The child lay on the cold, worn pavement, his frail body barely covered by the ragged clothes that had grown too large for him. His dark brown hair was scattered carelessly. In front of him lay his old cap, which he reached for with difficulty.
He touched the edge of the cap with his fingers to make sure, only to find it empty. No one had bothered to drop even a single coin for him that day. The looks of passersby were heavier than the weight of coins. They hurried past him, glancing at him with open disgust and whispering slurs that scorched his soul, which was about to leave his body. Yet the words no longer hurt him as much as hunger did.
He had reached a horrific stage; he no longer asked for delicious food, just anything that would stick in his throat—a moldy piece of bread, or a drop of water from the bottom of the sewers. At that moment, another child passed in front of him, rich and dressed in clean Victorian clothes. The homeless boy lifted his gaze to the wealthy child. His hazel eyes, tinted faintly with green, were dull and completely extinguished, veiled by deep black shadows, proof he had reached the edge of exhaustion.
He lifted his hand heavily and spoke in a voice that was more like a hoarse whisper from thirst, his eyes fixed on the boy's face:
"P-please, help me. I'm… hungry…"
Nothing changed in the rich boy's expression. He looked at him with cold, cutting eyes, then deliberately kicked his face with his expensive shoe. The homeless boy felt a burning pain, followed by a stream of hot red liquid flooding his face. He fell to the ground and felt the clear imprint of the shoe stamped onto his cheek, carved in blood and bruises.
Hot tears fell from his eyes, mingling with the blood on his soaked cheeks. He wasn't crying from the physical pain, but from the sense of total betrayal. He felt the whole world despised him even at the last moment.
Moments after he fell, the boy got up from the ground. He turned his eyes to the right and saw an old air conditioner dripping water down the wall of the neighboring house.
He rushed toward it, a rare glint flashing in his eyes, then dropped beside it and began to devour the cold drops falling down with desperation. A worn-out smile appeared on his face, as if he had secured one more day of survival in this harsh world.
After drinking, the boy rose again. At that moment, his eyes caught something shiny in front of him. A single coin had fallen onto the pavement from one of the passersby's wallets. The coin was a treasure to him. He darted toward it with sudden lightness and stretched his thin hand to snatch it.
But before his fingers touched the cold metal, a sharp, angry voice rose in front of him:
"Hey you, slave, do you dare steal my property so easily?!"
The boy slowly lifted his head. Before him stood a massive teenager surrounded by a group of rowdy friends. The teen's eyes boiled with rage, veins bulging as he clenched his fist.
The boy felt his blood freeze. He couldn't even speak. He only clutched the coin while the teenager stepped toward him, his eyes full of disgust at the blood and shoe print on the homeless boy's face.
The boy stammered:
"I-I'm… sorry…"
But the word never finished. The teenager's brutal punch smashed into his face, followed by a beating from the entire group. The boy fell to the ground under a hail of merciless kicks and punches. He screamed, cried, and begged, but the people around them didn't bother to look. Some muttered coldly:
"He deserves punishment for stealing."
Others answered:
"Just a failure who can't earn his own money."
Inside him, while the physical pain tore him apart, his soul crumbled:
'Why me? Why do I deserve this? Why has no one ever loved me in this world? Did I do something wrong?!'
Suddenly, the screaming stopped. His strength had drained away. His throat was dry, and he no longer had the energy to make a sound. Only faint gasps escaped between each blow, growing too weak to be heard.
The beating stopped when the teenagers grew bored. They lifted his weak, pain-ridden body, his face and limbs disfigured, and carried him to the nearby lake. There they tied his body with a thick rope in a degrading way. While the boy groaned, unable to move, the teenagers surrounded him, muttering cold, mocking words.
One sneered:
"Don't worry, poor thing. Now you won't be hungry again. Water is better than air for rotten things like you."
Another laughed loudly:
"Goodbye, slave. The world doesn't need useless failures like you. Go learn your worth at the bottom!"
And with that, they threw his bound body into the dark waters of the lake to drown. The boy's eyes widened in silent terror as his body sank. He involuntarily swallowed water, burning what remained of his lungs. There was no outward scream now, but inside him a violent whirlpool of thoughts formed:
'I'm drowning. I'm going to die here, alone, humiliated… just as I lived.'
It wasn't a surprise ending, but the logical conclusion to a story that had never begun in peace. He saw his life flash clearly before his eyes—his cold-faced parents selling him to a slaver for a few coins, discarding him without a glance of regret.
Then the years of humiliation under the cruel trader, years spent beneath the whip of slavery. Years of being sold over and over, passed from one owner to another like defective goods, until he managed to escape to live homeless and defeated.
'No one loved me. I never had a single friend. I lived eleven years of mockery and shame on this earth.'
The icy water kept filling his lungs, but he didn't care, as if he had surrendered to death.
'I wonder… if I'd been born in another universe, would I have lived the life I wanted? Would I have found a place where I wasn't judged for something I never chose?'
A bitter inner smile curved his lips:
'Heh… what nonsense… looks like I'm going to sink into the dark… forever…'
At that final moment, just before his soul separated from his body and darkness swallowed his consciousness, he felt a strange, majestic entity pulling his soul out of his exhausted body with immense force.
Suddenly, his soul was free. He soared upward, watching his body vanish into the depths of the lake. He rose quickly, breaking the surface of the water, and began to drift into the sky, the entire city beneath his feet.
He spoke in a quiet inner voice, heavy with painful relief:
'So this is what death feels like… how beautiful and soothing. I can see everything. At last I'll rest from this life forever…'
Now the boy no longer saw just his city. His soul, pulled by an irresistible power, kept ascending. The scene widened gradually. He saw himself leaving the continent of Europe, then shooting beyond the boundaries of Earth. The sight of the planet shrinking beneath his soul was mesmerizing, filling him with a strange sense of freedom.
He felt this would be the last and greatest adventure of his short life, savoring every detail. For the first time, he saw the black expanse of space filled with shining stars, feeling calm in every particle of light. He sensed his eternal departure from the planet that had given him nothing but rejection.
At a speed beyond description, the boy's soul was drawn out of the solar system. In a flash, he found himself outside the entire Milky Way! He stopped thinking about his fate for a moment, awestruck by the sight. His galaxy now appeared to him as a giant spiral system lighting up the universe.
He said inwardly with a rare tone of admiration:
'How beautiful our galaxy is… I never thought I'd see it this close one day!'
As his soul drifted away from his galaxy, he noticed other dazzling galaxies and began to contemplate their shapes and colors with pure enjoyment. But the moment of wonder didn't last; he felt his soul had fixed on a destination. It began moving toward another massive spiral galaxy close to the Milky Way.
He didn't know what was happening or where he was going. All he understood was that he had crossed the boundary and entered that galaxy already. At breakneck speed, amid his fascination, a massive black hole appeared before the boy's soul. Suddenly he felt an irresistible weight and drowsiness overtaking him.
'What… what's happening… where am I… going…?'
He closed his eyes, surrendering to the sleep deeper and more inviting than any before. His soul plunged into the depths of the black hole until it vanished completely.
In an instant, his consciousness opened again.
The boy opened his eyes to find himself in the body of an infant. His arms and legs moved slowly and clumsily. Beside him lay another infant with shining blond hair and blood-red eyes, kicking the air and crying loudly. In front of him stood a man and a woman, but he couldn't make out their faces clearly because of the blur of infant vision.
His old mind spoke to his new body in shock:
'W-what? Where am I? Is this what they call heaven? Or was my death and humiliation just a nightmare?'
The woman before him picked him up, her face moving closer until her features became clearer. She had glittering golden hair and eyes of soft pink rose. She smiled with exaggerated tenderness.
'Huh?! Who is this woman? Why is she holding me like this?'
The woman said gently:
"Look how adorable he is, dear. I'll name him Hoshi, after the stars!"
'What…? Hoshi? What a ridiculous name! My name is Alfred, not this nonsense!'
She placed him in his crib. He tried to rise immediately, but the muscles of his small body didn't respond to his old will. He looked at his hands and legs again, and at his surroundings, and then his mind hit an undeniable realization:
'What utter mockery is this?! This isn't my body. This isn't my room. I… I've been reborn!'
And so… Alfred died of hunger deep in the earth, to be born as Hoshi in a cradle within the Andromeda Galaxy. His soul moved from slavery to… something he doesn't know yet.