Chapter 02

THE SHOCK OF seeing my mom and dad die in front of my own eyes was a bit too much for me. I think I lost my conscious back then. I don't actually know. However, what I know is that there was a time period that day, which I couldn't remember what happened or what I went through.

I remember glimpses of someone carrying me and at that time I couldn’t figure out who. He was clutching me in his hands, firm. My little head rested on his chest and he was so warm that I felt secured.

"Don't worry. You'll be okay. You're safe."

I remember him saying faintly. My eyes felt like burning from crying and I felt like spinning that I found it so difficult to keep my eyes open. I saw the background dark and orange through my watery eyes. Dark should be because it was night and orange maybe fire. That's all I remember and the next time I opened my eyes, I was lying on a bed.

My mind blank and empty.

The first thing that came to my mind while I was drowsing on the bed was smell. The soap smell. I smelled soap. I remember sniffing unintentionally and loving that smell. It made me feel fresh. I felt happy like... I'm clean after years. Then came to my mind that, my memory is empty. I didn't know who I am and I didn't even know my own name. It's really amazing how you know that you should have a name but not even a slightest idea of what it is. I had some familiar voices in my head and not-so-clear pictures of some people I felt was close to me but, I couldn't recognize what or who they were. Memory loss is a different kind of experience to go through.

It... felt strange. Like I was reborn. Then finally, when I looked up, I saw a middle-aged man with a beard and a young-looking boy standing, staring at me.

"Are you okay?"

I remember the middle-aged man tussling my hair while the boy smiled at me with his arms crossed. Both of them wore black. The man looked dirty but the boy looked clean. I just stared at the man. I couldn't remember who they were. I was going through a memory loss and I was so small back then that I didn't know what I was going through.

"Hey little kid”

said the boy. I kept staring at him. My three-year-old brain didn't calculate he was talking to me and most of all the things... I didn't remember who they were! Trying to figure out who they were, was the only thing my mind concentrated at that moment.

I was a kid sitting on a bed out of nowhere wondering where he was and what he was doing with an empty mind with no clue and without any logical connection. The whole situation was so messed up. As if they understood me, the middle-aged man asked,

"Can you not remember anything?"

I nodded at him; for the first time reacting to something they said. Both of them maintained a dead silence for a few minutes

"Your name is Cody Jake. My name is Christopher Jake. I'm your father and this is Levine. Your elder brother."

said the man finally.

He looked at the boy and so did I. I remember the boy giving Christopher an astonished look which was a kind of puzzled at the same time. More than puzzled, he was shocked. The man's expressions warned the boy about something. I didn't know what it was for back then and I didn't care. It is not like a kid has much of affairs in his mind and it took me a lot of years to realize what was behind that warning look.

It's amazing how it feels like all of this happened yesterday and it is a different feeling to know the start, the continuation and the end but to keep on narrating like I'm living in that moment.

I was more at ease because I trusted them, because I had no memory. No kid in this world would doubt his dad and his elder brother. I was told by Levine later, that I fell while playing and hit my head hard on the ground and lost memory. From then on, I had a life story that someone else narrated to me and I had a new name that someone else gave to me who was not even my actual dad. I believed in it and when I grew up, I was used to it and... was one of them.

With that, all the memories of my real mom and dad were buried. After that, I never actually knew those memories were one of the darkest memories not only in my life, but also in many of the others.

Time flew; me growing with dad and Levine and a lot of other men who wore black just as my father and my brother. I turned six and Levine was seventeen by then. A big-old brother. By six, I understood who we were. We're the Underworld. One part of it. Actually, a “Territory” of it; as of how we were called back then. "Catastrophe". That's what they called us and my dad Christopher was the leader of it.

We were not that bad as the others. We did not sell drugs nor we sold any type of addictions and neither we murdered. We were an underworld troop who fought for power; for power which we needed for survival. Even for the maintenance of that power we did not kill. As a kid, I was so proud of it and I still am; it is the place and the background which I grew up and it is the place which hails all my childhood memories after all.

But Catastrophe was not the only Territory we had in the Jailbirds City. There were many more and Levine used to tell me stories about those. All the Territories had their own characteristics which made them unique. There was a total of sixteen territories; as of how I had calculated as a child but later I got to know there were thirty-six; which is mostly like a doubled number of what I knew. Out of those the most significant territories were namely; Catastrophe, Link, Arm and Haolin. Our territory was the most powerful and the most tactful territory in the underworld and we placed number one if there was ever a ranking. We had direct ways of fighting and our techniques were not even at a level that any other territory could reach. Link, however was a different type of one. Though their fighting and techniques were not much of a use but there was something else that made them powerful. They were a hidden territory. That made them powerful because none knew where they were and it was the most mysterious out of all. Though several territories tried tracking them, they failed miserably. They were the second best. Then, there was Arm and Haolin which was mostly at the same level, mostly like us; open and direct but lower than the skill of Link.

These are the things that Levine and me used to talk for hours and hours while sitting on the roof of a building of Catastrophe under the yellowish orange sky of the dusk.

Starting from the age of six, they trained me to fight. Slowly. Step by step. All the others had a very painful training but for me, they didn't force. What I had to endure was minimum and for some reason, I didn't find learning to fight so difficult. I was born with it. Not only in fighting but I just picked up everything fast. Quite fast. They tortured the others but they were always gentle towards me, they trained the others to be brutal, but me, I was trained to be humane, they created a fighter out of others but... they created a Warrior out of me.

When I was at the age of fifteen, I realized why Levine was so busy because I got started getting involved in the same things and also at the same time, I started to realize I was different from them. I didn't know what was actually different but something inside made me feel so. I never doubted my belonging to them but my instincts said, my origin was not there. I was different from them in a few ways. I didn't want power, my intentions and visions were different from them and for me, fighting for power seemed useless and my inner soul started to fill with these thoughts the more and more I lived with them which was actually the thing, opposite to what should have happened.

Because you know... Habits and the environment you live change who you are. That never happened. The more I was with them, the more I felt like I didn't belong there.

I was right even though I didn't know it back then. But they knew it. It was only me that had lost the memory. Most importantly... they hid it from me until the right time and not only I felt I was different but they wanted me to be different.

It was then at the age of sixteen, I realized, their training given to me was not to make me like them but to make me something more. To make me survive. Their intentions were not to keep me with them in the underworld but to make me strong to stand on my own feet in the society. Through training, not only they trained my fighting, but also, they trained my life. But still... I didn't know why they trained me in that way. I was always left clueless.

The more I grew up, the more I wanted to be different. Everyone else wore black. I wore midnight blue; not much different but still a different choice. I was given special permission to wear that colour because I was their Best Fighter and the Front Deputy of the whole Catastrophe territory. I only wore black when we fought outside our territory because if I wore any other colour then, I would have attracted too much attention which is not good when it comes to fighting. Unless that, I stacked to my dress code which I sometimes accompanied with white.

White.

Levine loved it. He said that black and blue made me sharp and white makes me look cool. He adored me so much and helped me with my training to an extent that I became impossible to defeat and became the best in the Territory, also stabilizing my place as the Deputy Front as the Deputy for Levine. Finally, even he, himself could not defeat me.

I was the only person in the gang who was allowed to wear another colour. Others should wear black. Even Levine. It is a rule and dad never did let anyone else break it, but he actually didn't care that I did.

I knew it had to do something with my own self and I eventually realized there was something special about me that they let me live differently. By 17, I was neither a kid nor an adult but a young, energetic, strong human being ready to face anything that was coming on my way.