Chasing Dreams (Dropped)

Chapter 186: A Man Without a Sword

For sixteen years, John waited, and on his sixteenth year, John got what he wanted.

"I want to be a hero." John faced his parents and told them his dream, and their reactions were nothing short than expected. John's father furrowed his brows, scratched at his grizzly beard, and struck him so hard John nearly passed out.

John's mother wasn't nearly as brutal. She simply tended to her son's wounds and held him in silence.

"You dumb cunt!" It wasn't the first time John heard those words. He heard them just about every day come out of his father's foul mouth. "The fuck you want to be a hero for eh?!"

"Is the town life not enough for ya?"

John looked around. He saw trash, broken windows, and stray needles. This was his home, and this was his life.

"Dad, this isn't living." John furrowed his brows. His voice was clear and transparent like a freshwater stream. "You don't let me leave the house. You keep me, and mom cooped up here like a bunch of hens. How do you expect me to live my life, if I am forced to stay here because of your mistakes?"

John felt the second strike come. This time it cracked John square in his jaw, briefly knocking him off his feet and onto the roach-infested ground.

"Piss off!" John's father shouted. He kicked the ground bringing up a string of newspapers and wrappers into the air. "You are such an ungrateful little shit you know that?" John's father turned and shook his fist in the air in frustration. "God, I need a fucking smoke."

"But dear..." John's mother reached out for her husband, but with a wave of his hand, he barged out the door. "Don't leave..."

John glanced at his mother. She was a thin woman, far too thin to survive independently, but that could be said for all of them.

The Rothwell family was poor. No, to call them poor would be an understatement. They lived in the back end of the Yorkshire alleys, near the main highway, and beneath the bridge that led to the big city. At the bottom of the bridge were the sewer tunnels and a small shed where John's family lived.

John's father, Oliver, was a drug dealer. A few years ago, he killed someone over a mishap and had been in hiding ever since.

John's mother, Lily, was his girlfriend at the time and had been harboring him ever since. During their time hiding, Lily got pregnant, and John ended up being born.

John and Lily ate once a week. Typically their meals consisted of spam or a slice of bologna, which was enough to get them by, but hardly enough to survive.

Compared to Oliver, John and Lily were wickedly thin. Their skin clung to their bones, making them appear like walking skeletons. While their eyes were freakishly large, and cheeks were sunken in.

"This isn't the life I want to live..." John told himself. "This isn't the life destiny has in store for me..."

A life of poverty wasn't a life John saw for himself. What he desired was a life of luxury. A life where he could indulge in the finer things in life. Good food, rich wines, beautiful women, and an onslaught of money.

But most of all, John wanted to change the world and prevent lives like his from occurring anywhere else.

"Mum." John wiped his mouth, cleaning the blood from his lips. "Let's leave this place."

Lily looked at John as if he were insane. "No, no we can't do that? Your father wouldn't-"

"Be able to come with us?" John finished. "Good fuck him. Dad, is nothing more than a bloody twat." John folded his lips, minding his tongue. Truly, John didn't like to curse. But whenever he thought of his father, he was overtaken by an unspeakable black rage.