Monarch of Time

The sun slowly rose in the Guangdong province of China.

In a complex of abandoned apartments scheduled for demolition an alarm was ringing at 6:00 am in the morning.

The sound was coming from an almost broken down apartment, a door you couldn't close properly no matter how hard you pushed, with a chair behind it in a 45 degree angle acting as a lock for the door.

The apartment was medium sized, around 80 s.m. yet it was almost empty inside. A bed mattress was placed in the middle of the living room along with a small sized table with an alarm clock on it. On the side of the room were 10 big water bottles along with some packs of instant noodles.

A body could be seen moving wobbly under the blanket covering the mattress, reaching for the alarm clock on the table.

''Ugh'' the person groaned after he tapped the alarm clock once.

A malnourished body revealed itself underneath the blanket as it slowly rose from the bed.

A young man seemingly 16 or 17 years old rose from the mattress as he walked towards the bathroom. The water had been cut off since the apartment was abandoned so the young man couldn't even take a shower. He grabbed a half empty bottle of water from the table with the alarm clock on it, and used it along with his toothbrush to brush his teeth, and when he finished, he then gulped down the rest of the water from the bottle. Then, he grabbed his work clothes from the table and put them on as he left the apartment.

It was around a 20 minute walk from the apartment complex until he reached a huge construction site with numerous warning signs of: ''Danger'' and ''Work in progress''.

As soon as he walked towards an 8 story half-finished building, the young man heard a voice behind him shouting ''ay Rock''. 

''Good morning uncle'' said Rock as he looked at the 45-year old man who was catching up with a spring in his steps.

Of course Rock wasn't the boy's real name, but a nickname given to him by the people working in the construction site with him. An accurate depiction of his character as he didn't use to talk that much.

Rock didn't have a real name from his parents... or any parents to begin with. He was an orphan who had grown up in a shared house owned by the government for other orphaned children like him. The government used to send food to those houses once a week, but that wasn't nearly enough for the kids there to feed themselves. All of the nearby orphanages were full as well, which was why the government had created those houses in the first place, but a lot of the children still died due to hunger or illnesses with no adults to take care of them. Rock lived there until he was 12 too. He could still fight the other children for food, but even then it still wasn't enough to satiate his hunger, eventually forcing him to leave.

He attended junior high in a public school not far away from the house he lived in. It was school in the morning and construction work in the afternoon.

Most of the time, the supervisors at the construction sites didn't allow kids to work, considering it was illegal. However, due to the low wages offered and the high risk of the job, few people chose to work at those construction sites at the end of the day, and since lower manpower equaled slow production, the construction manager accepted even a kid like Rock with skinny arms and legs and allowed him to work there... for a pitiful amount of money as his wage of course!

Rock wasn't dissatisfied, considering he would finally have enough money to feed himself at least, even if said food mostly consisted of instant noodles!

This situation continued until Rock graduated high-school, but even after that, he never stopped working at those construction sites since that was his only source of income.

It would be a lie to say that he didn't feel the slightest bit aggrieved about this, of course. Even though working in these construction sites without any proper security measures, and all for a pretty penny, had already become normal to him, he still hoped deep inside that his luck would change one day and his life would take a turn for the better.

For the past half a year that Rock had been working in this specific construction site though, this ''uncle'' had taken care of him plenty of times, either by sharing his food or drinks with him, or by lending a hand during work hours.

Needless to say that Rock felt extremely thankful to the man and also helped him back whenever he could too. Although the technical aspects of the job were the ''uncle's'' specialties, Rock was more than eager to carry more building materials over every now and then and let the man catch his breath.

''Haa kid.. I knew you wouldn't bring breakfast with you again. How do you expect to get through the day with that scrawny body of yours, huh? You are lucky my wife gave me extra again today!'' As soon as he finished his sentence, the man grabbed a plastic bag he had brought with him and took out 2 large water bottles along with 2 sandwiches and 4 rice balls. He then split them in 2 portions and handed one to Rock.

The man knew Rock wasn't one to accept charity, so he added in with what seemed to be a stern smile ''Hey kid, we have to eat up before we start working, and you need to take care of me too. This job isn't easy and an old man like me can't do it alone either! So, eat up.''

Rock still didn't respond, until the man let out a resigned sigh and added in: ''You can treat me to drinks again when you get your wage, okay kid? Let's eat! I don't want this to get cold!'' Then without even looking at Rock again, the man began wolfing down his portion of the food.

Rock didn't say anything but he also started to eat, keeping the man's gesture deep in his heart once more. This middle-aged man and his wife were the only people who had ever shown any form of kindness to him in the 20 years of his life, and Rock would never forget this!

After they finished their food, the 2 of them then started their daily work. However... little did they know that this would be the last day of Rock's life.