Atdonus High

Episode 15: The Boy That Fought

In The City

Some Years Ago

In The Slums

A woman lived in the worst part of the city, the slums. There, people lived in fear of the debt collectors and gangsters. She lived with her family there, trembling every night as she heard banging on her door. Everything was bad, nothing good ever happened. As a young child, she already dreamt of moving out of the slums, she hated it, she wanted to leave so badly. Even so, it was not easy to simply leave the slums. Her family was in debt, she herself was poorly educated. As a result, most people in the slums only had one option to leave, and that was to somehow marry someone outside the slums.

Believing it was the only way, she met with a man, she thought it was the way to go. When she got pregnant, she expected her entire life to change, she expected everything to be fixed. She would finally be safe, she would finally live like a normal person. She was pregnant with his child at the age of 19, that was how desperate she was.

Ever since she told him she was pregnant, he changed. He used to act lovingly towards her, acted and said he would marry her. He promised to rescue her from the slums, to finally protect her. That day, when she told him she was pregnant, was the last day she ever saw him. Still in the slums, she gave birth with much difficulty and pain. She was lifeless, she had lost her reason to live. Living in the slums was worse than death, it was a living hell.

Despite all that, one look at her newborn child her mother held. Her mother had helped with the birth of the child, showing it to her. One look, the boy so young his eyes barely open. He sucked on his thumb, his eyes opened to stare at her with big, innocent eyes. She reached out and held the boy in her arms, rocking him softly. The boy giggled and tried reaching out to her, tugging and tried chewing her hair that dangled down to him. She smiled and laughed softly, her eyes tearing up as she looked at him.

Nothing else mattered to her anymore, only her child. Leaving the slums was unnecessary as long as her child was happy. It was alright if her child could leave, it would have been alright even if they were separated. It was better that way, if another family had adopted him, he would not have to grow up in such situations. Without a father, in the slums, constantly in fear with a useless mother. She did not want her child to go through what she had gone through. Tears in her eyes, she tried to give him away, but could not bear to do so.

Cursing her own cowardice, she promised to raise her child the best that she could. She would find work, she would feed her child, she would educate him the best she could. However, for a young, uneducated woman, finding proper work was hard, the best she could do was be a cleaner and wipe tables. Even so, she took the job, walking an hour a day twice, to her workplace and back. She wanted to do anything she could.

Still in the slums, like the others, she hid in her home at night, hugging her child. The gangsters banged on the door as she rocked her child in her hands. She whispered to him, “Everything will be alright... Mama’s here to protect you...”

The woman’s father died of illness when the child was four years of age. Unable to afford a proper funeral, they did what they could for him. The child watched, only at the age of four, he was rather smart. Perhaps, if he had been born under different circumstances, he would have been a prodigy among prodigies. Instead, he watched his mother and grandmother weep as they sent off his grandfather. He listened to what they said, he was able to understand what they said. As he grew up, he walked along the slums with either his mother or his grandmother, picking up what people said, what they did, he learnt to cycle by watching, he learnt to run by watching, he learnt to build by watching.

From the age of five, he started getting into fights with the other kids. It was normal in the slums, everyone there was an enemy, no one there was your friend, ever. The boy had heard an insult directed at him, but he ignored it. However, when someone insulted his mother, he started a fight with them. Some of them were much older kids, and with his underdeveloped body, he was no match. He watched as they fought, he found out what he needed to do, he adapted, he won the next time.

The first time his mother came home from work and saw him injured, she rushed to him and asked, “What happened?”

He shook his head, refusing to talk. His mother shook her head, saying, “Please, don’t get into anymore fights. It’s bad for you, okay?”

He did not nod nor shake his head, he only stared at his mother, wondering why she said what she did. Fights were the norm in the slums, that was how the gangsters got most of their entertainment. The boy was special, he was a genius. His brain worked hard, his body adapted fast. The more he fought, the more he punched harder, his punch got faster, his punch hit where it hurt the most. At some point, he got a reputation for beating up the older kids that insulted his mother.

Over the years, he grew up nicely, he was taller than others his age at seven, he was like a freak of nature. That age was also when his mother gave him a present for the first time, finally being able to save up enough. He held the book in his hand, wondering why his mother had bothered to spend money on such a thing. Regardless, he read it, a picture book. It was about a boy that did not speak his entire life because he did not need to, eventually finding out his voice did not work.

That day, he realised he had never spoken at all as far as she could remember. His mother, unaware of what exactly she had gotten him, did not realise what she did to her child. He tried to say something, like the other kids do, no sound came out. He scratched his head, how was he supposed to talk? He opened his mouth, like other people, but no sound came out. Was there something he was doing wrong?

For the next few days, he tried to figure out how he was supposed to talk, but failed. As smart as he was, he could not pick up what others found natural. His grandmother tried helping him, telling him where and what was supposed to happen, but it was useless, he could not feel what his grandmother called his ‘diaphragm’ or his ‘vocal chord’. He was just like the boy in the story, growing up, he never spoke, at the age of seven, he was completely unable to speak a single word. What should have been a natural instinct for him was something he could not do.

Feeling down, his mother had to talk to him. “Don’t be like that. You don’t need to talk to be a good kid.”

He scratched his head. ‘Good’ ‘Bad’, what exactly were those words? He thought, what were they supposed to mean, how did they come about? To him, the kids he fought were ‘bad’ while he was ‘good’. But from the parents of the kids, their child was ‘good’, he was ‘bad’. He started hating those concepts, concepts created by society.

Good people get better things while bad people got worse things. How was that fair? Something humans created and force onto those who do something majority do not like. It created segregation, conflict between humans. As a result of the conflict, the winner of good while the loser is bad, because the winner created the new rules of society. As a result, places like the slums exist, a place full of people in the wrong, people who were not accepted into society, because they did something, society cast them out, disowned them.

He was a smart child, he had gotten an inkling of the ideology he would develop and live by. To him, nothing was right or wrong, the things he did would be out of self-interest, nothing else. He continued his life that way, fighting, getting stronger and stronger to the point where the other kids started to get scared of him. Rumours about him spread and eventually reached the ears of the gangsters.

One day, in broad daylight, they surrounded his mother, bearing weapons and threats. The boy was nearby, watching and thinking furiously. He was trying to come up with a plan, but he abandoned everything when he saw his mother get slapped, the gangsters laughing. One of them slung their arms over his mother’s shoulders. He ran, as fast as he could, he tackled the guy who touched his mother, bring him to the ground before he pummelled his in the face. The rest did not move, mostly out of surprise that a child would openly attack them. When the gangster stopped moving, the boy’s hand was dripping with blood.

One of the other gangsters slammed a wooden plank into him, shattering on impact. He looked back, his head bleeding, his eyes wide as he felt the pain. He could not scream, he could only silently run at the guy that attacked him. He punched and kicked, punched again and again, not going down no matter how many times he got hit. When he brought down a few, he was already lightheaded, barely able to stand. The nearby residents of the slums watched, they called more people over. Soon enough, the gangsters found themselves surrounded by them, all of them with a grudge against the gangsters. They had been going on scaring them, the only thing their fight with the boy showed was that they were not as strong as they presented themselves to be. The boy and his mother left while the residents of the slums beat the gangsters into the ground, taking everything they could off them before throwing them aside.

The boy woke up heavily bandaged but otherwise alright. He bled quite a bit, but no fatal injuries otherwise. His mother treated him, patching him up nicely, making sure he would heal properly. His mother berated him, “How could you fight them by yourself?”

He gave her an apologetic look. His mother sighed and hugged him close, hurting him slightly. “Thank you for saving me, but next time, you should think about your own safety too.”

He nodded silently.

At the age of seven, he was known throughout the slums as the leader of the gangsters. No one would go against him, he had all the power in the area. He did not like it, he hated that everyone only started liking him because he hurt people, but he was glad no one would hurt his mother anymore. For that, he was grateful.

At the age of eight, his mother talked to him about something.

“I’m thinking of getting married to a colleague of mine. We can go to the city, you can learn there, we can have a normal life...” His mother told him. “What do you say? Grandma can come with us too.”

His mother had caught the fancy of the manager of the establishment. The man was around the same age as her, taking his time to learn more about her. He was completely smitten with her, not for her looks, but for her persevering personality. He admired that she went through so much to give her child a chance in life. He learnt about life in the slums and pitied her living conditions, along with the daily two hour walking time to get to work. He offered her a chance, he asked if she would marry him. He offered proper shelter, food and education for her entire family. He promised to be loyal, he promised to never seek another woman other than her. She was hesitant, remembering what a certain someone had said previously before running away. However, it was not as if she hated the manager, in fact, she quite enjoyed his company, she did not hate him, not in the slightest. She agreed under the condition that her child had a say in it.

The boy, who saw that there was nothing to lose, agreed to his mother’s request.

In the next week, they moved to a new house with the man, everything went well, his mother was on her path to getting married. He had never seen his mother that happy when not around him. The man made his mother happy, so the boy quite liked him. In their first meeting, the man had asked, “May I know your name?”

The man’s eyes showed no sign of aggression or hidden intent. He was an honest man, genuine about what he needed to do, what he wanted to do.

“His name is Azel.” His mother helped him answer.

His mother explained the circumstances on why Azel could not speak, he was mute, unable to utter a single noise. He just sat there, ready for the man’s gaze of curiosity to turn into one of disgust or even hate. However, that did not happen, instead, he noticed something. The man showed sympathy, he understood Azel and treated him with kindness and understanding for his condition. If he had any doubt of the man’s goodwill, it all vanished. At the age of eight, Azel attended his mother’s wedding, making his name Azel Dominico. He watched, he was a smart guy, but he could not figure out what was felt between the two of them, what love was exactly.

From then, he was to attend school now that his family could afford it. His new father tried his hardest to find a school that would accept an uneducated, mute kid with a record for violence. Unable to find a suitable school, his father tried to homeschool him. It worked well, Azel absorbing all the knowledge, learning from the books he read.

At the age of fourteen, he could be considered smarter than most kids his age. He did not need school, but he needed a degree to get a proper job in the future. That was when his father talked to him about a school.

“It’s a new school established in the city. It isn’t too far by car and they have dorms. I hear the school fees aren’t too expensive, but it’s a unique place.” His father said.

“How did you find that school?” His mother asked.

“Well, I didn’t...” His father explained. “I got a letter in the mail box inviting on Azel over to study there.”

“That’s good! Azel can finally receive proper education.” His mother cheered.

Azel was unsure, he did not need the education, he was smart enough, but he needed the qualification to do anything In the future, so he agreed to go to the highschool.

On his opening ceremony, his parents waved him on, encouraging him to go for it. He liked his new life, it was much better than the slums. However, he had retained a few things from the slums, most notably, he still did not have his voice. He was tall and possessed quite the strength, earning him a reputation early in as the class ‘bad guy’.

He ignored the rumours, he disliked socialising, communication and the likes. He disliked it not because he was unable to speak, but because it was troublesome for him to give a reply. Thus was Azel Dominico.

Present day, after Azel got into the car.

His father and mother both had a cheeky smile on their faces. Azel could guess where the conversation was about to go. He wanted to avoid it, but was too late.

“Who was that girl just now?” His father asked. “Was it your girlfriend?”

“She was so cute!” His mother exclaimed. “What’s your relationship? Your father and I don’t mind if you marry early as long as you truly dedicate yourself to her.”

Azel smiled and shook his head. Both of his parents sighed audibly. His father, while driving, told him, “Listen here son, when you find a girl you are remotely interested in, You have to go for it, that’s how I got your mother.”

His mother smacked his father playfully before saying, “Anyways, how was your time at the school? Was it any fun?”

Azel looked out the window and thought about what he should do. He thought about his first year of highschool, it was so-so, nothing really happened. But in the second year, just a little more than a week earlier, Pandora had transferred into the school. Almost acting like the last piece of a puzzle, the school instantly sprung into action, in the short span of a week, the school had to close temporarily. He liked the time he spent with Pandora, there was no doubt that he would miss it, he wanted to meet with Pandora more. He like the school, he wished it never burnt down to begin with.

He nodded to his mother’s question.

From the slums to the city, how time has changed him to such an extent. He used to think school was useless, now he had fun.

He stared out the window and at the passing scenery, wondering, when was the next time he could meet with Pandora.