? Where Honesty Means Nothing ?
At the shop window, sides of meat swung like pendulums, casting damp shadows. Inside, the butcher—a ruddy, broad man with a belly like a barrel—brought down his cleaver with a dreadful crack, sending chips of bone skittering across the blood-slick counter.
Alex stepped forward, his voice clear despite its gentleness. “Excuse me, sir. I was wondering if you might need help—cleaning, or lifting—”
The man did not look up. “You want to carry meat, boy?” he said gruffly.
Then came the cleaver again. A slab of pork split with a squelch.
“Then bring your own knives.”
Alex recoiled slightly. The man never raised his eyes.
Near a cart laden with soot-stained brushes, a wiry man with smoke in his hair and black beneath his nails tightened the straps of his tools. He looked like something forged in a hearth.
Alex tried to sound brave. “I can climb fast. Heights don’t scare me.”
The man looked him over, then barked a sharp laugh. “You’ll fall, choke, die. Or worse—get stuck.”
He leaned closer, his teeth yellowed and cracked.
“And I don’t dig boys out once they’re stuck.”
Alex turned away before the laughter could chase him further.
At the city’s edge, the docks were alive with motion. Crates crashed against wood, dockhands shouted and cursed like poets in labor.
Alex wove between them, raising his voice to be heard. “I can carry smaller loads—I don’t need much. Just a start.”
A pair of men laughed. One whistled. “This pretty boy wants to lift !” sneered the first.
“Watch your back,” said the second. “The rats here work harder than soft boys.”
They turned away. But an older man—grizzled, his hands calloused with salt—approached. “You look willing,” he said.
Alex straightened.
“But that’s not enough,” the man continued. “Not here.”
Then a quiet warning.
“Go home, lad. Before someone decides you’re easier to carry than the crates. Trust me.”
Alex gave no reply. He simply nodded and left.
And Dante watched every single honest, yet failed attempt from a distance, confirming his way was the only way.
The apartment was dim and bare. The city’s weight clung to Alex like smoke. His limbs were leaden, his stomach knotted. Hunger curled at his ribs.
Dante was already there, cross-legged on the floor, a loaf of bread in hand and a roasted potato balanced on his knee. He grinned without malice.
“Look who survived the first day.”
Without turning, he tossed an apple in Alex’s direction. Alex caught it reflexively, but did not bite.
“You bought this with the wallet from earlier?”
Dante did not look up.
“Yep.”
Alex hesitated—then tossed it back.
Dante raised an eyebrow, catching it midair with one hand, still chewing.
“Too proud to give up, shepherd?”
Alex turned away, dragging his weary body to the bed in the corner. He lay on his side, back turned, arms crossed.
Overwhelmed by the city, he just realized...
The apartment was silent now—too silent.
And it hit him slowly. Like dusk creeping into a room.
No mother calling him to wash up for dinner, pretending to be annoyed while already setting aside his favorite slice of bread.
No father waiting by the shed, tools in hand, pretending to frown when Alex beat him to the work, breathless with pride.
No familiar footsteps on creaking floorboards. No smell of soup. No small joys tucked into routine.
Just concrete. Just this bed. Just silence.
Maybe he’d been naive. Maybe the idea of doing this had sounded braver in his head than it felt now in his chest.
He pressed his forehead to the pillow.
Tomorrow might be better.
And if not tomorrow—then maybe the next day.
And if not then... well.
He had to believe it would be.
One day.
The apple sat untouched between them.
Dante chewed in silence, the sound of it filling the space where words might have softened the edge.
The city had awakened, but not for the boy.
Alex, alone, wandered alone through the narrow alleys and soot-streaked backroads, a threadbare figure swallowed by the crush of morning.
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His gait was slow, unsteady, as though each step pulled at some buried weight.
His clothes hung limp on his frame, loosened by hunger and wear.
In his hollowed face, the light of sleep and sustenance had long since burned away.
Around him, life roared. Street vendors shouted over one another, flinging prices into the air like stones. The scent of warm bread, of oil and frying meat, drifted temptingly on the breeze — but he turned his head from it, jaw clenched. His stomach growled in protest, but pride had long ago made its pact with silence.
Still he tried.
For three days.
He approached carts being unloaded, his hands outstretched in earnest offer. He asked to clean, to lift, to sweep — anything.
But none had use for him.
They dismissed him with a wave, a sneer, a half-laughed insult.
Too young, too slight, too soft-spoken. Too something.
Back home, people liked his manners.
Called him a good boy, said he’d go far.
But here in the city, every careful “sir,” every polite knock, got him ignored or turned away.
Like respect made him small.
In his village, kindness opened doors.
In the city, it closed them.
He missed the dirt roads where people smiled back. Missed being seen as decent — not weak.
And so, like a beggar knocking on locked doors, he wandered from one rejection to the next.
By the late morning, he stood in the shadow of a brick wall, his back pressed against its rough edge.
He slowly sat on the ground, slumped against the wall, legs extended.
The city roared past him, uncaring. His head hung low, his breath shallow, and his limbs, leaden with fatigue, refused to carry him any farther.
It was then he heard the footsteps.
“You’re going to pass out.”
Alex opened his eyes — slow, reluctant. Before him stood Dante, hands in his coat pockets, his usual smirk dulled by something closer to concern this time.
“I’ve been following you. No luck yet, huh ?Are you truly this stubborn?” Dante asked, his voice low.
Alex said nothing.
With a sigh, Dante reached into his coat and withdrew a small bread roll— coarse and plain, but warm from the vendor’s oven.
Alex did not move to catch it.
“It isn’t your fault,” Dante said, his tone unusually subdued. “It’s the world. This city. These so called adults. Mobsters, nobles, cowards—all of them. They build their marble halls on top of kids like us. Let us slip through the cracks, then pretend we never existed.”
He stared at the bread in his hand a moment, then added gently,
“You have to eat, Alex.”
There was a pause—long, brittle.
Alex finally spoke, though his voice was faint.
“So you gave up?”
Dante looked up, surprised.
“No. I adapted.”
But Alex’s eyes, dimmed by exhaustion, still burned with something … And Dante sees it.
Full of pride, full of determination, full of resolve.
“I’m not throwing away what my parents taught me,”
Dante studied him, brow furrowing.
“Even if it kills you?”
Alex doesn’t respond. For a long moment, Dante said nothing. He merely looked—at the sunken cheeks, the trembling hands, the cracked lips. And beneath it all… a boy clinging to dignity like a soldier to a flag in a losing war.
“You’re out of your damn mind,” he muttered at last, though there was no true anger in it—only a kind of reluctant awe.
Dante stepped forward, crouched, and placed the bread gently on the stone beside Alex.
“The boss wants you alive,” he said, straightening. “And I’ll catch hell if anything happens to you.”
Then, with one last glance, a flicker of pity, of frustration, of something almost like admiration, Dante turned and walked away.
Alex watched him go, the bread untouched at his side. The crowd surged and thinned, and still he remained slumped on the ground.
Few eyes glanced at him briefly... but they kept going.
Of course they did.
After all... who was he?
Not the first stray. Not the last either.
The city had seen hundreds of homeless boys. hundreds of beggars. hundreds of strays.
Alex... was just one of them. Didn't matter which.
The day had climbed toward noon, but the warmth in the air did little for the chill coiled deep inside him. His breath came shallow. His limbs sagged. His body had entered that slow, drifting rhythm of exhaustion. Three days without food. Three days without warmth. Three days without anyone looking him in the eyes, except the thief Dante and Dominick who still didn't come back and dropped him in the apartment like a bag of groceries.
His eyes slowly closed.
And then—
Sound faded.
Color faded.
Time loosened its grip.
And memory rushed in, dragging him backward.
3 years ago
Montivara Mountains
The sun hung high, casting long shadows across the hills that wrapped the little valley in terraces and vines. Crickets chattered. A hawk cried far above. And in the middle of a sloped vegetable plot, a boy stood still as stone.
He was barefoot and muddy, no more than ten, his arms rigid at his sides as he surveyed the wreckage before him— stalks bent, furrows crushed under careless feet, broken shoots scattered like bones.
His jaw set tightly. His eyes burned.
“…Those morons again,” he muttered.
The culprits were not far. Two boys — older, cockier — strolled along a dirt path, tossing stones and laughing too loudly for anyone truly innocent.
Alex approached, small and tense like a drawn wire.
“Well look,” said one, sneering, “the dirt boy’s come to cry.”
“Was it you again?” Alex asked.
“What’re you gonna do?” said the second. “Run to your mother?”
No, he didn't.
He sprang.
The first boy barely had time to scoff before Alex crashed into him—a low, driving tackle that tore both of them off balance and into the mud. They hit the ground hard, the air bursting from their lungs. Alex’s arms locked around him like iron, forcing him down with the stubborn strength of someone who had spent every morning lifting buckets and pulling weeds.
The second boy lunged to help, but Alex twisted, driving a heel into his shin, then shoved the first off and scrambled to his feet. His hair stuck to his forehead, his chest heaved, but he didn’t back away.
They circled, the older boys swinging wide and wild, but Alex was quicker—ducking, grappling, driving forward again. His blows weren’t trained; they came from the shoulders, from the gut—awkward, but full of weight and work-born power. He fought like he’d never learned to stop once he started.
When it ended, one of the boys bled from the nose, the other spat dust and threats as they limped away, their pride in tatters.
Alex stood panting in the silence they left behind.
Hours later, the sun had begun its long descent westward, and shadows cooled the ground.
Alex crept over a low fence, cradling a basket of eggs — taken, not given — from the boys’ farm. He moved quietly, ducking behind a row of barrels near the barn, his eyes darting.
But then—
“Alex.” Her voice stopped him cold.
Elena, his mother stood, apron stained, arms folded. She looked not angry — only tired, like someone who had come through the same argument too many times.
“Put them back,” she said.
“They started it,” Alex said quickly. “They broke the fence again. Trampled the sprouts—”
“And so you steal?” she asked softly. “That makes you better?”
“I just wanted them to pay.”
“And what happens when they do it again tomorrow? Do you steal again? Then again? And again? When does it end?”
He looked down. He had no answer.
She came to him slowly, knelt, and took the basket from his trembling hands.
He stared at her.
“So what?” he whispered. “I just let them walk all over us?”
“No,” she said. “You come to me and your father. And we’ll speak to their parents.”
“I did come to you,” he snapped. “Last time. And the time before. But Mr. Ramon—he just smiles. Says ‘boys will be boys.’ You think he cares?”
Elena sighed. Her face was calm, but her eyes were full of ache.
“Still,” she said, “you don’t take justice into your own hands. This is our farm, Alex. I’m the grown-up. I carry the burden. Not you.”
He said nothing, shoulders stiff.
Then, quietly.
“Don’t act like you’re all alone. Your father and I—we’re always here.”
Her hand rose, rough and warm, and cupped his cheek.
He leaned into it, silent now. His eyes closed against the weight of her touch— ashamed, weary, comforted.
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