They had left him, but he couldn't blame them.
Not really.
The truth was that the world had cast him off long before they ever did.
In the end, they were nothing more than children.
Too small to shoulder the burden of one already so broken.
∞
He didn't know how long he had lain there, the concrete digging into his flesh. Seconds. Minutes. Hours, maybe. He had kind of lost track after the second boot slammed into his ribs.
Above, the sky had taken on a crimson tinge, or perhaps that was just the blood seeping from his head and into his eyes, clouding his vision.
Is this… pity?
The soft, indifferent pitter-patter of rain had come quietly, falling steadily once the fists had done their work. Its uneven rhythm asked nothing, promised nothing. Yet it carried a strange mercy, numbing his pain as though the world, despite itself, offered him a momentary gesture of sympathy.
He tried to move his fingers, as though to prove there was still something left in him that could fight, something that was still alive. But nothing happened.
Through the wet rattle of his breath, he heard a scream. A voice he knew. But the terror in it, the sorrow, the pain, that was foreign. As though it had been torn from a stranger's throat.
Then another sound, faint. Footsteps, pulling away. One set. Maybe two. Running. Not to help. To leave.
And after that? Silence.
It was not peaceful. It was isolating and filled with the memory of voices that should have stayed, promises forever broken.
That silence was worse than the pain.
Blood foamed at the corner of his lips, its warmth streaking down his jawline, but inside he felt a cold emptiness. A hollowness where his friends should have been.
Friends…
Could he even call them that?
Bitter tears blurred his vision as his body refused him.
No. Not yet. He was not dead yet. He could not surrender.
He had made a promise... one he couldn't break.
Pain suddenly lanced through his side, sharp and invasive, as something prodded him. His nerves screamed, but his limbs still refused to move. Then hands, hard and calloused, lifted him. Too decisive to be a rescuer. Too rough to be a friend. The touch was not one of comfort, but one of ownership.
A voice followed. Low and eager, speaking not to him but to itself.
"Despite his condition, he has a better foundation than the last batch I received. Perhaps I am paying too much. Curious. Curious indeed…"
He caught a flicker, just a brief glimpse, but it was enough to make his skin crawl. A pair of eyes. Bloodshot and unnaturally wide, as if they hadn't blinked in weeks, stared back at him.
A smile. Too wide, unnatural, stretched beyond what a face should allow. Too many teeth, yellowed and sharp, glistened faintly in the dim light. It was a smile he knew all too well, one that he had seen before, one he had tried to forget.
His pulse quickened, thudding painfully in his chest. His breath sputtered, raspy and shallow, as his mind recoiled. It stumbled backwards, scrambling into the dark corners of his subconscious, desperately trying to find a memory that hadn't been tainted by pain.