A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
Xavier had said his parents were dead.
Yet, Zane saw a middle aged couple inside Xavier's home.
Zane knew the couple could be anyone. Xavier never said he lived alone. Zane only assumed it.
Maybe they could be his uncle and aunt. I can be overthinking.
Zane tried to convince himself but when he looked back to his memories, the smile of that couple looking at Xavier, the love, he couldn't help but think of them as parents.
Also, Xavier was looking around before opening the door or ringing the bell, highly suggesting he was waiting for Zane to go away.
Zane couldn't see Xavier's expression as he faced only his back but the commoner must be smiling as well.
He walked among the crowd with only this mystery in mind and no matter how hard he tried, there was only one way to solve it.
Asking Xavier directly.
And if Xavier objected to answering then Zane would get his answer anyway.
He had lived long enough to know a simple thing.
The truth doesn't mind being questioned. A lie does.
He made up his mind. At the citadel, the moment he gets time, he would find Xavier and ask everything right away.
For now, his home was waiting.
He had mixed himself with the crowd but the crowd refused to mix itself with him.
But the Warden had already given up so Zane also didn't mind and let them discriminate and scowled at him.
He continued walking and when the smell of burnt plastic and animal feces welcomed his nose, he knew he had reached home.
Polished people and polished houses became less and less as rucksacks and huts made their appearance.
The divide between the city and slums was constructed simply by a milestone beside the road and a white yellowish line on the ground.
Cross the line and the person was in the slums.
Zane had crossed the line and walked through the Cinder row slums.
This was a slum where workers lived.
Workers who weren't educated, strong enough to work, more like every second gutterborn.
Labourers, Brickhaulers, Scrap pickers, Ashpicking, Sewage cleansing and maintaining and many other odd jobs that kept the world going but not enough to get acknowledged for it.
Herring, the gutterborn Zane met in the line, also lived here and if he remembered right, Herring was a Scrap picker.
Zane could also live here as the rent was only one bronze lumen per year for occupying a spot but due to Milo, he couldn't leave.
As only those who had a job could live here, Zane had one but not Milo.
If a family of five lived here it meant all five were working.
As Zane walked further, he greeted some workers as he met them daily on his way to the construction site.
The men were outside their houses, playing cards and drinking Sunken Basement, the cheapest liquor Dwarkam had to offer.
Some of their wives were dead due to working while pregnant, some were sold off to brothels by their own husbands for some money and some wives went there on their own to provide for their children.
And some women who didn't have enough limbs or beauty chose to stay here and provide such services for a few lumens for men who couldn't afford a brothel.
Children ran amok, jumping on and over the puddles of black water, with torn clothes or no clothes at all. Girls and boys alike.
The presence of these children here meant they were also doing work and most likely, they were beggars made to sit in front of churches.
"Hahah… Agh.."
THUD!
Someone bumped into Zane from behind.
Their laughter had stopped and Zane turned around.
It was a kid with a brown age-old tank top and he had fallen face first on the ground.
Zane smiled seeing the back of the kid's head as he knew the little boy.
"Hey little Mickey. Are you alright?"
Zane saw a hole behind the kid on the ground.
He tripped because of it. His head would have fractured if I wasn't here.
Mickey's head had crashed onto Zane before falling on the ground, slowing the impact. Otherwise…
Zane shook his head. Not wanting to think that.
"Big brother Zane?"
Mickey groaned and slowly got up.
Zane sat on one of his knees and when Mickey finally raised his head, Zane's heart sank, his stomach dropped.
He felt his breath hitch as where the boy's right eye should have been, there was only a deep, hollow hole.
The skin around the socket had melted, leaving it tight and shiny like an old candle. The eye itself was gone.
Now just a shrunken, greyish mess hidden behind eyelashes that had been burnt down to tiny black dots.
It wasn't just a cut, it was an ugly, wet knot of raw pink flesh and hard silver scars that looked like it still burned.
If not for the wound looking a few hours old, Zane would have thought Mickey got hurt right now by falling.
"What happened, Mickey? When did this happen?"
Zane held Mickey's shoulders, tracing his finger on the wound.
Mickey flinched and Zane removed his finger right away.
"I remember you didn't have this in the morning. Who did this to you? Was it those shining clowns?"
Mickey shook his head.
"No."
"Then?"
"It was my father."
Zane lost his words.
"... What? Wh-why?"
"After I came back from work, I didn't manage to beg enough money for my father to buy his bottle. So he used a burning stick and stabbed my eye with it. He said this will make me earn money without even trying."
Zane held his chest.
"Did it hurt?"
Mickey smiled. "Yes. But if this will make me earn money then I will not cry about it. I will earn money and become a big man like those uniform soldiers. The First Flame helps everyone. I will help all my friends too. I will heal Milo as well so we can play together."
Zane stared at the innocent smile of the kid weaving dreams that would haunt him when he would wake up in the real world.
Mickey patted his clothes and proceeded to play with other kids. Who were simply rolling a flat carriage tier by a wooden stick.
But Zane held his hand.
Mickey stopped and looked at Zane.
"What happened, big brother? Your eyes have water."
Zane nodded.
He wiped his eyes, took a deep breath.
"Don't worry about them. You tell me this…"
Zane held Mikey's shoulders tighter and without any hitch in his voice, he asked:
"Where is your father right now?"