The Reeking Valley: home to all within the city that lacked anywhere else to go. Red jogged past the snow rabbit district's border. The symbols that guarded the homes within crackled as Red ran by. One of the perks of living in a higher society was having a barrier to keep away people who had no business being in their part of town. Without the proper credentials and licenses, no riff-raff could get past the Sage Symbol barriers that surrounded the upper districts.
Red could smell the slums before he could see them.
Red's nostrils filled with the stink of human waste, decaying fish, and, oddly, the fragrant fermentation of distilling liquor by the locals. He rushed through the nicest portion of the slums, where people scraped by and saved up money to migrate into the city's better districts. Locals referred to this part as the "classy slums." It was protected by the local community’s warriors and low-class mages who hadn't yet been certified. Multicolored array of structures covered most of the land, built of various materials and held together by provisional means. It would’ve been a beautiful artwork of structures if it hadn't been a place where people actually lived, making the reality of the place depressing.
Red continued on and went into the more deprived spaces of the slums. Not just poor folk dwelled around these parts, also shady figures of the night called this place home. This was the most dangerous area of the slums. The people of the city called this area The Hole. Rumor had it that The Hole held within its borders the entrance to the black market. The black market had the slave trade along with auctions offering magical artifacts of questionable nature, even assassination contracts could be made. The only people who hung out in these areas had on disguises, about to engage in dark business while others ensured that the dark business taking place remained unperturbed.
Red made it a point to run as fast as he could through The Hole, hoping to avoid drawing attention to himself, as if a large male running wasn't already eye-catching. Regardless of how dumb he was, he felt certain that his mother would not want him to be in this place. Before he could make it out of the territory of The Hole, an old friend by the name of Tatters stopped him.
Tatters wasn’t an actual friend of Red’s, but he always started every conversation with him with, "Hey, Red, my old friend!" Which to Red’s expectant ears, he heard from the familiar voice of the dirty young man, “Hey, Red, my old friend! I haven’t seen you around The Hole in so long!” Tatters approached an out of breath Red, tired from his long run. Tatters was wearing as he always did, numerous layers of clothes all stacked one after the other onto his shoulders like many capes. To his namesake, each and every garment he wore was in poor condition and was indeed, in tatters.
A buck toothed smile spread across Tatters’ face as he got close to Red, attempting to put his arm around the young man’s tall shoulders, only managing to get up to Red’s shoulder blades as he half hugged him.
“You tired of living in the slums or something, Red? How come we don’t see you for so long?” Tatters said, grinning with narrowed eyes.
“Mama died,” Red said as his eyes went downcast.
Tatters made an attempt at a sympathetic face which only made him appear to be laughing and said, “I’m sorry to hear that, old friend. And I didn’t want to bring it up on the dawn of such tragic news, but your mother had debts with my boss and he actually wants it as soon as possible.”
Red nodded his large dumb head at Tatters in understanding, but didn’t make a move to reach in his pockets for coins or anything of the like.
Tatters’ eyebrows furrowed on his dirt matted forehead. “Red, I meant that you are responsible for your mother’s debts now,” Tatters clarified for Red’s sake.
Red nodded again, still looking down and not making a move to search his persons for money. Tatters grew annoyed, his buck toothed mouth forming a scowl.
“Hey, Red. I need you to pay me the money your mother owed my boss,” Tatters grunted through gritted teeth, certain he couldn't express his message more clearly.
Red nodded again while patting Tatters on his shoulder, but still didn’t bring out any bit of coin. Tatters shoved Red’s hand away and brought out a finger to angrily wag it at Red, but to his surprise, Red weaved under his finger and came back up with a right hook to his head. The punch emptied Tatters of all his thoughts as he went down hard onto the cobbled stone and fell straight to sleep. Red stared with wide eyes down at Tatters motionless body before turning to gaze at his hand with trepidation.
He didn’t mean to hit Tatters; he moved without thinking. Red had been compelled by an instinct implanted in him by his new memories, evading an attack that Tatters had not thrown at all and countering with a picture-perfect punch.
It’s good night, Irene! Red could hear an announcer in his head when he saw Tatters go to the floor.
The memory of the voice made his heart race, but his own brazen act of violence terrified him. He didn't want these new memories if it meant randomly hitting others. His mother despised people who did such things. She called them mindless brutes.
Over the horizon, the sun began to disappear, bringing out the power of magic symbols which illuminated the street. Spheres of light flew out of the city's cobblestone streets and took space in the sky above. The city became almost as dazzling as it was in the morning as the brilliant spheres hovered over the tops of the city's white buildings, the black sky dotted with stars adding to the scene's splendor. Light from the magic reached every corner of the city except the slums, where shadows still clung to every corner, with The Hole remaining the darkest of all. From above looking down, the slums appeared to be an abyss, a place for the lost and forgotten.
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Red swiftly withdrew from The Hole and Tatters’ unconscious body. He had tried to wake Tatters, but the heavily clothed youth couldn’t be roused. Red assumed Tatters hadn't had enough sleep, so he left in order for Tatters to get a good rest.
After leaving The Hole, he entered a place where no one important has ever lived or will ever live, the Reeking Valley. The Reeking Valley was the reason for the overpowering smell of human filth that pervaded the entire slum. The manner in which the residents here lived seemed ghoulish. They would defecate in the street and would leave their trash where they made it. No one in the city cared for the Reeking Valley, especially the ones who lived there.
Red ventured further into Reeking Valley in search of a free area on the ground where he could spend the night, but both the stone and the dirt had filthy, unkempt individuals occupying them. If unclaimed by people, the land would be covered in garbage, human waste, or both.
When he and his mother would come here, there was always a place that was free: the tree at the center of Reeking Valley. There were makeshift dwellings around the tree, like tents and wooden planks put together to make a shelter, but there was still one spot that didn’t have anything, and that was on the tree itself. The tree had once been beautiful and majestic, with leaves as green as emeralds, but now it was nothing but decaying branches and brownish leaves all year round.
Red shimmied up the trunk of the once-mighty oak, returning to the familiar place where his mother and he had slept from night to night. The way the tree's limbs grew, bending and overlapping one another, provided an ideal spot for a woman and her son. Red felt overcome with sadness as he remembered his late mother, but he swiftly got rid of the feelings. His mother warned him not to think too hard, and he hoped to appease her departed soul by fulfilling her final wish. Instead, his mind drifted to boxing gyms, jumping rope, and sweat on the floor. He dozed off, thinking of a strange world with water in transparent and soft bottles and shoes that fit perfectly.
The next morning, Red awoke as the sun peeked over the horizon, almost as if the celestial body needed to check if the world was ready for morning. Red launched into a morning stretching regimen without thinking. He would stretch his head first, then the rest of his body, all the way down to his toes. The folks in the tents around him slept still, oblivious to the confused young man in their midst.
I’m dozing while my opponent is up and training already. I can’t let that be the case, Red thought.
Motivation and a competitive nature thrummed with Red’s very soul. He would not lose due to a lack of preparation. He would only accept defeat because of his lack of competence against a stronger opponent. After completing his stretches, Red dashed out to begin his morning training, which began with some roadwork.
He left the Reeking Valley and entered The Hole where he heard the familiar voice of Tatters who yelled, “Hey, you overgrown oaf, slow down! You dare hit me and run off? Hey, I told you slow down!”
Red couldn’t hear him over his thoughts of competing against the world’s best boxers. He had to be focused if he was to win the strap, the world title that everyone who boxes desires. Red simply showed his hand in acknowledgement to Tatters, which only infuriated the heavily clothed young man all the more. Red moved along after waving to his "old friend", leaving Tatters to stamp the ground in frustration and scream obscenities at Red’s departing figure.
Following The Hole, Red entered the Classy Slums, where uncertified mages reinforced the symbols that kept the Classy Slums bearable for all of its inhabitants. One mage stood over a water well with his head poking in, checking if the sage symbol carved within was still operating. This was a symbol for cleaning the water to make it drinkable. A group of mages not far off hovered nearby over a stone tablet at the front of the large, complex, colorful assortment of buildings. The tablet was linked to sage symbols in the buildings via magical symbol lines, which controlled indoor temperature.
This Sage Symbol System here couldn't compare to what they had in Soadle's more prosperous districts, but it beat having nothing. These mages lacked certification and ability, so not much hope could be placed on the magic’s potency, but the Classy Slums’ inhabitants could at least expect a somewhat cooler residence when it was hot and a slightly warmer residence when it was winter.
People are already up and working, Red thought to himself dejectedly, I should’ve been up way earlier to train. I won’t be able to win my fight if I continue slacking. This body is so used to sleeping-in that it affected me from getting after it today.
Red finally realized that, once again, the thoughts going through his head wasn’t his own.
What is happening to me? Mama never said anything like this could happen to me, he thought with slight fear. As he ran, he reflected on some of the advice his mother used to share with him.
“Dear, you must remember to chew before swallowing, or else you will choke,” his mother would say.
No, that doesn’t help at all, he shook his head thinking.
“Little Red, you have to be careful not to think too hard, otherwise you’ll get those headaches again and then you’ll complain to me about it, and I won’t want to hear it.”
No, that isn’t at all helpful right now either.
Red ran up to the White Rabbit District, where he made a sharp right to avoid the sage symbol barriers. If someone touched the barriers, they would experience such a strong jolt that it would loosen their bowels, causing the trespasser to soil himself. The city's wealthy residents did not want any rabble near their homes, and they made certain that if the rabble did try, they would be sorry.
Red continued reflecting on his mother’s words from his past, “If you get some of that bad magic on you dear, be sure to visit a magic man who can help take that bad stuff off. Don’t go to any magic man with gloomy eyes or has an animal compatriot neither, they’re the bad ones that you need to look out for.
Red’s brown eyes crinkled as he smiled finally finding the right advice.
That’s it, he thought, I need to find a mage in order to get these memories under control. If what is happening to me isn’t bad magic then I don’t know what bad magic is.
Red had found his answer. He had been afflicted with bad juju.
Red wanted to stop running to think about how to find a mage, but he felt that stopping now would undo the gains he had already made, wiping out all of his progress so far. He deduced that there should be a strong reason not to follow such thoughts, but his mind wasn't excellent at reasoning, so he just continued to follow the instructions of the strange boxing memories and concluded his training.
He kept running around the numerous symbol barriers of the various districts until the sun had fully risen and his legs had grown numb from exhaustion. Red, who was worn out and yearned to lie down, knelt down with his hands resting on his knees.
Champions don't lie down and quit, his thoughts screamed. I must continue!