UnHonor

Chapter 1

“I promise you… hic… I’ll get better. I promise, my son. I promise. Starting this Monday… hic…

It was a small, windowless room, barely three meters wide and four meters long. In one corner stood an iron bed, held together by countless pieces of scrap metal, glue, and rusty cans nailed wherever they could fit, as though sheer desperation were the only thing keeping it from collapsing. A thick piece of cloth lay across it, though its shape and size suggested that it had once been something far larger—and had seen considerably better days. Beneath that thick cloth—which, generously speaking, could be called a blanket—lay a piece of burnt mattress, clearly torn from a burned-out car and repurposed as a pillow simply because it was softer than the floor.

"Sorry....Sorry...my son....Sorry...it's my fault...I promise you...I'll get better...just wait a little...I'll finally get my points up, and I'll be allowed to move up...I promise you...I'll get better...just...just a little more..." A heavily intoxicated voice seeped through the thin walls outside the room.

At the foot of the bed lay another piece of cloth, one far worse than the bed's so-called blanket. Spread over the hard cement floor, it was accompanied by a badly worn blanket and a pillow that was more burnt than soft—the only things standing between its occupant and the freezing floor.

The two sleeping spots sat beside each other, leaving only a narrow gap between them and the wall. Within that gap was a mound of tattered clothes so fragile that the slightest touch seemed capable of reducing them to powder. Yet the inhabitants of that cold room called them hugys—their only companions during the bone-chilling winters of their world.

“If… sob… if you stay with me… I promise you… if… if you stay with me… sob… I’ll bear it, my son. I promise… now that you’re grown up… I’ll be better.” Amid the whispered cries and drunken promises, the tired man's voice trembled through the thin walls.

Click

The lock opened with the scraping sound of a long iron bar being lifted from its finger-sized holder. In the dim light of the glowing stone, the harsh rays of the merciless sun suddenly cut through the room's darkness, casting the shadows of two people across the wounded blackness.

A tall, bony man stumbled through the doorway, guided by a much smaller boy whose body was almost as thin as his father's.

Purposeful steps, wandering steps, and the slow-witted man moved, and in just four steps across the room, he reached his goal. The teenage boy moved with the practiced ease of someone who had done this far too many times. His bony fingers—so thin that the pulse beneath his skin could be seen even at a distance—guided his father's fall. A moment later, the tall, frail drunk crashed onto the bed on his back, and the ancient frame released a near-death groan that echoed throughout the room.

“No… no… no… hic… no! This is your bed! No… I’ll make it dirty… drunk… dirty! No…” The tall, thin man's trembling hands clawed at the edges of the bed as he desperately tried to pull his weakened body away from the mattress.

“No, Dad. No. It’s okay.” The boy's hollow, bony voice carried a confidence he didn't feel as he gently wrapped his arms around his father, preventing him from getting up.

“No! My son. No! I… I…” Heavy tears stole the rest of his words. His father was still the same as always. Even the slightest sign of affection was enough to strip away whatever control he had left, leaving him helplessly crying.

A thin smile appeared on the teenager's lips. He tightened his arms and, with a gentle push, settled his father back onto the bed.

"What a kind boy…sob...*sob...I promise you, my little boy...I will get better...just a little more...just a little more...I can finally..." The father's eyes closed, and as the last tear disappeared into his gray hair, his breathing became quiet and low.

The drunken father finally fell asleep, helpless and exhausted. Only then did the teenage boy allow himself to pull his hands away and retreat a little, if only for a moment, from the foul stench that seemed capable of assaulting the soul itself.

The teenage boy had asked his father a thousand times what he did at the factory. He had received tens of thousands of words in response, but never a real answer.

He leaned down to place a small kiss on his father's forehead, but the memory of the last time stopped him—the last time his illness had left him unable to move for four days. Instead, he gently combed his father's disheveled hair with his bony fingers, with only modest success, before slowly backing away.

Three steps later, he reached the door and once again placed the last defense against the merciless sun in front of the room, making darkness once again the ruler of their small, cold room.

The door closed, and the boy glanced around briefly.

Their small room was only one among thousands of iron boxes scattered across a vast concrete expanse that stretched as far as his weakened eyes could see.There were no streets. The concrete floor and the iron rooms had been arranged without order, forming a sprawling zone with no clear boundaries. Beyond it rose mountains of garbage, their magical radiation creating borders hundreds of meters wide around the settlement.

Between those mountains ran a massive pipe. Some time ago, all the inhabitants who were still capable of moving had worked together to pierce it. The result was a pond whose only “fish” were pieces of lightweight garbage carried across its surface by the wind. It was the only source of water for the upper reaches of their city.

Their district was called Ahriman, home to the main headquarters of the largest magic factory in the province. It was merely a small part of the city of Darak. No one knew what either name meant, and no one cared enough to ask.

The magic factory where his father worked was shrouded in absolute secrecy. No one was allowed to reveal even a minute of what happened inside. It wasn't a written law. It didn't need to be.

Anyone who spoke about the factory would disappear within a day.

So would their family, if they had one.

The person they had spoken to.

That person's family.

Their neighbors.

Their neighbors' neighbors.

Even their colleagues.

One by one, they would vanish, and no one would ever hear from them again.

That raised one obvious question: if everyone who learned the secret was killed, how did everyone else know about it?

The answer was simple.

A massive picture stood between two of the largest mountains of garbage. It made the people of Ahriman so certain of the consequences that every resident memorized every word written upon it.

The residents of Darak's most luxurious district lived there for one reason alone: they knew when to keep their mouths shut—and when to keep a secret.

The young boy turned his gaze aside and waited until his eyes adjusted to the scorching sun. Once his vision finally cleared, his legs began moving.

He wore black pants covered in thousands of colored patches, most of them stained nearly black with rust.

The shoes on his feet didn't match. His right foot wore a slipper. His left wore a shoe far too large for him, its previous owner unknown.

But judging from the blood the boy had once wiped from inside it, that owner was never coming back for it.

The shoe was far too large for him, but by stuffing it with clothes from his bag, he had managed to make it fit.

That shoe was the teenager's greatest possession, and the way he walked made that painfully obvious. The steps he took with his left foot were noticeably stronger and more agile.

He hadn't gone far before reaching another room nearby. He raised his thin hand to knock on the iron door, but before his knuckles could touch it, the door screeched open.

The black-skinned boy, who took a while to get used to the harsh sunlight, lowered his head slightly to make eye contact with the teenager.

The teenager had lively gray eyes that stood out against a face coated in layers of dirt and oil. His nose was slightly large, but its shape complemented his lips surprisingly well. Once, perhaps, his features might have been handsome.

But starvation had erased any harmony his face might have possessed. His cheeks had vanished, leaving his skin stretched tightly over bone, while every smile revealed teeth far too close to the surface.

The black-skinned boy had a slightly wide nose and thick eyebrows. Despite his own malnutrition, his large, fleshy lips remained strangely untouched by the wasting that had consumed the rest of his body.

"Hi, Darius. What's up?"

Darius, the teenage boy, put a weak smile on his lips and answered.

"Hi. Barry. Are you ready to go out?" His voice was just like before, weak but cheerful.

The black-skinned boy, Barry, nodded his head and said. “Okay. By the way, do you know what happened? My father is much drunker than usual.”

He stepped aside, revealing his father sleeping deeply atop a mound of worn-out rags.

"He's been in a very bad mood ever since I went to bring him home from the factory. He was both drunk and delirious. I was very scared and rushed him home..." His voice was full of worry, a worry that soon reflected on Darius's face.

"Yeah, my father was the same way. He was in a very bad mood and could barely walk. That's not like my father at all; he always waited until he got home to drown himself in subsidized alcohol." Darius whispered, but his voice reached Barry.

“I'm worried, Darius. Every day, they get worse. We don't know what they're doing in that factory…” Barry lowered his voice. “Every day, it feels like they're losing a piece of their soul. A piece they'll never get back.”

His whisper was filled with the pain of ignorance—the pain of knowing that whatever was happening inside that factory might one day cost them their lives, yet never knowing enough to understand why.

Darius nodded with a down, dark gaze, but after several seconds, he nodded and said in a happy, slightly raised voice.

"There's no need to worry! As soon as our wishes come to us, we can become factory workers and retire our fathers; plus, we'll find out their secret. Isn't it interesting?"

Barry gave him a questioning look.

"That we finally find out the secret that has been making us crazy for a long time!" Darius' tone was happy, but even the slightest hint of the secret hidden in the factory sent a cold shiver through his body.

A secret that was slowly and quietly devouring their fathers' souls.

“Darius… I want…”Barry lifted his head resolutely, thrusting his bony chest forward as though he were finally ready to say what had been weighing on him.

But the moment his eyes met Darius's, his borrowed courage vanished.

He looked away and stepped forward, closing the door behind him

Lost in thought about their future at the factory, Darius absentmindedly stepped aside and let Barry close the door. The moment he heard the click of the lock, he started walking. A moment later, Barry's footsteps joined his.

They both walked and thought, not realizing that another few seconds had been added to the silence.

“Hello, Darius. Hello, Barry.”

An energetic voice belonging to a boy even shorter than Darius—who stood at only one hundred and fifty-five centimeters—reached their ears. It earned nothing more than a fleeting glance and a nod.

"Hey! Tell me! I can be gloomy like you too." the cheerful boy said, the gleam in his yellow eyes cutting through the darkness of Barry and Darius's thoughts.

"Hi, Jesse. It's nothing; we were just thinking about our father's work." Darius answered Jesse in a whisper.

Jesse pushed aside her yellow hair, which seemed to be free from all the darkness and blackness of their world, so that his eyes could see Darius's face better, and nodded confidently.

“Yeah, I'm really jealous. They must have had such a good time today! My father came home happier than ever. He was so happy he couldn't even move! I'm jealous…”

Jesse glanced between Darius and Barry, his eagerness almost painful to look at.

“When do you think it'll be our turn? I want to be happy like my father every day after work… Hehehe. We're really going to have a good time.”

Darius and Barry exchanged a look all too familiar to them, and very quickly, they each put a hand on Jesse's shoulder and started walking together.

"Whatever happens, we'll do it together, I promise you." Barry tightened his hand on Jesse's shoulder.

"Really!!? Darius, you too?" Jesse raised his voice full of energy and joy to the sky.

Darius also put a faint smile on his lips and said, "Sure, buddy. I promise you, if not us, then who??"

Jesse let out a scream of joy and, with a high jump, he put all his light weight on Darius and Barry, and very quickly, their shaky legs came very close to falling.

"Hey! What about me?" Words full of fake sadness reached the friend's ears, and two hands that were like them, bony and lifeless, reached out to help their trembling legs and wrapped around Jesse and pulled him down.

"Oh, Chao! You here too? You promise to be together forever too?!?" Jesse turned quickly with excitement that could not be contained and made eye contact with Chao.

Chao had black hair, a slightly wide nose, and thin, long eyes that even the combination of skin and bone in his face didn't show much of. He was also Jesse's height and, just like him, malnutrition was rampant.

“Don't regret it, friend.” Chao gave Jesse a smile that was unfamiliar on his malnourished face, then nodded to the other two. Together, they continued walking shoulder to shoulder.

"Chao, what do you think? Do you think our fathers will finally accumulate enough points to be even happier than they are now?" Jesse's words echoed through the piles of garbage they were passing through, and even for a moment, his voice filled with hope reduced the stench that spread in the air.

"My father thinks so too, but... I don't think so. For as long as I can remember, my father has promised me this every night, and even tonight, he promised me this with more force than before, amidst his loud hiccups, but... I don't think so... I think the only thing we can do is take over their jobs ourselves and finally give them the retirement they really need. Just like Balak." Chao answered Jesse in a quiet voice, his gaze becoming a little heavy.

"Oh! Balak! I remember. It's been a long time since I heard from him. Balak is so good. I love him so much. He always took us to cool places, and we had so much fun together. Don't you know about him? Why doesn't he have fun with us anymore?" Jessie's cheerful voice took on a slight tinge of nostalgia.

Darius began to speak after a few seconds of silence.

“Ever since he started working at the factory, Balak hasn't even had time to leave his room. He only goes between the factory and his room. Nothing else. A few days ago, I finally gathered the courage to visit him and ask how he was doing. After knocking for several seconds, someone finally opened the door. It was Balak. His hair had grown long, and his eyes were dark. He just stared at me blankly. I greeted him.Once.Twice.Several times. Finally, a tiny spark of recognition appeared in his eyes… only to disappear a moment later. He never returned my greeting. Instead, he gave me a heavy look. The kind of look that seemed to say, ‘Tell me what you came to say and leave.’That wasn't Balak. Not even close. I stood there stunned for several seconds. Then—Bang! The door slammed shut. That sound finally brought me back to my senses. I knocked again. And again.But even after several minutes, he never answered.”

Darius turned toward his friends. His eyes screamed a thousand words, and Barry and Chao wore the same expression.

Only Jesse still looked untouched by the weight of it.

“That wasn't all,” Darius continued. “After knocking for several minutes, I waited. When everything became completely silent, I heard something from inside.

“A muffled sound.I think it was…”

His voice caught.

“…crying.”

Barry and Chao walked silently beside him. Their eyes would have been wet if their bodies had spared them enough strength for tears. Instead, only the redness of pain remained.

“Wow! He's so happy that he left us and is crying in his room from excitement about working at the factory… Oh, I'm jealous.”

Jesse said it from the bottom of his heart.

But to his friends, his words no longer carried their usual color.

They were gray.

Empty.

Painfully gray.

The rest of their journey passed in silence, which Jesse tried very hard to break, but to no avail, and they finally reached their destination.

A self-made cave in a high mountain of construction debris that had devoted most of their childhood to it.

In a cave that was as high as the two of them could stand on top of each other and as wide and long as the number of days they had spent here, there were five piles of all the soft things they could find, and seeing the most colorful of them made Jesse let out a cry of joy.

Jesse separated from his companions and, as soon as his weak legs would allow, he reached his place and, with a jump, threw himself on top of it with his back, drowning himself in it with loud laughter.

"Hey, it's dangerous! Who knows who might come when we weren't here!" Barry warned Jesse for the thousandth time and found his place in one of the soft lumps that was larger than the others and leaned against it.

Without a word, Chao walked towards the lump closest to the door and threw himself into it, soothing his trembling legs.

Darius, who was the last to enter the cave, glanced at one of the empty lumps that hadn't seen its owner in a long time, and buried his face in his own lump.

Jesse finally got tired of playing in the soft lump and calmed down, but his mouth didn't calm down at all.

"Ahhh! I love it here! Our dear hideout!! Ha ha ha! I love it!!" Jesse exclaimed, waving his hands in the air happily.

"Jesse, be quiet. Let me close my eyes for a moment." Barry whispered, closing his eyes to let the calm of their hideout flow through him.

Jesse, sensing the warning in Barry's voice, put both hands over his mouth and looked at the others with narrowed eyes, as if waiting for the others to break the silence and allow him to open his mouth again.

Darius, who had been watching Jesse and Barry's behavior with half-open eyes, tore his gaze away from them and stared at the ceiling of their cave.

There lay a shining rock, a rock that had been found quite by chance by the owner of the empty soft mass and was now the only source of light in their not-so-secret hideout. The source of light had five oily handprints on it that brought a faint smile to Darius' lips as he recalled the memory of attaching it to the ceiling.

The day when, for the first and last time, Barry stood on someone's shoulder so he could place his oily handprint on it. The day when the other four hugged each other tightly so they could lift Barry, who was always the one the others stood on to reach the ceiling.

The memory was still sweet.

It was the first—and only—time they had ever seen Jesse truly angry.

He had even cursed for the first time.

Not at them, of course.

At that stupid ceiling for being so high.

Ne...the owner of that soft empty mass had laughed so hard that it had caused five of them to fall, which had caused Barry to fall on top of them!

Small giggles escaped Darius's mouth.

Jesse and Chao had barely been able to walk properly for a month. Barry had carried two enormous bumps on his forehead for nearly three months.

The only ones who escaped unharmed were Darius and N—the owner of that empty sleeping pile—because they had been the first to fall and had landed on Jesse and Chao, who had absorbed the impact.

(Just the look on Jesse's face when he realized that we were both unharmed)The memory broke Darius, and he burst out laughing.]

"Hahahahahaha"

Jesse, waiting for just such a moment, started laughing for no reason.

"Hahahaha. What are we laughing at, Darius? Hahahahahaha"

Darius reached out his hand towards the ceiling amidst laughter that brought tears to his eyes.

Jesse quickly stopped laughing and frowned upon seeing the reason for his laughter.

"It's not funny at all."

"Hahahahahahaha." Darius' laughter grew several times louder.

Darius' laughter finally got on Barry's nerves as he tried to calm down a bit, raising his voice.

"Enough! I want to rest!!"

Looking at Barry and remembering his expression that looked like two horns were about to sprout from his head at that moment, filled Darius with laughter that had just run out of fuel.

"Hahahahaha"

"Hehehehe" Amidst Darius' loud laughter, Chao's small laughter spread through the hideout.

"Why are you laughing too?" Barry glared at Chao as well.

"Hehehehe. You really looked like a demon who was about to grow horns at that moment. Hehehehe" Chao brought a funny image to the minds of the others, and even Jesse, who was frowning, started laughing again.

"Hahahahaha. Barry is a demon!! Hahaha"

Barry continued to glare for a few more seconds, but finally the others' joy spread to him and he started laughing too.

"Ha ha ha ha"

"Ha ha ha ha"

"Ha ha ha ha"

"Ha ha ha"

"Grrrrrrrr"

The sound of Jesse's stomach rumbling filled the cave with absolute silence.

Grrrrrr

Grrrrrrrr

Grrrrrrrr

The rumbling stomachs of Barry, Darius, and Chao didn't leave him alone and joined him.

Jesse immediately clasped both hands over his stomach and held it tightly.

The others did the same.

Experience had taught them that this was the best way to endure the rest of the day.

The silence was so cold that even the sunlight shining on them from the cave entrance couldn't break it.

A sad murmur spread through the cave, which was heard well in the cold silence.

"I thought I still had time... I had just eaten two hours ago." Jesse quickly finished his whisper, afraid that by speaking, he would let the bad feeling get to him faster.

The others only nodded their heads very slightly.

A few minutes passed in silence, in the hope that even for a few minutes, they could be free from that feeling, but this time, like the last time, that calm but painful feeling quickly took over them, making their stomachs and hands tremble.

As soon as the tremors began, each of them realized that it had begun, so they began their usual routine.

"What do you want to wish for?" Barry began, as always.

"I want to wish to never be hungry again!" Jesse answered very quickly, without his usual cheerfulness, as always.

"I want to wish to have an advanced power! Just like those adventurers!" Chao threw his usual words into the silence without any second thought and fell silent, as always.

"I just want everything to be better. That's all." Darius whispered, and the others whispered soundlessly without them knowing, like they always did. The only wish that he had since they knew Darius.

"..." The four of them whispered the next person's wish with their lips without them knowing, again.

(I want to wish to be strong enough to be free outside here forever... Of course I'll take you too.)

"..."

Jesse couldn't take it anymore and whispered angrily.

"Nathan, hurry up. Say it again. Today is your birthday! Maybe you'll finally get it!"

A silence colder than ever took over the cave.

"Oh, I forgot. Nathan is gone." Jesse's voice broke.

(It's always like that. His name is called, and the others break.) Darius stared firmly at his knees, listening to the silent cries of his friends in the freezing darkness.

(Forever…How ridiculous.)