The Heartless 🖤

The unfortunate meeting 2

Answer of the previous chapter's riddle: No one is heavy coz they both are of 1 kg 🤣🤣🤣

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'I need to rush! I have to arrive at college as fast as I can.'
I took my bicycle and started paddling superfast. "Damn I should have woken a little earlier.",I groaned to myself as I regret waking up late.

My life is already tragic enough but if I got late then will definitely risk my scholarship adding a new misery.

Oh! I didn't introduce myself...

"I am Joe!"

"Joe", a name synonymous with misfortune. In my 19 years of life, I have witnessed the worst a boy can endure.

I was just 10 when I lost my parents in a car accident. I was in the car too, but God spared my life, only to torment me.

After my parents' death, I watched my relatives transform from sweet to vicious. I still remember the day of their funeral, the whispers that filled the air...

"Look at the poor boy, lost both his parents."
"What will happen to him now? God is cruel."

These were some of their sympathetic statements. Some people even blamed me, a 10-year-old boy, for the death of my parents, calling me a jinx, the cause of my family's demise.

The 10 years I spent with my parents were the happiest of my life. They loved me so much and protected me from all the cruelties of the world. But when they left me alone and unprotected, I saw the real world, the real face of people, and their selfishness.

I was too young to understand at the time, too naive to see that my uncle took me in only to gain everything my parents had left for me.

"You should sign these papers so I can take care of your parents' property. You're too little to understand property matters," he said that day.

Even though I was just 10, I knew that signing those paper means I am transferring everything to my uncle. But I did it, and as I said, I was naive. I thought the property has nothing to do with his love and ccare for me and that it wouldn’t change anything.

I was wrong. It changed everything. His sweet talk turned into venom-laced words overnight. It wasn’t even a month since my parents died when he gained control over everything I had. And then he shamelessly started  abusing me, verbally. Telling me I was a burden and that I should be thankful for the meals he provided.

Funny, right? I bet it is.

Soon, his verbal abuse turned physical. He refused to pay my school fees. But that wasn't the worse.
The worse was the day when he disappeared. He sold everything, including his own property, and left. I don’t know where....

He left me alone. I had no money, no home, nowhere to go. So I walked all the way from his town to my parents town. I was sitting in front of my parents' graves, crying with my head buried in my knees, asking them why they left me alone. Why didn't the take me with them. If only they took me with them I won't be enduring so much pain in the world, alone.

I was deep in my agony when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I raised my head to see the person, it was a lady, about the same age as my mother.

I still remember that particular memory when I saw her for the first time. She had kind eyes that held a hint of sorrow, and her soft, wavy hair framed a face that seemed both gentle and strong. Her clothes were simple yet elegant, reflecting a grace that made me think she was someone who understood pain.

"Joe?" she asked, her voice soft and filled with concern.

I nodded my head in confusion, and she immediately hugged me. In her embrace, I felt the comfort I had been yearning for days. The warmth of her arms wrapped around me, and for the first time since my parents' death, I felt safe.