Darin carried the bucket of water in both his hands to his house, with much effort. The water moved and overflowed onto the dirt pavement beneath every now and then.

  His mother was ill, and even though Darin was only 6 years old, he had worked with physical labor for as long as he could remember. His father had left before he remembered, and his mother had kept him fed ever since.

  But this last month, she had come down with an illness Darin had not seen before. None of them in the slums had. Her face, which had always looked kind and calm with smooth and beautiful skin, now looked old and tired.

  Her body had thinned, and her eyes felt colder and colder with each passing day.

  Darin put down the water bucket inside, next to his mother's bed. He took a linen cloth that had once been a part of an apron and wiped down his mother's body with it.

  He cursed the world as he watched his mother's unresponsive and cold eyes as she lay still in her bed.

  He cursed the kingdom he lived in, the doctors who scoffed at him when he could not pay, and the nobles who lived wanting for nothing.

  He cursed it all.

  After tending to his mother, he walked down to the tannery. He worked most days there, carrying skins and leather and packaging it in crates. It paid enough for his mother and him to eat but was not enough for anything else.

  Orth, who was the owner of the tannery, had taken pity on the boy. He had known Darin's father and was disgusted with his friend when he left his family.

  As the day turned to evening, Darin wiped his face of sweat and started walking back to his house.

  When he arrived on his, he immediately felt that something was wrong. He started running towards his house, as fast as his small legs could carry him.

  When he got there, he saw a few men inside the house. They were men he had seen around the slums, but he did not know their names.

  One of them was on the bed with his mother.

  "Ah fuck, there is no use. It isn't only the skin on her body that's dry. It is even dry down there." The man was naked. His mother was naked.

  Darin felt a rage that he had never felt before. He quickly ran to the kitchen cupboard and took out a knife. He rushed at the man on the bed.

  A large arm blocked his way, and Darin was knocked to the floor, landing on his back. The air left his lungs.

  "She isn't going to sell for shit." Fin said, in a sad tone.

  "What about the kid, Fin?" "The man who knocked him down?" asked the man on the bed.

  "What about him?" Fin asked, looking confused.

  "You don't think he'll sell?"

  "Nah, if he were a girl, maybe." Fin replied.

  The man who had knocked him down grasped the collar of Darin's rough hide shirt and lifted him in the air, looking at him in the eyes.

  Darin didn't hesitate and thrust his knife towards the man's throat.

  The man caught his hand partway through and chuckled a little bit.

  "Hey Fin, the kid's got some fight in him."

  "Having spirit is only good if you have the power to use it." Fin said, mildly amused at the flailing six-year-old.

  Fin got off the bed, now having clothed himself. He looked at Darin closer. He clicked his tongue and walked back to the bed.

  "I am going to help you out a little bit, kid," he said as he took out a knife.

  Darin started screaming as he saw the knife. Fin drew his dagger across Darin's mother's throat in one swift movement. The sound of his mother's gurgling last breaths and watching her blood stain the sheets made Darin go insane.

  He felt a hatred he had never known. He had thought he had hated his father for leaving them, but as it turns out he hadn't. It was nothing compared to this.

  Fin walked up to Darin, who was hanging by his collar.

  "Those with power will always rule. In the slums, that is us. In the kingdom, the nobles. You are simply the fodder we feed ourselves upon." Finn's fingers had gripped Darin's chin, and he now looked into the man's dark eyes.

  "I've given you a few more months of food; be happy, kid." Fin said, and then Darin was thrown to the floor. The men left soon afterward.

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  ---

  Darin had turned fifteen last week.

  Since he was six years old, he had trained his body. He rarely slept more than three hours, and if he was not working at the tannery, he was training.

  He had other kids beat him up so that he could learn how to withstand blows. He trained himself to use knives, spears, clubs, and anything else that might be a weapon.

  He had even gone on trips to hunt animals and monsters.

  Through all of it, his hatred had driven him. Since the day he met Fin, he had never forgotten his face. Nor the faces of the men there.

  And today was the day he would meet them again. Fin and his crew were the gangsters who ruled the underworld in the slums. He had spotted a few of them over the years, and some of the men from that day had died.

  But not Fin, nor his second-in-command, Dres. They both were living a good life.

  Darin had checked his weapons. A dagger, a spear, and a club. He had fashioned the spear and club himself, and the dagger he had purchased from a merchant in the city.

  As night fell, he started walking out of the slums. Fin and Dres both lived in the town outskirts, where commoners and their families lived.

  That is where the money from his oppression of the slums went to. Darin took a deep breath and felt the ice-cold hatred flow through him.

  As he approached the house, he could see candlelight through the windows and shadows flickering. It looked as if Fin had visitors over. It did not matter to Darin.

  He quietly climbed up to the second floor and unlocked a window. It was the master bedroom. No one was inside, as Darin had planned. He hid himself in a corner, behind a chair. His body was small even though he had trained it brutally.

  He had always had a slim build, and even with the muscles he had now, that had not changed.

  As the hours passed, the sounds coming from the party downstairs quieted down. Eventually Darin heard the guests leaving.

  And then he heard the thumps of someone ascending the stairs. The door opened, and a drunk Finn entered the room.

  He looked considerably older than that day. His black hair had strands of grey in it, and his face had wrinkles where there had been none before.

  Fin undressed himself and quickly entered his bed. It did not take long before Darin heard the rhythmic breaths of sleeping.

  Finally, he stood up silently from where he had hidden. His body screamed at him from the prolonged time he had spent cramped behind the chair.

  But Darin did not feel the pain; his eyes locked on the sleeping man.

  Darin took out his rope and quietly moved to the bottom of the bed. He started tying Fin to the bedframe.

  He did the same with his arms, slowly and methodically. Only when Fin was tied up did Darin take out his dagger.

  He slid his dagger across Finn's leg, waking him up.

  "What the fuck!" Fin screamed as he woke up. Darin had lit a candle, making the darkness recede.

  "Do you remember me?" Darin asked.

  Fin looked at Darin, and his eyes betrayed that he did not recognize Darin.

  Darin slid his dagger across Finn's stomach. They were shallow cuts, barely even drawing blood.

  "Ahh, fuck, who are you? Which bastard sent you?!" Fin sputtered out.

  "No one sent me. Well, no, you sent me. From nine years ago." Darin was calm.

  "What bullshit are you talking about?" Fin looked at Darin, trying to figure out who he was.

  "I did not expect you to forget. After all, to me it is all unforgettable." Darin sliced his daggers a few times across Finn's body. Shallow cuts.

  Fin did not scream this time; instead, he tried focusing on getting his hands free.

  "You killed my ill mother. Remember?" Darin kept slicing Finn's body.

  "You are that kid! What the fuck! Why are you doing this?" Fin exclaimed in pain.

  Darin stopped and looked at Fin, confused.

  "Why? You killed my mother."

  "She'd be dead in a month or two anyways. All I did was help you live, not having to take care of your sick mother." Fin said, now in a rage.

  "Who were you to decide that? What gave you the right to kill her?" Darin, now also in a rage, cut a little deeper than he meant to. Blood started flowing out from a wound on Finn's stomach.

  "What right? There are no rights in this world. Only those who are powerful and those who are powerless. Wolves and sheep." Fin said.

  "And which are you now?" Darin asked as he kept on slicing Fin.

  Fin struggled desperately trying to free himself, but it was not to be.

  As the sun dawned on the quiet town, many bodies were discovered in different residences. They were horribly disfigured, drained of blood, and with horrified expressions on their faces.

  ---

  It had taken the town guard the better part of a year to find the murderer. He had hidden himself well, but eventually he had been found in the slums.

  Darin, 16 years old. Slum resident.

  He had been thrown in jail and spent two years in there.

  As he turned 18, his day of execution had been set.

  Darin sat in his cell, throwing pebbles at the wall. After killing Fin and his crew, his hate had not subsided. Even though he had nothing to direct his hate toward, it was still there. So he directed it at the world.

  Orth, the owner of the tannery, had turned him in to the town guard. Darin did not blame Orth. He only did what he thought was right, and he had helped him a lot over the years.

  Darin did not blame anyone but himself for the events that had happened over the years. If he had been more powerful, stronger, he could even have saved his mother.

  If he had earned more money, he could have treated her. If he had searched for his father, he could have found him and gotten him to help with his mother's sickness.

  Yet he hadn't. And now he was set to be executed. He heard the steel-toed thumps of the guards approaching his cell. He briefly wondered if it would be hanging, burning, or if they would just chop off his head.

  It did not matter; nothing did. He no longer truly cared.

  He was led out to the execution site. "Ah, so it is to be by hanging," he thought as he saw the gallows.

  As he was put on his knees on the platform, he heard a voice. It boomed through his ears with incredible force and made his body want to lie down on the ground.

  "Child, do you wish to live?" it said.

  Darin looked around, but no one other than him seemed to have heard the voice. The voice chuckled, a cold and mocking chuckle.

  "I am God. Should you wish to live, I will save you."

  "What will it cost?" Darin said out loud. The headsman looked at him strangely.

  "You will be my hands and feet in this world. You will do my bidding. However, what I wish for is simply for you to put the wicked beneath the heel of your boot. To kill those who would do you wrong. Have you not already done this?" The voice was kinder now, though the force of it remained the same.

  Darin felt the noose tighten around his neck. He did not spend much time thinking about it and responded.

  "I accept."

  The noose burned with golden light, and Darin felt his body being enveloped by it. Power unlike anything before flooded through his veins as his hair turned golden.

  He stood up and looked up to the sky. The clouds parted and shone beams of light down upon him.