LONE: The Journey Beyond

>> Volume 1: The Awakening.

>> Arc 1: The Abandoned.

Begins!

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"Huff... Huff... Huff..."

The air was filled with the sound of labored breathing.

A man, no, more like a teenager, maybe eighteen or nineteen, was lying next to a rock to support himself, trying to calm himself and regulate his strained breathing.

He looked as if he had woken up from a nightmare. Well, on another point, the last few months have been a nightmare for him anyway...

"Thank you." Glancing over at the man in front of him, he said.

The man in front of him was dressed in grayish-white clothes. He had a full beard around his face; his eyes were like sapphires, and his eyebrows were like two swords.

He gave the teenager a playful look and said, "No worries, kiddo."

The man gazed at the kid, but to the teenager, it felt as if his entire existence had been flipped open in front of this unknown man.

His instincts told him that the man in front of him had completely seen through him. His past, his actions, and their consequences...

The man kept on staring at him and continued, "Amusing kid. It's really amusing to see someone like you. It's even more fascinating to see your response."

The boy looked at the man and said a bit sarcastically, "Nowadays, nothing seems to be impossible to me anymore, so well, I don't really get shocked... And it's not really amusing."

"Sarcasm, kiddo, huh... I guess after all this that you have gone through, it does sound plausible."

After hearing the man's words, the boy started to think back... On his lone journey... The journey, which was just a few years long but destroyed his very being—the journey that forced him to question whether he was a human any more...

He stared blankly into the air as tears started rolling out of his dead eyes.

The man peered at the boy in silence.

Having personally researched the boy's journey, the man could relate to the child's current struggles.

"It is fine, kid. For every debt there shall be a debtor, and for every misfortune there shall always be a fortune."

The boy wiped the tears coming out of his dead eyes and answered hoarsely, "Debt and debtor, huh... I wonder what kind of debt I had to pay that made me this miserable."

"Sigh... If you want, I can listen."

Silence...

The man and the boy silently stared at each other.

After seemingly an eternity passed, the boy spoke: "It may sound like a few years in time, but it's a long one... Are you sure?"

"I have all the time in the world."

Sigh!

This time it was the boy who sighed and stated, "We don't even know each other, old man, and I don't seem to have any connections with you as this is the first time we have met in the first place."

"Well, as I said, for every misfortune there shall be a fortune, so you can consider me your fortune. Also, there is no time like the present to know each other." The man chuckled and continued.

"My name is Hayate Azurmane, but I am famous as 'The Heart Slayer'. What is your name, boy?"

The boy knew that the man knew his name, yet he answered, "My name... Greh... Reven Greh.

The meaning of Reven is to return debts and to bring despair to my enemies, though currently it's me who is in despair, while Greh represents the nature of living, which is not black or white but rather grey, and at the same time it also means planets."

The boy then looked at the old man seriously and continued with conviction, "And I will soon be famous as 'Void' throughout all of existence."

The man grinned and replied, "I shall remember it then... Now, let's start with your story, or is it better to say your journey, shall we?"

HAAH!

The boy looked at the man and took a deep breath as he spoke. "I wonder when it started... Was it when we began our mission, or was it after that incident? No, it all started that day, or, should I say, that night... The night known to all of us as 'THE LUNAR DOOM'...

-----

15 years ago.

Planet Earth, Year 2119.

Twachak!!

A figure fell down as a bat hit him straight in the face. Blood started to seep out of his ears as he lost consciousness.

In the alleyways of Eden, the new Indian Sub-Continental (ISC) Union, three figures aged around 3 to 5 years could be seen with iron rods in their hands.

There was a look of dread in their eyes as they observed the boy in front of them, who was holding a bat dyed red in one of his hands and a half eaten burger in the other.

They didn't care about the boy who fell down; rather, they looked at the boy and yelled, "You motherfu*ker, give us the burger."

The boy looked at them unamusingly and replied, "This is my loot... You guys never shared your loot, so you should forget about it." As he continued to eat the rest of the burger.

"Fu*ker, I want to kill you right now."

"Go ahead and try... I wonder who will die first."

"Stop it, guys. He has already eaten it. There is no point in fighting now." One of the three boys commented.

The other boy checked on the kid who fell down.

"Alaksh, wake up already." He said this before giving the boy a tight slap.

The boy started to regain consciousness and demanded water.

"Here." Another boy presented.

Slowly, he got up and cleaned the blood seeping out of his nose and ears as he shouted, "Today was your lucky day... But beware, I will fu*king kill you someday."

"Boss is the best." The guy in the middle of the three kids commented.

"Let's get out of here, boys." The boy named Alaksh, seemingly the boss of the three, ordered.

The three goons walked back, leaving the place, while Alaksh looked back at the boy and said with contempt, "Count your days. Reven, I will definitely kill you soon."

After that, he left too.

The 3-year-old Reven was finally left alone.

Fuuuuu...

His nerves calmed down as he took a deep breath.

Reven was an orphan. He had no idea who his parents were or why they even birthed him, only to leave him in this cruel world alone.

After the Fourth World War, living a good life was a joke to people like him. The world now ran on completely different terms; democracy had turned into a farce.

Kids his age can only live a seemingly reasonable life if they are the children of rich people, government employees, or army personnel.

He's already come to terms with his circumstances and made do with them.

His heart was colder than ice, and his mind was as calculating and ruthless as that of a politician, even at the tender age of 3.

He just wanted a bit more hope in the world. What more could a three-year-old boy want anyway?

He walked towards the nearby bin to find a place to sleep for a bit. He checked the place once and then dozed off.

He hugged the bat, as he knew this was his lifesaver in times of danger.

.....

Author's Note:

>> This arc will progress a little slower so that I can flush out the characters, but do not worry as the story will soon take pace. The arc will take around 5–6 chapters.

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