Hero of Darkness

Chapter 1222: The Orphan

The early morning of the following day... All the children brought from the refugee camp were forcefully woken up by the soldiers of this private force. Those from the military who brought these young kids were now gone, and this private militia was now in charge of their lives.

Morpheus woke up with an incongruous face, still tired from the continuous journey, where all of them were basically dumped on each other inside the trucks. Just like him, every other kid was scared; many cried throughout the trip and pissed their pants.

And Morpheus had already seen what was waiting for them yesterday, so he was not optimistic. Inside, he was still terrified, but outside... he didn’t show a single expression as if it were a cold and lifeless statue.

Step!

Step!

While walking in the queue, Morpheus saw many other kids around the same age on both sides of his sides. And none of these were the kids brought from their refugee camp.

”Are they from some other place that was attacked by monsters?” asked Morpheus, his short black hair and thin frame walking in line.

”Walk quickly, you malnourished stick!” said one of the militia personnel as he shoved Morpheus.

Like a line of ducklings, all the boys kept gathering, some were even barely 3 to 4 years old, crying on their own as not a single soul bothered to help or console them.

It’s not that the other boys were not empathetic... It’s just that all of them were still suffering and missing their families. They were just as saddened and still unable to absorb the reality.

”Listen up, you worthless pieces of shit!” shouted one of the leaders of the militia groups as over two thousand boys from ages 4 to 11 were gathered in a large training ground, their eyes focused on this loudly cursing man.

”This place is your home now. You will be given a place to sleep, food to eat, and a bucket to piss and shit.

But don’t think that you are getting it for free. From now on, all of you will be training under us to fight, so that once you learn to defend yourself, your sorry asses will be of some use to us.

And know this one thing very clearly...” spoke the commanding leader as he looked at the ragtag of orphans with a disgusted countenance.

”The dog that does not bark on its master’s orders will be gunned down.”

******************

Days passed, and the kids started getting formal training from the soldiers. But none of it was done by their free will.

Those who did not comply or made a ruckus, or even started crying during the training, were simply beaten mercilessly with a hard cane by the militia soldiers.

Morpheus himself saw a couple of kids from his own batch getting beaten till their already starved bodies lost consciousness.

One of those two kids returned today to train, with fear of god in his eyes... the other one, did not.

Morpheus did not speak another word or complain to anyone. No... he observed.

Maybe watching his own parents getting mauled and sliced right in front of him exposed him to violence and death to a degree that even a gruesome act like this felt simply... numb.

While most kids were still adjusting to reality and wishing for things to go back to the way they were... Morpheus developed situational awareness way too quickly than other kids.

It’s not that the other surviving orphans hadn’t watched their loved one dying at the monsters... It’s just that everyone’s response to trauma was different.

Most became depressed, while some would rather commit suicide after their world and sense of reality crumbled in front of their eyes. But young Morpheus was different than the rest.

Did it have a special constitution? Did he have some kind of special bloodline or family heritage? Was he some adult reincarnated into a child’s body?

No... he was none of those.

What made him different, despite going through similar experiences as the rest of the kids, was that none of them were drenched in the blood and flesh of his own parents as they covered for him until their last dying breath.

Both of them had given their lives just so their child could live on.

They could have run off, abandoned him as the monsters suddenly attacked in the middle of the night. They were barely surviving on their own in poverty, and he was too young to even fathom what kind of struggles they went through in their daily lives... but at the time of crisis, both of them forsake their own safety and instead sacrificed themselves for their son.

Even without anyone explaining the concept of rationality to a kid like him, Morpheus understood that their deaths would be meaningless if he died here.

It wasn’t some in-built conviction or inherent uniqueness that was already inside him.

No, this was an instinct... meant for survival.

******************

Another week passed, and the training regime continued, getting more extensive and punishing. The kids who never even hurt a fly before were now forced to fight each other in the name of training.

They simply had no other choice because the militia soldiers would beat them far worse than they could beat each other.

Every day, Morpheus started noticing with cold and unempathetic eyes as he quietly observed one thing.

The number of children who were brought in before their batch was starting to disappear. Even those brought from other refugee camps across the country were also slowly but steadily dwindling in their numbers as the day went by.

As their training progressed, their numbers started shrinking. The food they got to eat and recover was also changing as they got a few pieces of meat in the gruel too.

The management of this place was steadily fattening them up like pigs.

”It’s going to happen soon.” spoke Morpheus, probably his first words in days.

******************

Two Weeks Later...

The previous batch had completely disappeared. Not a single one of the boys was left as if they had disappeared into the air.

Morpheus was always checking around the training grounds with a swollen face as he was beaten to a pulp by a boy who was just a couple of years older than him.

And while he was getting hit in the face, in those instances... he saw the boy’s eyes.

He wasn’t hitting Morpheus because he hated the latter or enjoyed beating other kids. His opponent felt no pride or sense of superiority.

The only emotion Morpheus could sense in his opponent’s eyes... was desperation.

The 8-year-old kid had scars that had barely healed from the last time he was beaten by the militia soldiers after he went easy on his opponent and didn’t beat the other kid hard enough.

The clenched teeth, the tear at the corner of his eyes, and the shivering fists of the boy hit Morpheus, but as if being prone to violence and pain, he didn’t even groan.

”Take that twerp to the physician’s ward. He hasn’t lost his eyes or any limbs yet.” spoke one of the instructors overseeing the battles.

It’s not that Morpheus didn’t feel scared, or wanted to cry and shout. He simply knew that no one here cared.

His days were already numbered. Whatever happened to other kids was more likely to happen to him, too. But Morpheus kept all his doubts and fears to himself.

The next day...

A room filled with two corpses appeared in his vision. A man and a woman’s faces were lying next to him while they both stared at Morpheus with a blank but also terrified expression.

”Argh!” shouted Morpheus as his body jolted up.

The boy who had fainted after yesterday’s treatment had woken from a nightmare.

He was now lying in an infirmary after he was beaten up to a pulp by his opponent. After he was brought in, the medical team here cleared his wounds, patched him up, and put him on saline solution through his veins.

Morpheus was currently put on morphine.

Even in this infirmary, he saw a lot of kids from the training grounds in similar situations to his. Some even had broken bones and jaws, while a few unfortunate ones had lost an arm or a leg.

Many of them were wailing in pain, sobbing, and screaming as the whole ward was as quiet as a henhouse.

There was no room for peace, and Morpheus could hardly see through one eye while the other one was still swollen.

For a young child who saw both his parent getting killed right in front of him, as all he could do was watch helplessly... he had quite a lot of pent-up frustration and rage towards the world.

But Morpheus, similar to a particular orphan from the superhero genre on earth... had a different coping mechanism.

He did not lash out at the world. He did not wish for its destruction. He wasn’t even sure if he could survive and make a difference.

There wasn’t even a certainty that he would even get to make it out alive from this infirmary.

The world was already a harsh and hellish place the moment his mind started developing, and all he saw was grim darkness.

Morpheus closed his eyes and thought of ways he could end his suffering without dying. And the one conclusion he reached was that after everything that happened to him and all the other kids... he didn’t just want to survive.

He wanted power to destroy everything and everyone who put him and the others in this tormenting hell. Morpheus wanted one thing far more than survival...

It was Justice.