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Innumerabilis
Chapter 1 - "One"

Chapter 1 - "One"

'I sit alone in the dark, gloomy hell. For some reason, I find it rather soothing. It eases me with it's silence. As the whole world sleeps, I stay alone, comforted, for once, with my own existence.

Life was never easy; but then again, I didn't know any other life than this. I was just a boy sitting in the darkness.

I could see nothing, hear nothing, touch nothing. All there was in this darkness, was me. I could feel the bones in my hands freezing as I sat outside my family's hut. My lips froze dry. There was no wind in sight, no wind to be felt, yet a sense of coldness caused my hands to crack slightly as I moved them.

Just as I felt a sense of relief, the hunger in my stomach reminded me of my place. I hadn't eaten in 2 days. The only thing that was keeping me alive was water from a salty river stream.

I couldn't cry, I couldn't sleep. I didn't know why I was there or what I was doing.'

'What is my purpose? Do I hold any meaning at all?', the glum boy in rags thought of this as he stared out to infinity. The brown rags covered his crotch and his knees, and were merely held by strings on his shoulders because of the large, gaping holes that allowed the cold to pass through. The boy's eyes, blue; his hair, black. His vision was slightly impaired due to his appetite, and the hair on his head had grown to the bottom of his neck. He was only nine, yet by mind, he was more pessimistic than a merchant in debt.

As the sun rose to shine light on a new day, something sparked in the child. As the darkness began to leave, and he could see the wretched world again; he scratched his right eye. Momentarily after, blood slowly dripped from his eye as he clenched his teeth. That was the first time, the boy felt rage.

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Two moons later, at the beginning of a new day, the boy was sitting in the same place as always, with a gray linen patch across his eye, torn, from the cloth near his knees. The little bit of dignity he had, disappeared, as he saw the other children of his village, with clothes that kept their legs warm.

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With one eye, he observed the silence he wanted, and with the other, he saw reality. The weather was pleasantly warm in the day, and the boy stayed still. Not a movement to be observed. He stared into the void and his eyes refused to blink. His lips were dry and his bones could be seen through the skin over his chest.

He could hear the sound of the joyful children. The sound of the children began to come closer and closer. Laughter covered the back of his mind but he heard no words. A lost cause in dread and despair. He felt the little fists hit the bones of his face; he heard the cracks in his brittle bones resonate through his skull. There was no knowledge in the boy's mind to why he was being beaten; nothing mattered anymore. Not once did he blink.

Once the children were bored of their plaything, they moved on. They had more interesting sticks on the ground than the sticks that comprised of their village's mute boy. Kicking another pile of bones, they walked happily to their homes.

Then; the night began once more. The boy stood, walked to the river and drank the water. Walking back to the block of stone in front of his mother's hut, he picked up a coin from the mucky street. He sharped the coin's edge on a plain stone and waited for another day.

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As the children's laughter filled his mind again, he stood from the stone block. He observed the expression of the child in front of him change from being happy, to being surprised. He had curly, light brown hair, green eyes, a slightly tanned complexion and a proud smile. The boy's retina widened as he observed these details and the fact that the curly-haired monster had the same height as him.

With the sharped edge of the coin in his right hand, he slit the throat of the one in front of him, and watched the blood gush on his rags and his chest. The other little beasts ran and screamed at the sight, while the culprit dropped the bloody coin. As the body fell, the boy with the blue eyes whispered this in the ear of the corpse, "One."

A number had been assigned to the one he had killed as a name to be remembered by. A number, was all he considered the dead boy deserved. Only this time, the light of the day seemed to look more pleasant.