Billy grabbed Alexander by his hair, and slammed his large muscular knee into his abdomen with no remorse.
Alexander felt the air in his lungs escape, and he couldn't inhale it back in, Billy followed up with a fist to the nose, breaking it in the process.
"Damn it, he's definitely in a bad mood today".
Alexander tried to defend by raising his hands in a defensive posture, but with the body of a fifteen year old, Alexander didn't have the body mass nor bone density to protect himself, to make matters worst, Alexander's body is skinny and sickly.
He resembled a pretty damsel more than a young man in the making.
"Die devil brat".
Billy cursed before tossing Alexander's bruised body to the wooden ground of the room.
Alexander had his face to the ground, a wide smile on his face, his nose and lips were bleeding profusely, but it was almost like he couldn't feel a thing.
Alexander's eyes were blood red from being punched by an adult man, he stared silently at Billy's shadow as he stood over him, his broken fingers attempting to dig into the wooden floors, but alas, they were too broken and weak to do so.
Alexander could hear Billy as he made fun of him together with the whore on the bed, but Alexander remained silent. The best thing to do in this situation was to submit, there was no need to pretend to be strong.
He was weak, and he knew it.
Billy's legs relaxed while Alexander felt a wet trickle land on his neck, the liquid smelled revolting and left a bitter tang at the depths of his throat.
His mind was still as clear as day, Alexander knew what situation he was in, but regardless, his eyes stared calmly at Billy's shadow, the smile still slitting his face in a perfect arch.
"I swear to you Billy Hearts, I will kill you, and everyone else who ever wronged me".
Billy shook lightly and exhaled in relief, he turned to the woman on the bed.
"Opps, I think I dropped yours too, hahaha".
"Then come over here, let's make another one". She responded
Alexander didn't move, he didn't dare to, instead he crouched silently and waited for Billy to finish and leave, then perhaps he might let him go.
Alexander could still remember that last time, he tied him to a pole and threw the pole into a lake filled with poisonous insects. Alexander didn't know how he survived that, but he managed much worse over the years.
The people of this city he despises say it is because he is the spawn of the devil, and will bring ruin everywhere he goes, but so far, it looked like they were the ones destroying their own city.
Too cowardly to explore the tower, and allowing the hollow to slowly encroach on the last bastion of humanity, even after receiving the calling, they delay till the tower summon them against their will, and even if they survive their first mystery.
They mostly end up like Billy over there, too terrified to challenge their second or third mystery, forever satisfied with mediocrity and spending their days drinking and bullying the weak.
Alexander felt tears well up in his eyes.
"If only I received the calling, and became a caller, then maybe I wouldn't be this wretched, but I turn fifteen today, I'm already past the age, all the books available in the public library said it was impossible to become a pathseeker after the age of fourteen… Now I could never live with dignity, I could never cross the hollow and search for my mother, this is really it for me, all these years I endured, hoping I would one day hear the tower's voice…".
Alexander's trail of thoughts suddenly paused, the room was eerily quiet, he hesitated before he later decided to raise his head.
Alexander instantly felt his heart leap to his throat. Luckily, it didn't fall out through his mouth.
The bed the two were on was stained with blood, with two naked bodies still hugging each other bleeding out with terrified looks still frozen on their faces.
Alexander wasn't sure whose blood it was, but he didn't have time to make a thorough inspection, his attention was drawn to the light crunching sounds and raised his head to the ceiling, atop it was a shadowy figure, the figure had a physical form, but the black gas that came out of its body made it appear like a dark foggy entity.
The crunching sound was from the limb it was presently chewing, luckily for Alexander, there were two large holes where its eyes were supposed to be, making it blind and reliant on smell.
The smell that Billy has graciously masked with his urine and sperm.
Alexander instantly held his breath, the only place he could go to get some peace was the public library, and he spent much of his time reading the books, and from his knowledge.
The shadowy creature that resembled an imp with horns was a vile spawn of the lowest rank, pathseekers call them, Lurkers.
Alexander slowly brought his head down, he knew what this meant, a Lurker in the city.
"It's happening again, the last time it happened was exactly fifteen years ago, and half the city was lost to the hollow in the process… it was a flood… this is when thousands of lower ranking vile spawns like Lurkers and Wraiths flood the city and kill till they're either stopped, or the hollow follows from behind and consume the city, occasionally, even Devourers could make an appearance".
Alexander didn't dare to let a single breath out, till finally, he heard it, a loud alarm that sounded like a bomb warning began to echo across the city.
His fears had just been confirmed, it was a flood, and with it, came death and the hollow.
A bead of sweat fell from Alexander's forehead, his hand began to quiver slightly.
"I'm reaching my limits, If the Lurker doesn't leave, I'm dead".
Alexander, still frozen in that crouching posture, silently prayed for a miracle from all the kind gods he read about in those books from before the fall of humanity.