Chapter 2: Chapter 2- The Drug Of Dreams
Chapter 2- The Drug Of Dreams
*Tap* *Tap*
Akio's footsteps echoed in the rough terrain of the mines area. His face was as stoic as ever, devoid of all possible emotions a child his age should possess. In his small, rough hand was a big white rock that he was twisting and turning as if it was some kind of pastime for him.
In his pocket were a few copper coins, some were his hard-earned ones while the others were the ones he stole from the guard. Stealing from idiots like him was easy for Akio.
'It's going to rain?' He thought as he looked at the grim clouds accumulating in the middle of the sky. The clouds looked so dark and unpleasant to the eye that Akio could swear it could rain down black scum for all he cared.
The reason for these weird clouds is located not that far away from him. Looking with his dark black eyes at a particular part of the huge walls that enclosed the inner city, he saw a huge metal object stuck to the wall of the city that was oozing out black mist and smoke. Its loud sound as it worked endlessly was so annoying that one would want to stab their ears with a knife after listening to it for days and days non-stop.
That was the 'Air purifier' as the inner city folks called it. As for the slum inhabitants, they called it the 'Black Lung'. The name was derived from the sheer black smoke that machine generated and breathed out into the slums.
The Black Lung's main job is to get all the air inside the inner city, extract all the polluted, and unhealthy particles from it, and then release it back inside the inner city while exhaling the black smoke outside into the slums.
This caused huge problems for the people inhabiting this section of the city as not only is harmful to their lungs and their health, but it also caused the continuous dim weather of the slums. Even the rain that falls down from these toxic clouds is undrinkable as it's as poisonous as water could get.
Akio had already grown accustomed to the musty smell of the slums and the dirty air around them. He had imagined breathing better air before but he had no way of knowing what fresh air feels like so he didn't really concern himself much with that idea.
'I think I know who would buy this.' He reckoned as he quickened his footsteps with his ore in his hand, walking toward his next destination.
After a few minutes, he ended up in front of an old, run-down building. Its walls are made out of second-hand cement and natural rocks that were gathered from the outside. A charcoal-black substance covered every corner of the shop that looked like the residue of burning coal and the burns of the ever-flickering fire. It was one of the few rock-built places in all of the slums and for a good reason.
'Tin's Smithy' was the hand-written sign on the front door. This place was the one and only smithy in the slums. Old man Tin who is the owner of this place is a poor blacksmith that makes extremely cheap weapons and armor made out of animal leather. The only people that buy his cheap things are those who go out of the slums to hunt wild animals. Even though most of them would end up dying or crippled, these items are like a form of moral support rather than actual safety measures. Humans would feel safer with armor on them and a weapon in their hands rather than nothing, after all.
*BAM* *BAM*
When he walked further inside, he heard the sound of a hammer smashing a piece of steel somewhere in the backroom. The smell of melted iron and the suffocatingly small amount of oxygen inside this furnace-like place were the distinct features of a smithy.
"Are you here, old man Tin?" Akio said in a flat tone.
"Ah! Who the hell are you?!" From inside, an old, husky voice responded with a clearly annoyed tone.
"I want to sell some Olgase," Akio replied without caring about the bad customer service of the old man.
"Sell what?!"
The moment the man heard the last word, he sprung up to his feet and basically dashed out of the room as if all the back pain he accumulated in the last 40 years of working in his smithy was gone.
"Oh? Akio… What the hell are you doing here, brat?" The old man said.
Tin was one of the few people that Akio was acquainted with as he never really tried to exploit him or beat him up before taking all his money. Akio didn't know whether Tin was a good person or not but at this point, any person who doesn't try to harm or take anything from Akio is considered a not-bad person for him.
People there live with one single rule 'Either survive or die trying to survive, no rules or restraints'. They would exploit anything to be able to secure some food, clothes, a roof over their head, and anything that could save them from imminent death.
Even Akio himself was not any different from the masses. He had lived on stealing from others and tricking idiots into their precious copper coins. Life was cruel and unforgiving and to be able to survive, he has no choice but to be equally cruel.
"Yes, I have this big Olgase I found." He threw the ore to the old man Tin.
The latter grabbed it skillfully before he examined the ore with his weak eyesight.
"Damn, brat! Where did you get this little diamond?! More important than that, how did you even smuggle it from under those greedy scums' eyes?" Tin asked.
"..." Akio merely shrugged his shoulders and didn't say anything.
"You little… You played your tricks on them, didn't you?"
"..."
"Hahahahha! Be careful, you might end up returning home with a few broken bones tomorrow." Tin chuckled while throwing the Olgase in the air. Then, he turned serious again as if nothing happened.
"How much do you want for it?"
"10 Copper coins."
"10 Copper coins, god have mercy! Do you want me to go bankrupt?!"
Rubbing his long, dirty beard, the man said.
"4 Copper coins."
"8 Copper coins."
"6 and I won't increase it more than that." He said.
Akio didn't take long before he nodded his head too. He was aiming for that number anyway since that's the real price for Olgase inside the mines. A good deal is a good deal even if he has been getting ripped off by the guards. As long as he could get some food to fill his empty stomach with, he wasn't going to complain.
After getting the copper coins, he walked out of the smithy. However, before he could walk far away, Tin called him.
"Akio! Wait a second." He said before he quickly walked inside for a moment under Akio's confused gaze.
After what seemed to be a few minutes, Tin came back with a piece of cloth in his hand and then gave it to Akio.
"Here, this is something I created from whatever leather I had left. It's too small for any hunter to buy so you take it."
Examining the clothes, Akio could only admire them. The thick skin these clothes were made of was quite good and enough to protect his torso and thighs from the cold. It was also quite flexible so he can use it on a daily bases without fearing getting restricted during his job.
"It's basically worthless to me, so take it and make good use of it," Tin said as he rubbed his messy hair and turned around to leave.
Akio, who was still standing in his place, flashed the old man a small gaze before he turned around and started walking. From what Akio saw, the old man Tin was 100% lying to him.
First of all, Akio was aware of how hard it was to get animal skin these days because of the cold weather and the constant rainy days so he was sure that old man Tin didn't have that much animal skin at the moment.
The second and most important reason is what the old man was wearing at the moment, his clothes were in an extremely ragged shape, as bad as Akio's clothes even. The number of holes in his clothes was enough to make it look like swiss cheese. He could've easily made use of those leather pieces to fix his tattered clothes.
'Weird man.' Akio thought.
He still didn't get why Tin was treating him like this. Most people in the slums will either ignore him or try to harm him, with no third option. So, the fact that one of these people would treat him with apparent kindness made the young boy confused.
'Does he have something he wants from me?' He could only wonder.
The idea of kindness was foreign to Akio so if people were to try and act nice toward him, he would only think they were trying to rob him.
As he was engrossed in such thoughts, his footsteps carried him to a small, old house on the outskirts of the slums.
The house was made out of cheap tin and some old wood cut down from some tree in the forest nearby. The house is extremely narrow, barely 100 square feet in size. The inside of it was smelly, dirty, and messy. Even pigs would most likely never live in such a run-down shithole of a house. But, for Akio, this place was where he can hide from the coldness of the world. Even though it was still freezing inside, it was better than the outside where he could die if he stayed for too long.
Pushing the broken door, the sound of screeching echoed throughout the whole place.
Then, he walked inside with oddly quiet footsteps. Passing in the narrow hallway, his eyes caught the silhouette of a man, sitting in the corner of a small room with his back against the wall. His swollen eyelids were closed and his pale white face looked so contorted from deep pain as his eyebrows twitched from time to time.
That man was Akio's biological father, the man he lived with currently. He was also one of the main reasons why Akio is working in the Olgase mines instead of doing something else.
Akio's eyes flashed with a hint of weird emotions before he looked away and continued walking.
'He isn't going to wake up from the Misty Holem any time soon.' He thought to himself.
Misty Holem or as many call it 'The Drug of Dreams' is a type of pill created by an unknown alchemist a long time ago. Its sole purpose is to recreate Holem, the land of Dreams and Nightmares, in a form unworthy humans can see. Since the real Realm of Nightmares is only for those who were chosen by it, people who can't enter it found solace in this drug, to feel, even if only for a moment, the sensation of living in that world.
Holem was indeed the land everyone desired to enter yet few were the lucky ones to do that. It's where all the fear and nightmares of humans manifest. A place, uncharted and untouched by human hands, dangerous and unknown yet still filled with things that many would drool over to no end.
Riches, power, unknown legacies, gods' inheritances, temples, miraculous elixirs for eternal life or potions that give endless knowledge, and countless other things that would make any sane human deteriorate into a greedy mess just to touch one of these things. As someone said 'Fear and Desire are two faces of the same coin'. Even if that fear means eternal pain, humans would still suffer through it with that measly hope of their desires being satisfied.
His father was one of those degenerated minds that followed that belief, even if it was merely a fake world and a fake dream that will cause more harm than good, they still got addicted to the feeling of hope being close, within the reach of their hands yet they ultimately never touch it.
In the end, those who get addicted to the Drug of Dreams will only slowly kill their brain cells and end up dying a painful, slow death.
'Is he going to die today?' Akio could only wonder as he sat down in the small corner of the house, his hand over his head, to protect himself from the droplets of water that keep pouring down on his head.
His fingertips were blue because of the cold but with the help of the clothes he got from old man Tin, he was at least not shivering violently.
He was waiting for the night to come so that he can finally leave the house to get the food distributed at the time. The only time of the day that he can get food in is the night.
*Grumble*
Coincidentally, as his stomach grumbled, lightning struck the sky, illuminating the dark house for a split second in a blinding flash.
'A storm?' The boy wondered.
A moment later, the sound of wood screeching echoed in his ear. His eyes flashed with a glint of fear before he instinctively cowered to the corner and pretended to be asleep. A second later, a man walked out of another room, his steps were wobbly and his face was struck with sweat and as pale as a sheet of paper. His eyes were puffy and red as if he didn't sleep in days.
Looking around, the man found Akio's petite silhouette.
"Oi, wake up…" The man said as he helped his way toward Akio with noticeable difficulty.
The boy, on the other hand, didn't move and kept pretending he was asleep. He was sure that if he answered now, he was going to regret it.
"I'm talking to you…" The man repeated his call with a more aggressive tone than before.
*Step* *Step* *Step*
Reaching the boy, he looked down and then without any hesitation, kicked him violently.
"Wake the fuck up!"
"Ugh!"
Being so close to the wall, Akio wasn't launched flying in the air before landing on the ground. Instead, his body was squashed against the wall, knocking the breath out of his lungs.
*Cough* *Cough* *Cough*
Spitting out a bunch of saliva along with his coughs, he looked up with rather cold yet also fearful eyes. The eyes that could only show one single emotion… Hate.
"Hah? So you were awake." The man said as he rubbed his dirty, black hair crudely.
"What did you get?"
"..."
"What the fuck did you get?!"
"Nothing…"
"Nothing? I see…"
Suddenly, out of nowhere, he shoved his hand into Akio's small pocket and pulled out the few copper coins he had.
"15 Copper Coins?! Hahahahaha! Did you become rich when I was asleep?! This is a fucking fortune!" He giggled loudly reaching some high notes with his laughter that could make anyone close his ears.
Then, the man went on to try and kick him again but Akio jumped to the side at the last second. He wasn't going to let himself be kicked twice.
"You are dodging me, huh? You are going against your father's teachings?! You insolent waste!!"
Snapping out, the man ran toward Akio with heavy steps, his slim body barely keeping up with his sudden movement.
The moment he closed up on Akio, he reached with his hand to grab him. However, the latter jumped back again and tried to run out of the room before he gets caught.
"Why are you running, huh?! What's there to run from?! Your money is my money! Don't you want your father to live his dreams, huh?! Do you want to rob my happiness from me, don't you?"
Akio ignored all those yells and nonsensical words and continued dashing toward the exit of the door.
However, unlucky for him, the man somehow broke a piece of wood out of the ground and threw it at Akio, hitting him right in the back of the head.
"Agh!!" The boy felt his brain smashing against his skull violently as he fell down to the ground, bleeding from his head. His black hair was quickly coated with a crimson color that turned it into a deeper shade of black.
"This money is enough for 4 more pills! Hahaha! I'm truly lucky! The gods desire to see me in Holem, yet Holem itself doesn't, isn't that quite ironic?" The man kept mumbling with a crazed look on his face.
*Swish*
He grabbed Akio by the head and the back and lifted him up with great difficulty then, he made sure to make him look right into his eyes.
"You hate this life, don't you, Akio?" He asked.
"...L-Let me go…"
"I know how shitty it is. You can't play, you can't eat, you can't even do anything except for work. It's horrible. A shitty life befitting a bunch of shitty people. But… It's not my fault! I never intended for you to live such a life! I never did anything wrong! It's all their fault! I did nothing!!"
His voice was getting louder and louder as he kept shaking Akio. The boy was on the edge between falling unconscious and staying awake, his hazy eyes were trying to discern what was happening. All the words his father was saying were going through one ear and exiting from the other, never registering in his dazed mind.
Shaking him even more violently, the man's crazy expression dipped even more into the pond of insanity as if he lost whatever was keeping him linked with sanity all this time.
"It's all your fault! I have never done anything that could cause this misfortune I'm living. Fate did a huge mistake and robbed me of what is rightfully mine. Holem never chose me, Akio!!"
Then, with a broken yell, he slammed Akio on the ground and grabbed him by the throat with both hands, squeezing tightly as if he wanted to break Akio's throat. The latter tried to resist, to punch whatever he found in his range, to scratch his arms violently as he searched for breath. But, his weak constitution along with his already tired state and the concussion he sustained not a minute ago.
"Maybe Holem wants you as a sacrifice to finally allow me to enter it! Maybe this was what was meant to happen all along."
Strangling Akio even harder, he was ready to finish him off. But, at that split second before Akio's life was going to get lifted, something happened.
*BOOOOOM*
The wall next to them burst like a balloon sending everything into a frenzy.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone