In a small decrepit restaurant on the verge of being shut down, a young man sat opposite a cloaked figure. They were on the corner-most table, and their figures were made even more mysterious by the darkness that moved about them.
"I will now tell you my story," the cloaked figure said. The young man nodded slightly, but it was clear that he lacked any kind of enthusiasm.
The cloaked figure remained calm even in the face of this level of disrespect. After all, he had gone through far worse than this.
"In the human world, there are seven continents and many countries. I was born in a small country on one of the continents. The country and continent on which I was born no longer matter. Not after how far I have come," the figure said.
Hmmmppph, the young man snorted before taking a sip of the brown liquid in the dirty glass before him.
"I was born in poverty, and my mother died on that same day. My father tried his best to love me, but this did not change the fact that I was the one who had killed his wife, the love of his life. He took care of me for eleven years. He worked as a porter at construction sites, and with the little money he made, we were able to get by.
In the country where I was born, things like education had to take a back seat to food and clothing. In this kind of environment, I grew up ignorant in most things, but I knew the ways of the world. When I reached eleven, my father made a clean break by throwing me on the streets.
I wept for days, begging him to take me back. I promised to be good. I promised to work hard. I promised to be the best son. I promised him everything I could think of at that time. In the end, I even promised to buy for him the beer that he liked so much. None of this was enough to move his heart. He had already given up on me, and there was no changing his mind. On the seventh day of me making a ruckus at his front door, he came out of the grass thatched house and beat me to an inch of death. He then dragged me away from his house and threw me in a ditch. He did all this while cursing the day I was born." When the young man heard this part of the story, he put down the glass and looked at the figure before him.
He did not know what to think.
"I stayed in the ditch for a few days, with my wounds already rotting. I could not move, and even calling for help was impossible at that moment. I was on the verge of death, but I had the will to live. Even though my father had just impressed upon me the lack of value that my life held, I did not take matters to heart.
After all, I was only eleven years old, and he was my father. He was the heavens in my eyes. Even after what he had just done, I thought that he had a good reason for doing so. Even though it is true that I held anger toward him, this all faded as the hours came and went. When I finally gathered enough strength to cry out, I called out for my father and no one else. I wanted him to come and take me home. I wanted him to tell me that everything would be okay. I wanted him to shield me from the ravages of life. In the end, these were all empty dreams. My father did not come back to get me."
The story was getting darker by the second, and the young man was already on the verge of crying. His eyes were already wet, and his nose was red.
"Rats, cockroaches, and other insects came around and began feasting on my flesh. At this point, I no longer expected to live through this. I surrendered all thoughts of being saved and simply hoped for it all to come to an end. I closed my eyes for the last time and hoped to never see this filthy world ever again. This also turned out to be nothing but a dream. I woke up a few days later. I was inside a cramped room filled with darkness and the smell of unwashed bodies. Even in the darkness, I could sense others in my same kind of situation. It was as though we were connected by our shared misery. None of us spoke, but we knew where each of us was. This darkness went on for a few weeks before we were let out. It turned out that we had been inside a container that had been placed on a ship. We had not been given much to eat in these past weeks; we even had to relieve ourselves in the same container. When the door to the container first opened, I remember someone cursing out loud about the smell that could apparently be used to win wars. We were placed in the back of a large truck and driven away like cattle. There were thirty of us. Some were boys, but most were girls my age. We were taken to a large house out in the forest, and there, we were cleaned and treated. They even gave us enough food to put some flesh back on our bodies. We were left alone for about a month, and in that short amount of time, we grew closer to each other, not knowing the horror that would follow. We had been trafficked, and we did not even know it."
The young man was already in tears. They rolled down his face, but he did not make any sound. He simply waited for the story to continue.
As the young man heard his father's life story, news about the bond between Hildr and Anastasia shook the continent.