Denzel realized his mistake and was going to try smoothing things out again.
"...I didn't know."
"And what if you did know? We wouldn't have become friends?"
"No way!"
"Who knows. You were a kid who lived on the wealthy Plate after all."
"Rix..."
"Remember this. All the rats around here are all contaminated by horrible bacteria thanks to the polluted waters you all ditched out. There is no one here who would be stupid enough to eat them."
Saying that, Rix left Denzel behind.
Denzel sighed.
"I didn't go after him. I thought he couldn't have forgiven me...."
"And why was that?"
"I really was a kid from the upper levels after all. I was fine being used to the surroundings of the station and all the rubble in the Seventh Sector but, I never thought I would go to other slums. I didn't go to Edge because I thought it would be another place like the slums. A poor and filthy place."
"And Rix?"
"He's fine. But I still haven't heard anything from him."
"That's good. You still have a chance to makeup with him."
Denzel sharpened the ends of the steel rods he gathered and using them as spears, he went looking for rats. He was planning to eat them once he catched them.
"Dad. The people in the slums never did eat rats. But I plan to eat them. I have no money and I have no job. This is worst than the slums. I'm a Seventh Sector kid and I can't grow up." he thought.
Loneliness took away Denzel's will to live. He was now like the way he was when the Seventh Sector was no more. But what was different this time was he remembered of a all the people that he met and who had supported him - his parents, Arkham, Ruvi, Gaskin and the search team. Nothing else could ever happen.
He felt that he couldn't smile anymore. There was no meaning to life without smiles. Isn't that right, mum. I'm sure I saved a lot of rats that had horrible bacteria in them.
"Hey, now hold on a second there!" Johnny interrupted. Without them noticing, he was standing next to them and listening to Denzel's story.
"That's what I thought at the time. But I was wrong. That's why I'm here now."