Akeldama | lrh

8.5

Luke picked up his first knife when he was around fourteen years old.

It was one of the newly developed ones, with a bent handle and silver blade. He found it embedded in a pile of junk in one of the alleys during his recreation time. He remembers thinking, why would somebody just leave this here? Because at the time it was one of the nicest things he had ever seen.

Now, then it was not all that unusual to find things like daggers or weapons in random alleys during the daylight. It's all part of the weapons trade, where things like that were exchanged like drugs. Ever since the constitution was reformed and the second amendment was done away with, the American population went batshit trying to come up with new ways to protect themselves, and to hurt each other. Bullets became butterfly knives, rifles became long swords and spears. Guns could only be owned my military officials, and even then they were rare. The factories had been destroyed. History was repeating itself, and humankind was back to old age fighting.

Of course, Luke didn't know any of this at the time. All he knew was he had a very sharp, very dangerous object in his hands, and for some reason he didn't want to put it down. He ran his fingertip along the blade, the smooth sharp metal grazing his skin. He was absolutely mesmerized. There was no way he wasn't taking it with him.

Luke hid the knife between the folds of his black hoodie as he made his way back to the orphanage, the afternoon sun beating down on his hunched back. He was almost shaking with excitement. Calum was gonna freak. They'd been talking about getting their hands on a real weapon for months, seeing all the fighting on TV, and kitchen knives just weren't doing it for them anymore.

By the time Luke shuffled his way down the dusty hallway and pushed the door to him and Calum's shared bedroom open, it was almost dinner time. Luke would have just skipped it, as he often did. He closed the door behind him and raised an eyebrow at the lanky boy sprawled out on his bed.

"You're later than usual." He grumbled, twirling a broken pencil in his hand. Luke rolled his eyes.

"Cuz I found this." He says, tossing the dagger onto the bed and watching it sink into the cheap comforter. Calum looked down at it, and gasps.

"Holy balls dude." He picked up the weapon, holding it in his hands as if it were a previous stone. "Where?"

"Down on Lincoln avenue. The third alley, the one I always pick fights in." Luke replied, pushing his sweaty hair back. "It was just there, shoved in a pile of junk. I almost shit my pants."

"Might wanna change pants, then." Calum muttered, still staring at the blade in awe. "What are you gonna do with it?"

"I don't know. I haven't gotten that far just yet."

Three sharp knocks sounded from the boy's door, and Luke flinched so hard he almost hit his head on the ceiling. Even at fourteen, he was already too tall for the building's low rooms. "Lucas! Calum! Dinner time, and don't you dare think about skipping!"

"Yes Mrs. Emery!" Luke responded, lurching forward to snatch the dagger from Calum and slide it under the mattress.

They would have to play with it later.

***

The next day Calum had a meeting with some new foster parents, so Luke sat in the corner of the courtyard and twirled his new toy in his fingers. He felt sense of power just holding it, like he could do anything. Be anything.