A frail-looking boy sat on a small old wooden bench, gazing into the depths of the Abyss. His dark hair covered his empty dark eyes and his thin, pale face. In his hand, he held a slice of bread, its surface dotted with pale green mold. Beside him, a clear plastic cup rested, filled with brown, muddy water, as if he had scooped it from a puddle in the park.
Even if it looked disgusting, this paltry meal was a feast to Aeron, and the best he had seen in weeks.
As a homeless orphan who was sold off to human traffickers at the age of 5 by his parents to pay off their debts, he had learned to find joy in the most meager of offerings. Today, he was going to savor this slice of bread, because today was, to Aeron, what you would call a birthday — today was the day he had managed to escape from being sold off.
As he took a bite of the moldy bread, a small, sad smile appeared on his face.
"Ah! How long has it been since I had a slice of bread? Even though it's moldy, it still tastes as good as I remember."
He muttered, his gaze drifting over the decaying morsel.
He hesitated as he reached the last bite, pondering the unfairness of his existence.
'Why couldn't I have been born into a real family instead of the shithole of one I got? Then maybe I could've eaten all the bread I wanted and even drink clean water to my heart's content.'
As he kept on thinking, his eyes slowly turned to the Abyss, anger and frustration surging within him.
"If it weren't for the Abyss, maybe I would still have a family, If it weren't for the Abyss making my family lose their job and have to take loans to survive, they wouldn't have sold me off."
As he stood there for a while looking at the Abyss, tears started to fall from his eyes.
"Huh... what the hell, am I crying? Come on, Aeron. You said you had accepted that your life was shit and you couldn't do anything about it. That's why you made up this fake birthday and gave yourself a new name. So why are you crying?"
But as if out of nowhere, a sudden, intense pain shot through his side, causing him to gasp in pain and spit out blood.
"Ah!! F--k, so it has begun to spread again."
Around him, passersby looked at him with disgust.
One of them even mumbled under his breath,
"Just jump off into the Abyss, infected bastard, before you infect us too."
This was common to Aeron, so it did not faze him at all.
As he pulled up his tattered gray shirt, he saw that the Abyss sickness had begun to grow much bigger, as the black marks had now reached his chest.
As he pulled his shirt back down, he slowly began to walk closer to the Abyss, reaching near the edge.
"Stupid Abyss sickness. Why did I have to get it?"
---
|| The Abyss sickness was a terrible infection, gnawing at its host, blackening their skin and releasing a sweet stench. Once the sickness took hold, it would consume the host's body, leading to a slow, agonizing death — which, shortly after, the body would morph into a hideous creature of bones and skin that hunts and kills living humans. They are not affected by human weapons, and the only way to stop them is through the 'Abyss Walkers' — individuals who use gifts they gain from the Abyss to kill them. The only way to stop the Abyss sickness from worsening is by jumping into the Abyss, where you would most likely die from the monsters that dwell there. ||
---
As Aeron stood there, a thought ran through his mind.
'Perhaps if I leap into the Abyss, I can become stronger and get rid of the Abyss sickness... I can gain a gift like the Abyss Walkers. Then maybe I could eat all the bread and drink clean water as I pleased.'
But he quickly dismissed that notion.
'Even if I was able to manage the fall, how was I going to defeat the monsters down there? It's not like I have a gift.'
"Why was I even born? Gods or god, if such things truly exist — was it just to suffer? Because in my eighteen years of living, nothing good has ever happened to me."
Turning away from the Abyss as the sun began to set, casting an orange glow across his face, Aeron decided to head back into the protected dome city walls, far away from the Abyss that had been slowly crawling up to the city. He wanted to find somewhere to sleep before it got any darker.
But as he started walking towards the city, his path was abruptly blocked by a group of five men with their faces covered.
"Hey you, kid!"
Aeron still continued walking without paying them attention.
"Didn't you hear me, kid?!"
"Huh? ...Are you talking to me?"
Aeron said, stopping and pointing at himself in confusion.
"Who else would we be talking to, you f--king infected bastard? You see anyone else around here that looks like you?"
"Well, no—"
But before he could finish his sentence, the group of men started to run at him, screaming,
"Die, you f--king garbage!"
As they caught up to Aeron, they began beating him mercilessly. One of the guys stepped on his lungs, shattering one of his bones. He tried to fight back, but due to his frail body, he couldn't get them off him. As they kicked him, the Abyss sickness awakened, making him vomit in pain.
He started to call for help, but the people around who saw what was going on just slowly walked away.
After a while of beating, Aeron passed out cold.
But the group of men still continued for what felt like an eternity. They picked up Aeron's body and threw it into the Abyss.
"Go to hell, you f--king maggot."
One of the men said before walking away.
---
As Aeron fell into the Abyss, a searing pain in his chest woke him up.
"Ahhhhh!!!"
"Why—where am I? And why am I falling? Did those guys throw me into the Abyss?"
"If they did... is this really it for me? Am I gonna die?"
"And what the f--k did I do to them for them to do this to me...? What the hell am I saying? The only reason they beat me was because I was infected."
After a few hours of falling into the Abyss, Aeron suddenly splashed into a huge body of water, still being consumed by the thick darkness of the Abyss.
As Aeron swam in the pitch-black water, he eventually came upon a wet, cold surface.
"Is this... land?"
As he slowly pulled himself out of the water and stood up, wringing out his tattered grey shirt and black shorts, he began to wander around in the darkness. Eventually, the pain of being beaten and the Abyss sickness's aftereffects wore him out, making him fall to the hard ground.
"Seems I'm really in the Abyss, huh..."
"Maybe this is how I'm about to die — killed by an Abyss monster."
As he sat in silence, two voices echoed in the darkness — one the scream of what seemed to be a human, and the other something terrifying. It sounded like a human voice twisted and molded into a monstrous howl.
Aeron's heart started racing as he got up from the ground, listening to the echoes of the two voices.
"What the hell was that?"
He muttered under his breath.
He stood alone in the darkness, with no idea where he was, and only his own voice echoing in his head.