Chapter 1: 1 STRAY

What is Youth?

Does it happen before the age of 10? 20? 30?

How does it feel to experience the fervor of youth? Is it like drugs? Is it addicting? Does every child in the world gets to experience it, or are there just a few who are lucky enough to have a taste of it?

Maybe it is the opposite. Perhaps, there are just too many of those who have the short end of the stick, those who have bad luck.

“Hey, stray, get me a pack of cig.” Calls one of the local thugs in the streets. The thug tosses a cent to him, unaware if that amount of money even amounts to much.

As if his money is even enough to buy a pack, Stray complains in his mind. If he talks back, he’ll only receive a beating of a lifetime. Every beating is like a lifetime~ at this point, Stray can only succumb to his fate… or die trying to fight it.

“I guess, I have to steal again…” Stray whispers to himself not really keen on fighting his fate with a more violent means. For all he knows, staying alive is his only avenue to fight the so-called inevitable fate of one day dying here in the slum as every stray does.

“Sigh,” Pushing the worries at the back of his mind, Stray focuses on himself. “If only… heroes are real…” Punching the wall with his small fist, Stray sets his mind straight. He can’t be failing such a small ‘errand’ mission like this.

With the high walls of the buildings surrounding him, Stray feels too small. Forget the several residential houses of various architecture. Even if compared to a rat casually crossing the streets from canal to canal, Stray would similarly feel just as small.

As barely an eight-year-old kid, it is natural for Stray to feel small.

…

In the next five years, Stray continues on being Stray. The only solace that Stray had in those five years are the bits of pirated movies he was smuggling, all of them about superheroes.

How fun would it be if there are really heroes who will willingly save his worthless life? It is Stray’s luck he manages to finish watching Avengers: Endgame, at least which would pacify his soul from the fact that he can’t watch the following movies or TV series anymore.

Stray knows… at the age of 13, he will be chopped up for organs.

Stray doesn’t even feel any surprise or fear as the thugs strap him into a bed, inject him with anesthesia, and introduces him to the very medical professional who will chop him in parts. It isn’t so bad. In a sense, it was liberating.

To any criminal syndicate, healthy organs are quite an enormous source of income thanks to the various hospitals and rich folks needing them.

All too suddenly the world in front of Stray becomes white.

No longer was Stray in straps, but was instead, standing in the middle of this white world. Stray feels his insignificance again reminding him of the high buildings that surround the streets from his place.

“Is this afterlife?” It was a rhetorical question, but someone answers nonetheless.

“Maybe,” An old man with white hair and cool sunglasses appears before Stray in this white world. “You had a hard life… Too hard…”

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“Yeah, I know…” Stray nonchalantly replies back. “After all, it was a stray’s life.”

As if the great will of the universe is pushing him, Stray starts opening himself up to the old man.

“Stray isn’t my name. It is just that I got used to it too much that the name they are calling me stuck. Apparently, I can’t remember the name my mom gave me anymore, According to the neighborhood, my mom died an early death due to a terminal illness— I was five at that time.

“The gang around my place took me in. Of course, it wasn’t done through kindness. They gave us jobs— they make us beg in the streets for money, make us smuggle drugs and bullets, and when we don’t meet our quota: they make us their personal punching bag.

“The only silver lining is that I don’t have anyone to care for me anymore— that means, no one has to worry for my welfare unlike the other kids in the gang who were forcibly taken away from their parents as payment for their debts.

“Despite the harsh treatment, we are fed quite well— from time to time, we even receive health check-ups from professional doctors. Again, not done in kindness… They just want us, their goods, to remain healthy and undamaged.”

Stray mourns in silence as he recalls the terrible memories. Being at death’s door does a lot of things to the brain. Even someone as unfeeling as Stray is not invulnerable to these emotions… no matter how deep he buries them.

Slowly, tears gather from his eyes, the only thing Stray can see now is a blur. The pain… he was suppressing it for a very long time. In that short duration of five years, Stray only had those pirated movies to cling on.

“Do you… like heroes?” The mysterious old man speaks in his unchanging even tone.

Though Stray’s eyes are blurry, his ears work just fine.

“Huh?” Baffling, but Stray didn’t ignore it. “H~ik…” With a small whimper, Stray thinks hard of an answer to the old man's question.

After a long time of contemplating, Stray finally arrives at an answer he can find satisfaction with. Wiping the tears away from his eyes, Stray resolutely gazes at the old man.

“I expect heroes to be weak. But contrary to the fact, they appear to be strong— so in essence, heroes are a scam. A scam I am willing to believe. Even though they are fiction, I am willing. Because more than physical existence, they are symbols.”

*Clap *Clap *Clap~

“For being such a loyal fan, let me give you a new leash of life.” The old man snaps his fingers… and Stray was gone.

…

The next thing Stray knows is that… he now has a name… and he is now... an American.

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