Dawn is, in essence, something beautiful. Wonderful, even. But very few appreciate it beyond its superficial beauty. Its light brightens the early hours of sleep, breathes life into plants, awakens the birdsong, and for some, ignites a small spark of hope.
But not for everyone.
In an alley hidden from that light, where even the sun doesn't bother to look, there is a boy. An orphan forgotten by the world. He stares at the sky with sorrow—not because of what he sees, but because of what he cannot reach. His life has barely begun, yet it's already been ruined by the choices of others. He sighs, remembering that which neither dawn nor night can rip from his chest: his parents, his village, the future he dreamed of and that will never be.
He's been on the streets for less than three hours, yet the cold cuts through him as if he had always been there. Other children were kidnapped, sold, or escaped in groups. But Hoku… Hoku was always alone. Invisible to a world that never looked at him. He curls up on the filthy ground and cries. There's nothing else he can do.
Hours pass. Hunger arrives like a beast. Hoku looks up at the golden sky, vast and empty. He leaves the alley. In the streets, hundreds of families laugh, shop, live. He lowers his gaze and touches his necklace, then the hilt of his blunt sword. They're the only two things he owns. The only remnants he has.
And then, it happens.
A knife presses against his back.
The shock paralyzes him. Another beggar rushes in and snatches his sword. Hoku, driven by rage, lunges at them. He believes his training will be enough. He believes he's ready. But there are three of them. And when they see him attack, they arm themselves with stones and sticks and throw themselves at him. The knife was fake.
Still confident, Hoku tries to fight back… but the first man he struck grabs him by the neck and lifts him like air. Hoku kicks, struggles, but his thin body no longer has strength. They beat him. They slam him to the ground. They rob him.
He's left lying on the ground, blood on his lips and his face pressed into the dirt.
He stares at the sky.
"Why me...?" he whispers.
But no tears come. He's dry. Dried from crying too much.
He stumbles through the alley, dragging his feet without direction. The damp ground gives way beneath his steps, and without warning, it vanishes. Hoku falls through an open sewer. The impact knocks the air and consciousness from his lungs.
Hours later, he wakes up.
A nauseating stench hits him like a slap. He can barely breathe. He opens his eyes and sees a rat biting his ankle. He kicks it away instinctively, and the creature flies off screeching. He looks at his body: covered in garbage, in filth, in shame.
He sighs.
He tries to climb back up the way he fell, but the exit is too high. Three meters. Out of reach. Filled with rage, he kicks the wall… and the pain collapses him. He screams until his throat is raw, but no one hears. No one will hear.
With nothing else to do, he walks. One step, then another. Expecting nothing.
The stench clings to his skin. It's so strong his body wants to vomit itself. But it doesn't. He endures. He walks. And walks. And walks. Nothing changes. Nothing appears. Only the sound of dirty water flowing through invisible channels.
He sits with his back against a wall. Everything is dark. But then, in the distance, he sees some stacked boxes. He doesn't know whether to move forward or turn back, but he chooses the latter. He takes two boxes. Returns. And so, again and again, with an almost animal stubbornness, he builds a staircase.
Finally, at dawn, he manages to climb up.
The sun peeks over the horizon, announcing a new day. Hoku collapses to his knees, exhausted, panting, covered in filth. He crawls to his shelter—if it can be called that. A corner between two walls, a pile of straw, barely enough to cover his body. That's all he has.
He lies down. Wraps himself as best he can. And sleeps.
Night falls.
And with it, the fever.
The heat wakes him in a sweat-drenched haze. His body burns from within. He staggers out of the alley, his face flushed, his eyes glassy. He sees a woman and her child walking. He approaches, pleading.
"Help… please… medicine…"
But all he receives is a look. Not of pity, but of disgust. The mother pulls the child behind her. She backs away slowly. Then simply turns and leaves.
Hoku falls to his knees. He cries. He screams. He begs the sky for an answer.
"Why?! What did I do?! Why me?! I don't deserve this!"
And he runs. He runs without direction. He stumbles into a guard, who looks at him with disdain and shoves him away indifferently. He keeps running. The voices fill his head. Whispers, mockery, muffled laughter. The whole world is laughing at him.
Then, he falls.
The river swallows him. The cold cuts through him. He doesn't know how to swim. He thrashes in the murky water, fighting for his life, until he manages to grab the shore, gasping, shivering. He drags himself through the mud until he ends up beneath a bridge. Sunk in filth, trembling, soaked, alone.
Sick.
And completely forgotten.
Hoku can do nothing but cry.
But not even that grants him rest. When he tries to sleep, the screams wake him. The mockery. The stench of the river. Nightmares that never end. Again and again, he wakes up agitated, trembling, alone. Until one night, in the middle of his delirium, someone looks at him.
A man. Standing in the mist.
Hoku, with tearful eyes, takes a few steps toward him. He reaches out his arms. His heart, for a second, fills with hope.
"Dad…?"
He embraces him. But the man's body dissolves into the air. It passes through him like smoke. Hoku collapses face-first to the ground.
When he lifts his gaze, he sees another scene.
His father. Back turned. Holding a blood-stained sword. In front of him, his mother—split in two. Blood splattered across the walls of his memory.
Hoku screams. He lunges at the figure. But it too vanishes.
Then come the voices.
First one. Then two. Then hundreds. Voices that won't stop, that laugh, that chase him from within. Voices that aren't his, but now live inside him.
"STOP!" he screams with all his strength. "Please!"
He falls to his knees.
Silence.
For a moment, everything falls quiet.
And then, the stench.
A nauseating smell envelops him like a heavy fog. He lifts his head. Hell surrounds him: charred corpses, flames on the horizon, thick smoke, the stench of sulfur and burning flesh.
He looks down. He's wearing black gloves. His fingers tremble. In front of him, a mirror.
He approaches.
And sees it.
He sees the man who killed his family. His own reflection.
He screams. Explodes. Slams his head against the glass. Once. Twice. Again. Blood gushes from his forehead and stains the mirror, but it doesn't fully break. The image blurs beneath the blows and finally disappears.
And then there's grass.
Again and again, the same dirty grass, the same mud. Until his body can't take it anymore and he collapses, unconscious, forehead soaked in blood.
Days pass.
More than once, Hoku tries to end his life. A river, a cut, a fall, a jump.
But always, just before he does it, a voice yells at him. A voice he knows.
"Hoku? Are you really giving up like this? Without fighting, without resisting? Where is your honor? Your word?"
"Father…" he whispers, voice breaking. "I can't… It hurts. It hurts so much. I don't want this. I don't want to… Save me, please! Da… please…"
Silence.
And then, only the river.
Silence.
Hoku tries again. Once more. But once again, the same voice.
"Are you really going to give up like this?"
The days go on. Slow. Endless. And then, he does it. The act that breaks him from within. Something he never thought he'd do: he steals.
Just an apple. But the moral weight is crushing. He holds it in his hands as if it were a corpse. The sweet juice mixes with his tears. He feels as though he's trampled on everything he once was, everything his parents taught him. He eats while crying. Every bite is a wound.
Afterward, he walks to a small park. He looks at the sky, but he no longer sees it. He watches the birds fly, but he doesn't envy them. Only the emptiness remains. What once was beautiful is now just a shadow, a whisper of the past.
He walks up to a tree. Picks up a stone. Carves something into the bark, in his native tongue, the Ukan language:
**"I will never give up."**
That night, with a resolve colder than brave, he enters a sandwich shop. He waits for the right moment. Grabs three. Runs. The owner chases after him and, as expected, catches him. Hoku is a malnourished child—he can barely run.
The beating is brutal.
The sandwiches fall to the ground. The shopkeeper walks away, muttering curses.
Hoku, with split lips, crawls toward the food, picks it up, and takes it back under his bridge. It's a place colder than any alley, but there are no looks of disgust. No pity, either. Just silence. It has water—dirty, but steady—and a bit of privacy. He can wash his clothes. He can wash himself.
He sighs. At last. At last something in his stomach that isn't air. He chews slowly, as if chewing life itself. He drinks a bit of river water and smiles. Puts on the clothes he had hung to dry and steps out—lighter, though still full of wounds.
Months pass.
And his technique improves.
Hoku begins to steal more skillfully. Not out of need… but instinct. He learns to wait for the perfect moment. He steals small things. Sometimes money. He keeps it. Saves it. Learns to survive with cunning.
One of his biggest hits was, ironically, against that same sandwich vendor. One night, the man went out drinking. Hoku slipped into the shop, waited in the shadows. The shopkeeper returned, closed up without noticing anything. And then Hoku ate. Ate until he was full. Broke the register. Waited until dawn.
When the man came to check the noise, he bent down… and Hoku struck him with a stone. Left him unconscious. Took one last sandwich and ran. He was smiling. He felt alive. He felt strong. He felt… good.
Since then, he watched the other vagrants. The older ones. Learned from them without approaching. How they built shelters, how they begged, where to gather materials. He took note without speaking. Observed.
And one day, he heard something that changed his path.
"You heard, didn't you?" said a thick-bearded vagabond, warming his hands by the fire. "That sour-faced worker, they found him knocked out and robbed. They say it was some mysterious figure. An experienced thief, according to some. But I don't buy it…"
"Me neither," another replied, lying back on some cardboard. "I mean, I do believe someone robbed him. I passed by there that night… but for it to be just one person? No way. Must've been a group."
"Hmm… I feel bad for him," the bearded one sighed, slowly standing up.
"Feel bad for who?"
"That kid. The one who lives under the bridge. So young… I wish he knew there's a place nearby that helps kids like him."
The bearded man looked at the sky with a certain melancholy.
"So why don't you go tell him?" one of them joked, snickering.
"Too lazy," the other said with a laugh.
Hoku, hidden in the shadows, listened in silence.
Something inside his chest lit up. A spark. Small, almost invisible—but a spark nonetheless.
He began to investigate. Asked discreetly, watched, walked through neighborhoods he didn't know. And he found it.
**Paradise.**
A place unlike anything he'd ever seen. Children running through a park, laughing, jumping, playing. Voices filled with joy. Clean scents. Bright colors.
Hoku stopped at the entrance.
A carved wooden sign hung above an archway: *"Welcome to Paradise."*
Beyond it, flowers, trees, benches. In the distance, a two-story building with open windows and clothes hanging in the sun.
Hoku took a step. Then another.
He crossed the threshold.
A man—apparently a staff member—saw him arrive. He stopped and looked him over from head to toe. The boy was covered in dirt, wearing worn-out clothes, with tangled hair and deep black eyes… but with a hypnotic shade of green.
Silence.
Only the birdsong.
And then, the man spoke.