Julien's life had always been a rollercoaster with no end.
Born in the slums, his parents never cared for him.
They couldn't even feed themselves, so how could they look after another life?
It was a hassle for them.
But if you couldn't do it, then why give birth to someone?
Why have children if you aren't capable of looking after them?
Although Julien had such thoughts in his head since he could think for himself, he never once said anything to his parents.
Despite not being able to raise him in a proper way, they didn't abandon him.
For that, Julien was grateful to them.
He had seen many children sold to slave traders for some chunks of money.
Julien had been thankful to his parents for not letting him go through the same fate.
But life in the slums was never kind.
His parents worked in some mines to earn their living. The working conditions were the worst.
Due to constant exposure to the mining sites, they fell seriously ill when Julien was around eight years old.
Medicines were a luxury for the poor.
These people treated him like he was a mistake. Something that should have never been born.
Though they gave him decent food for survival, anything above that was a clear no for them.
Seeing his parents on their deathbeds, Julien took it upon himself to look after them. It was the least he could do to repay their favour.
The favour of not selling him to those scary traders.
The favour of letting him live.
The favour of letting him eat from their meagre share.
He couldn't forgive them for their sins.
The sin of being his parents.
He never asked to be born, so why was it in his fate to live such a tragic life?
Julien could never understand it, but he tried to move on from the past.
He took random jobs that offered little to no income. The work was brutal, leaving his body battered.
Julien wasn't arrogant enough to think of buying medicines to cure his parents. Those items cost a fortune.
The only thing he could give them was enough food to live through the night.
Days went by, turning into months.
One day, Julien had to go to another city for some work that his new employer had given him. Before leaving, he left around four days' worth of food for them to consume.
Due to some circumstances, he couldn't return for a long time. He tried his level best to reach his home, the place where his parents must have been starving.
In the week that he was away, he thought about his situation many times.
Why should he be in a hurry to feed those people who didn't mean much to him?
Despite his thoughts, his actions suggested otherwise.
Overworking himself, Julien completed the ten days of work that he was assigned in only a week.
It had to be known that the work was said to be of ten days by the standards of the employer, who was keen on exploiting cheap labour from the slums.
As soon as he got his remuneration, he rushed towards Tamyr, hoping to reach his parents in time.
But alas, he had never been blessed by fate.
He hoped he would be lucky, but luck was a luxury for the strong.
He needed two more days to reach his home.
His heart ached when he thought of his parents sleeping on their beds with rumbling stomachs.
Julien didn't know what came over him. He shouldn't have cared much for them, yet his heart ached to see their faces.
The living faces.
As soon as he reached the gates of Tamyr, he rushed towards the slums. Stumbling on his way, he reached his home.
Seeing the same old door of his house closed, a hope rose in Julien.
He hoped some miracle had happened. He hoped the people inside had somehow survived.
They said it was possible to live without food for days, if not months. But that was for a healthy person.
His parents, who were already fragile from their illness, had no way of surviving so long. The food that he had left behind was already scarce enough to last even four days.
As he opened the door and made his way into the house, he prayed in his heart for them to be safe, to be—
Alive?!
Something broke inside Julien when he saw the rotting corpses before him.
They hadn't rotted from being left dead for days.
No, he felt the rot in the room.
The rot of their helplessness.
The rot of their despair.
His mother's body lay near a bucket filled with water, a glass in her hand, as she might have tried to drink it.
To sustain her life for a second more.
His father was sitting against the wall, his back slumped down, unable to bear the weight of his body.
His dead body...
Julien didn't know whether it was unfortunate or not.
He felt like crying, but his eyes had no tears.
Somewhere deep in his heart, he felt… relief?!
Relief that he didn't have to feed others.
Relief that he wouldn't have to work hard anymore.
Relief that—
No!
The relief was from being freed from his duty, not his burden.
Julien didn't like taking care of these people when he couldn't even feed himself.
But he didn't hate it either.
It was a contradicting feeling.
He might have hated them for giving birth to him, but even then, he had loved them.
He never acknowledged it, but the sight before him broke his heart into a million pieces.
If this wasn't love, then Julien wondered—
What love was...