Chapter 6 Head Trauma

The children played on the cramped and dark street. Surrounded by rats, piss, and other undesirables. Despite all of that, the smiles on their faces never wavered. Their innocence made them stand out in their bleak surroundings. It was impossible to tell the time of day on that street, even if you stood in the middle of it. Clouds, stars, the Sun, just the entire sky didn’t exist for the people down there. What the residents of that street see when they look up from the street is the bottom of the houses of those higher up, both physically and socially. No matter how hard they tried to reach, their fingertips didn't even reach the bottom of their houses. That several hundred meters of space was their sky. But the children continued to smile. Why? Perhaps it was because they didn’t know that a whole different world existed above them. Their world was small, confined to that street; there was no other world they could compare it to. In their minds, they believed that they lived a normal life. Even the corpse rotting in the alleyway a few meters away from them seemed normal. Though in a few more years, their eyes and their hearts would be tainted as the fangs of adulthood and the claws of reality slowly sink into them. A big lady came out of the creaky wooden door of the building where they were playing in front of. Cigarette in mouth, she lit it up with a match that she ignited with her nail. Leaning on the support beam caused it to groan and creak from the pressure. All of the children stopped playing. The lady raised an eyebrow. “Did I tell you to stop playing?” She asked them. They shook their heads. “No, Mama.” She reached into her pocket and brought out several pieces of candy. Extending her arm out, she offered it to the children. They were shy at first, but one of them was brave enough to risk it. After seeing that nothing happened to him, the rest of the children swarmed around her. Their smiles were back on their faces. She went back inside after finishing her cigarette. Acero took a squat on the street and ate his candy. He played with the aluminum wrapper, blowing on it to make noise. The other kids copied him. They all tried to harmonize and play a tune. Then, the children suddenly stopped playing their music, staring at something that was behind Acero. Before he could turn around and see what it was, he was pushed onto the ground, scraping his palms and knees on the dirty street. “Move it, kid,” a deep voice commanded. He looked up and saw two men enter the building. One of them had two swords strapped to the sides of his hips. Or, at least what he assumed to be swords, though he noted that there seemed to be parts missing from them. The other man was big, the biggest adult he had ever seen. “Kid,” he heard in the distance. “Hey, kid,” louder this time. “Kid, you okay? Breathe.” Acero opened his eyes and saw Narra’s scruffy face in front of him. He quickly sat up and took short, quick breaths. He was back in the workshop, on top of the dining table. Sola sat in her usual spot, leaning back with a wet and warm towel on her face. A radiating pain came from his forehead. He reached for it with his right hand. There was a large bump, but there wasn’t a wound, and nothing seemed to be fractured. To double-check that there was nothing wrong, he started counting to a hundred, then he recited the alphabet. Sola peeked through her towel and grinned. “You’re way too heavy now, man. I used to throw you around. Now, I can barely climb up a hill with you on my back,” she said, the tone of her voice had a hint of sadness to it. “What happened back there?” He got off the table. Narra threw a rag at his face and went back to working on his project in the other room. Acero started wiping his sweat off the table. “They said you were a summoner. Then, you bitched about something, and finally, bam! A big fucking sword appeared behind you, knocking you out cold. I thought you were a goner. It took like 8 people to get that thing off of you,” she covered her eyes with the towel again. “Oh, and I carried you back here. You owe me.” “So where’s the sword now?” He looked around. “Probably back at the tent in the same spot. No one’s moving that thing for free,” she scoffed. Acero sat down on the chair. The day was far from over, and he had already been attacked four times. And the last attacker was himself. He slumped into the chair with a confused look on his face. Sola threw her towel on the table and looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Are you seriously worrying about how you’re getting the sword here?” She asked. “Yeah, I don’t think it’s going to be cheap.” “Boy, I think the hit messed something up in there.” She stood up and acted like she was in a hurry. “We need to get you to the next town quickly and get your head checked. Because you’re saying stupid shit right now.” “Huh?” “You’re a Leveler now, dummy.” “Oh, right,” he said, standing up. He extended his arm out and concentrated, trying to remember what he did when he first summoned it. Sola sprinted to him and smacked his hand down. “You’re going to do it inside? You’ll blast a damn hole through our roof,” she sounded tired. “Yeah, I should probably do it out at the back,” he scratched his head. Narra peeked from the other room with a hammer in his hand. He glared at both of them. “No powers indoors,” his gravelly voice said. “Just leave it with the Awakeners for now. It’s not like they would move that thing anyway. Probably looks like a hunk of rusted trash to them,” she went up the stairs. “I’m turning in early today. All of that drained me,” she yawned. Acero decided that he should rest for the entire day as well; he didn’t want to get attacked for a fifth time that day. He went to his room and placed a temporary fix on his broken door, leaning a chair on it to keep it shut. He lay down on his bed, it was only the afternoon. Their neighbor, the blacksmith, was done for the day as well. The weather was nice, and his body was sore. With no more noise and Sola in bed, it was the perfect time for him to go to sleep.