Chapter 01: Broken Chains

San Rosario – 6:18 a.m., Monday morning

The screams of people and a gray light woke me up. Ripped me out of the only moment of the day where I have peace. I hate my life. It’s like this neighborhood never sleeps. Even late at night, you hear sounds you’d expect in broad daylight.

I sat up on my bed. The gray light cutting through my rusted metal window gave me stress and fear. Like it was there to remind me what kind of hell I live in. It lit up the damp stains on my bedroom walls. The air was heavy, filled with the smell of sewage and burnt metal.

The only thing keeping me going is my mother. She survived my father and his abuse. Even in this cursed city, she raised me, held on, always kept moving forward. I can’t—won’t—abandon her. I have to be strong, like she was, so that one day I can get her out of this nightmare.

I got up, determined to survive, no matter the punches life throws at me. I have to take it all—not for me, but for her. Because she did the same for me.

I got dressed quickly, threw on some wrinkled but clean clothes. I splashed water on my face, then headed for the door.

In the living room, I saw my mother lying on the bed. Her bedroom door was wide open, even though I always tell her to lock it at night. You never know who might come for you in a place like this. And here? Trouble walks on every corner.

I headed to her room. She was laying down. I closed the door behind me and left the apartment.

Outside, I took one last look at the building we call home: cracked façade, bent metal gate, water stains on the walls.

I walked to the workshop, two streets down. The buildings were stacked close together, covered in faded graffiti. The local gang, Los Rojos, had marked everything with their symbol: a skull with a scale in its mouth.

---

At the workshop

The boss was already waiting for me.

— “You’re late again, Mendoza. This ain’t a damn boarding school.”

I didn’t answer. I clenched my fists. Same insults every day. Same mocking stares. I could answer back. I could destroy him with a few well-placed words. Remind him I’m the one fixing the most complex engines, the one covering everyone else’s screw-ups.

But what’s the point?

I need this job. To pay for the meds. The electricity. The water. All the things this neighborhood doesn’t give for free.

---

12:42 p.m. – Lunch break

Sitting on a stack of tires, I ate a tuna sandwich. The bread was dry. My coworker, Marcos, joked around with the others like I wasn’t even there.

— “You hear? Los Rojos smoked a guy two blocks from here. Cops didn’t do shit. No surprise.”

— “The cops? They work with them, bro.”

I didn’t say a word. Just listened. Names, bits of info. I saw the connections others couldn’t.

> “I wish I could be like them, blind to all this hell. But I can’t.”

---

6:25 p.m. – Back home

The apartment was dead silent. I opened the door. The smell hit me—mold, medicine, old sweat, sewage. My mother hadn’t left the couch. She stared at the ceiling, eyes blank.

— “Mamá, you didn’t eat again?”

No answer.

I sighed, took off my shirt, handed her a reheated bowl of rice. She took it without a word. Her hands trembled. Her gaze stayed frozen.

I sat across from her, staring at the peeling walls. My father still haunted this place, even in death. Sometimes I still saw the blood. His empty eyes. The weight of the knife. The fear afterward.

Then… nothing. Just silence.

> “I survived a monster. But I never escaped his cage.”

---

9:37 p.m. – In bed

I lay down. The tears don’t come anymore. My body is drained, but my mind won’t stop.

> “I could’ve been something else. An engineer. A strategist. A damn brain on the right side of the war.”

> “But here, there is no 

right side. There are only chains… or those who forge them.”

---

End of Chapter 1