Arcaworld: Secrets Of Onyx

"Prophet's Past"

There was once this boy who was born in the most treacherous streets of Steamstead. Slummere. Crime corrupted Slummere like a disease which took a hold over all the residents. There was a saying in Slummere

"Nobody from Slummere comes out clean."

Crime is what controls the streets of Slummere. The kind and benevolent king of Steamstead Quartermain II had the police quarantine Slummere from the rest of the city. When asked why on National television the king said this:

"We can never destroy crime. It will always be there with the best of cities. So instead of trying to get rid of crime. We control it. We let it grow and intensify in a specific point and separate it from the rest of the city. This will give our city the perfect balance it needs to prosper."

The residents of Slummere saw this message in their broken down houses with their stolen TV's and through their uneducated minds, the only thing they managed to learn from that speech was one thing.

"You are on your own. No one is coming to help you."

So the residents play this message every year, on a particular day, in a particular hour to remind them who owned the streets. The people. So it began 'the cycle', innocent children who want to do good would look at this message and realise there is no point and become corrupted with the crime to teach their children in the future. If they survive.

The boy, like all children, learnt this at a very young age. Before he learned how to talk, he could pickpocket and when he did utter his first sentence it was part of a lie to get him out of trouble with a gang. However, it didn't work for the gang they still beat him close to death.

The boy had parents who looked after him, but they hated him and he hated them, but he couldn't do anything about it. They were the current source of his life. Why the parents still looked after him is anyone's guess. It could be to exercise the only form of power and control they have or a deep innate feeling in their being to look after the son they conceived. They gave him food once a day, which consisted of a loaf of bread while he had to scavenge the rest or starve for the day. The only words he heard his parents speak about him was either in a tone of anger or...

"You're nothing!"

Those words were uttered again and again when his father and mother was kicking him across the room in a fit of rage for waking them up by creaking the old floorboard while they were sleeping after that beating the boy managed to walk without any noise.

"You're nothing!"

He hated those words because he wanted to be something to someone, but in Slummere you don't mean anything to anyone you are just a tool. The boy still stayed loyal to his parents because of two reasons. One was when he was at a very young age he decided he had enough of this hell and ran away. He tried to survive the unforgivable streets of Slummere for two days but he couldn't do it, he came back to his parents shack hungrier than ever and suffering a severe fever, they let him back in instantly and nursed him back to health. The other one was they still gave him food, however scarce it is. This made the boy realise even though they say he was nothing he knew he meant something to them since they never tried to abandon him.

But that all changed.

One day a group of men came into their shack destroying everything that could be worth of value.

"Where is our money?" the men screamed.

The boy was hiding scared of the situation. His father tried to calm them down, but they were having none of it, they kicked him to the floor and were about to finish him when his mother grabbed him out of his hiding place in a frenzy and said these words.

"Take him! He means nothing to us."

The boy now used to that word felt a pain like never before. It was the pain of realisation that he actually did mean nothing to them. The men grabbed the boy while he tried to run and fight but it was to no avail, he looks back at his father hugging and kissing his mother in happiness while his mother looked him straight into his fearful desperate eyes and turned away.

Luckily he escaped these men after some time, but not with some scars from the experience. He was on his own again, but this time he can't go home to his parents he was nothing to them. This is when two other boys found him in a dumpster and after a few exchange of words about their lives he heard this...

"If you don't mean nothing to them. They mean nothing to you. Just forget about them."

This helped the boy realize something his new friends were right and with that, a friendship blossomed in the name of 'Street Rats'. Their group's successes only lasted briefly before an incident happened which changed the world forever for the three boys. No one knew about this incident, except for the three poor boys.

The same night 'The Incident' happened the boy walked back to his old home. The locals who saw the boy that night would have described him walking in a "zombie-like shuffle" he had only shorts on and the night was bleak and cold.

"There was no life in his eyes" an old homeless woman would describe him as when he walked past her.

"That kid held something in his hand. Something silver."

It was a rusty knife. The boy walked back to his parents in a zombie-like shuffle with no life in his eyes with his knife glinting against the metals of Slummere repeating these words.

"You're nothing. You're nothing. You're nothing."

The boy with his new found knowledge and vigor for more than became part of a secret government organization after King Quartermain II death in the 'Year of Blood' and rose through the ranks exponentially eventually becoming one of the most influential and feared in Steelix Corps.

"You would never see him without a book," the soldiers would comment about him.

Only two people knew his name and now one of them is dead but he didn't care. His followers didn't need to know him by name, only by status, which signifies importance which also signifies something. To Steelix Corps, he was known as their 'Prophet' and at this moment Aeleos has a sword inches from his neck.

QOTC: What did you think of Prophet's past?