacher. I am nothing right now."
Zane made eye contact with each person as his voice gained volu.
"But today, after witnessing what I couldn’t even imagine, I, Zane Atlas, in the presence of you all, under the gleam sky of Dwarkam, around the stench of death and misery, swear on the poverty that eats your hearts, the pain that fills your stomachs, the tears that tenders your skin, I swear on the na of my parents’ blood that runs through my veins, that even if I t my demise in the process of completing my promise..."
Zane paused, his hands and legs trembled as with the fear of future and sheer determination of today, and looking right in the eyes of the people surrounding him, he declared in the loudest manner possible:
"I will change the fate of Gutterborns down to their very last drop of blood and to the very last piece of gold existing in the heart of Dwarkam!"
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