By Corruption I Fall

Chapter Seven

Oryon

Inspired by; Time by Hans Zimmer.

2002, 12 years old.

"Mom, where are we going?" Mom ignored my question, continuing to tug me along the streets of Crete.

I love the sun, the sun was so bright out today. Perhaps, we were going to the ocean today!

It was our only time away from our reality.

The reality of being with little money, Mom and Dad fought all the time about it....I saw them sad, desperate...broken.

At noon, the heat was the most unbearable and the little straw hat did a poor job of making me feel any fresher.  My body had a funny feeling, like a warning calling to me.

I found it super strange and just ignored it.

Walking another 5 blocks, My mom froze and stood in front of an old, abandoned building with a torn statue in the front of it.

"We are here, Atlas"

Here?  Where?

Everything in front of us was ugly and ancient. There wasn't even a door or anything,  Had she gone mad?

"I'm confused" I wiggled my eyebrows at her, she shot her gaze away from me.

It hurt me when she did that and she liked doing that a lot, she was never the most caring mother but was there nonetheless.  I respected her strength to keep going every day in these dead streets with nothing but waste in our measly life.

An old soul, My father called me once as He was teaching me how to carve a knife with steel.  He had managed to build a gun, many weapons with just the weapons he found...and stole, sometimes. I admired him greatly.  "I wanna make a gun too!" I exclaimed to him when I was nine, That day We had gone completely without eating.

My stomach begged me for some nourishment and the sadness on my father's face made me feel guilty for even feeling hungry.  They were trying, they both were, every day.

Greece was expensive and Our town was small but still, the jobs were scarce.  I swore to myself every day that one day I'd be a millionaire, I would buy my parents a mansion and maids so they never have to lift a finger again. They'd never have to worry about a single thing.  I'd be so rich one day, I'll end world hunger and all things corrupt and evil.

I vowed to the stars every day for that to happen, I manifested proudly that my life would not always be like this. I would be the one to break the chains of living a nomadic life in these tiny pieces of vastness we live in.

"I have someone I want you to meet, My little atlas" every time she used my nickname, my heart warmed at the affection. It was rare and I held it tightly to me.

"Uh, okay" She pulled my hand and led me inside, I was seriously lost as to what awaited us on the inside.

There was a man there, in the middle of the cracked ground beneath us. A man with eyes that unnerved me, tall with a gross beer-belly.

Was he a relative or something?

"Do you like testing my patience? You are late and I have things to do, Steria"

The weird man scolded my mom. I shook with anger, Why was he being so nasty?

"Hey, don't talk to my mom like that!" I narrowed my eyes at him, threatening him with the look my dad had taught me to give bigger people than me.