Adverse Childhood Experiences

The scenery rapidly switched when we stepped beyond the superficial peace of the main streets to the gloomy junkyard constructed of narrow pathways. Whatever the shades had conveniently hidden was now plain to see. I was right about the begging children.

When I thought about suffering in the abstract, it was so much less visceral. A sense of unease swirled past each of my organs only from witnessing a single scene of a proper person’s life unfolding, that of a malnourished kid burrowing in the pitiful embrace of their supposed mother. Both of them motionless as a statue, an image to be etched into my memory.

The smell was unbearable too. I didn’t know how much was from my imagination, but the odor brought to mind a cocktail of human waste, rotting organics, and a dry trace of ethanol. At least, this repulsive scent helped deter my sensation of hunger. I almost had the urge to vomit.

I couldn’t do anything in this state, only able to switch my attention to latch firmly onto Lyla, all to not accidentally empathize with any more strangers that would add to my mental burden. Yes, it was all for efficiency's sake, so I abandoned my train of thought here. I would not like the conclusion I would arrive at.

Lyla had put on her atrociously unprotective armor once again. I wouldn’t normally care what people choose to wear, but the flawed design of the armor was eating away at me. Despite all these potential dangers, I decided not to comment on it, since I had witnessed the inhuman level of healing Lyla had displayed. She had never given me an explanation of that, not surprising since she even refused to tell me why she came to this city.

However, before we set out on this search, Lyla did mention briefly that it was the Clarity spell that she used to calm my body. Her explanation skills were utterly awful though; when I asked for more details, she could only reply with a stupid look and vague comments like, “You need to understand it to use it.”

I almost wanted to ask Lyla to cast the spell on me again, for I did not want to experience the putrid surroundings as I was, but I couldn’t speak up. The guilt buried in my heart had stopped me in the last second every time I wanted to open my mouth. The human ability to adapt to any situation once again impressed me, as I felt my surging emotions calmed down, and objectivity grabbed hold of my thoughts.

The night had permeated the city, and lampposts were lit on the main street. The alleys became brighter because of the sparse lanterns overhead, perhaps appearing more illuminated than in the daytime because the temporary absence of the Sun leveled the light levels across the city.

With only my peripheral vision, I counted more beggars and vagrants than I expected, and most of them with minor signs of malnourishment. I thought the ones at the mouth of the alleys were the vast portion of them, since they might have wanted to attract the attention of any potential good-natured person from the main streets, but the number of them didn’t decrease by much as we entered deeper into the alley.

I felt their gaze on us, but since Lyla paraded her daggers sheathed at the sides of her belt, no one dared to bother us. Our plain, rustic outfits also helped to reassure them that there wasn’t anything to gain from attacking us.

Still, something was bothering me; despite all the risks associated with assaulting us, it would only take one desperate idiot to disregard that. Hunger melted away rationality, and with the uncertainty of one’s next meal looming at the back of the mind, dangerous options would become more attractive as desperation mounted.

“I think maybe we should leave this place after this,” I whispered to Lyla as we continued our stroll through the passage inhabited by tramps. “Judging by the sight here, I think that social unrest and riots aren’t that far off. People who don’t have their basic needs satisfied and have nothing to lose won’t care about consequences anymore.”

“We signed a contract, and they put a tracking spell on us. Escaping is worse for us than staying.” Lyla replied. Tracking spell? Great, so we are slaves. I was surprised that she could still sound so confident when she got us trapped in this messy situation.

“Why did you sign the contract? I know you’ve heard the unsavory rumors of this place.”

“Is it that bad?”

“Did you not hear what I said about the societal collapse?”

“What about it?”

I could seriously lose all my body energy just from talking to this person. Fortunately, my excuse to stop the idle chatter had come up, and the foreign thought I was waiting for finally appeared. Who are those two? They don’t seem like they are from here.

My strategy to find the kid was to loop around the alleys near the main street until I got a thought that evaluated the two of us. I assumed that my ability to form links was likely to have a range limit, because I didn’t want to entertain the possibility that there wasn’t one. I stopped and grabbed Lyla’s arm. Hopefully, she would understand the meaning of my sudden halt, given how clueless she was about everything.

My eyes scanned my surroundings, intending to get this over with as soon as possible, so I could enjoy my (probably disappointing) dinner. This spot was close to the main street; that said, in every direction, some tramps returned their gaze to me. The owner of those stray thoughts was difficult to pinpoint, even if I narrowed the suspects down to the children.

I made eye contact with each of them one by one, waiting for a response from the mysterious voice. All the while, I tried not to think about their appearances too much, so I could focus on the present task of finding the person I was linked to, not being distracted by the misery underlying each of their filthy faces.

Why did they stop? My target kept producing uninformative thoughts that only taunted me. My patience was running out, so I ended up resorting to desperate measures. “One, two, three…” I pointed at each child and counted them.

A puzzled look arose among the vagrants, but they were all too tired to respond. I also caught a glimpse of bafflement on Lyla’s face. After pointing through all the children, the invading thoughts didn’t shift to anything that could help me identify the person; instead, they merely commented on what an idiot I seemed. The voice characteristics provided little help; it sounded like it was from a little girl, but boys could sound feminine too.

The humiliating display didn’t produce the answer I desperately sought, and I could feel hunger surfacing again since I had gotten used to the foul smell drifting about. I was getting close to punching each brat one by one until I could hear the cries of pain that would end this annoying problem. While I was deliberating how appearing to be a ten-year-old can excuse me from beating up other kids, another external thought swept in and rendered my plans unnecessary.

There is no way he would notice me. This simple sentence brought me closer to locating the person of interest. It implied that the kid had a clear view of us, but we could not effortlessly detect their presence. Just where would they be?

I gave another scan of my environment, this time not focusing on the people, but the road and the walls, for any cracks or holes that could serve as a peephole for the mysterious observer. This fresh approach didn’t grant me any insight, but the same old fruitless return. Until an epiphany struck me, the simplest solution that should have come to me minutes earlier, so straightforward that I was mad at myself for realizing it this late, even this state of growing hunger couldn’t be an excuse for neglecting the obvious answer. I looked up.

On the second floor of one building that made up the confines of the alley, there was a small slab protruding from the wall. In the dim lighting of the place, I could still make out a figure lying on the ledge. Nothing else stuck out on the wall besides that lone platform, so I doubted they had a way to get down.

Does he see me? The voice questioned. That enquiry filled me with confidence that I had found the one I was desperately searching for.

“Do you need help?” I shouted.

The figure didn’t reply. Though their inner dialogue betrayed them, as I heard panic and distrust brewing in their private debate on whether they should trust me, interjected by waves of hunger crashing onto the shores of their thoughts.

“Lyla, is there a way to get them down?” I asked while pointing at the platform.

Lyla thought about it for a moment with a sincere expression, then casually suggested, “Shooting it?” The panic of the mysterious person intensified in their inner thoughts, but they still kept their silence.

“Will you even hit the target?” I replied instinctively when there was another, more outrageous implication to her statement.

Lyla frowned at my distrust of her ability and patted her chest with confidence. “This short distance isn’t a problem for me.” Somehow, I doubted it.

“Also, we don’t want to murder someone here on our first day. Do you want to rot in prison?”

While I was speaking, Lyla pulled out her bow and loaded an arrow, heedless of my warning. Then, she took aim at the shape. Her cheeks flushed as she pulled back the bowstring. Just how much did this girl want an excuse to shoot stuff?

I shoved Lyla’s arm to disrupt her aiming. She relaxed the bowstring and glared at me, as if I were the one in the wrong.

“Stop!” I said.

“You stop! You told me to get it down!”

“Not like this! You can’t just go around and shoot people.”

“People?” Lyla strained her eyes for a better look at the platform. Her eyes immediately widened, and her lips trembled as words barely got out. “I… I… almost killed that little boy. I almost shot him right in the eye!” I was actually more worried that her arrow would miss and accidentally hit an innocent vagrant. And might I add, she didn’t have any problem threatening me with her bow?

“How do you know that is a little boy?”

She narrowed her eyes in the most condescending way, acting like I was asking something entirely obvious. That look was so infuriating that I almost had an impulse to grab onto her quiver, but decided not to test her limits.

I did my best to put on an innocent face and imbue every word with sarcasm. “O’ dear sister of mine. Please explain this common knowledge to me, your ignorant little brother.”

Looked like Lyla didn’t detect my bitterness at all. Instead, she burst out laughing. “I guess humans couldn’t see in the dark as well as elves.” This statement sounded like it was designed to piss me off. Then what was that look about? And didn’t she think the boy was an object? But…

The elf perception system might work similarly to a human’s, which means the top-down prediction-based feature should also exist. What she expected to see will influence how her brain interprets ambiguous stimuli in such a dim environment; it made sense for an out-of-the-blue kid to be misinterpreted as something else.

“Was it that hard to believe that a person was up there? That’s why you thought the boy was an object, right?” I asked.

“Because even little children can easily leap off if they want to leave… Hmm… That place can also be a hiding place for the boy. I didn’t think of this…” She drifted into self-reflection. The chasm between us widened with every word she uttered. That platform was too high for a little kid to “easily leap off” of. Any normal kid would be frightened and huddle up in place, shouting for help instead of acting on their own. That reminded me of a question… Why didn’t he ask for help?

Then, I was immediately reminded of the environment we were in. A cold, shady column spoke of the wider social decline, where its despondent inhabitants lay with no expression. No one would help a kid in distress; more likely, he would be exploited instead in his moment of vulnerability. Lyla may have a point; even a kid in this plight would seek to get out of this situation on his own.

Regardless, I had to save him here. It was not entirely because of selfless motivations; of course, I was concerned about innocent children in trouble, but the reason I was so committed to rescuing this particular person was that his hunger was tormenting me all this time. His disordered thoughts were more manageable and easier to ignore. That hunger, though, was comparable to the loud bangs that despicable neighbors insisted on producing from midnight to sunrise.

“Lyla, can you get him down without shooting him?” I asked.

Lyla pouted (again) in a futile effort to guilt-trip me. “Just how horrible is your impression of me? That was a simple enough task for me.” She leaned into my ear for a whisper. “There is only one problem. How can I protect you while saving the child?” The background was so quiet that I was sure everyone across the alley heard her.

“I could wait on the main street.”

It didn’t take long for Lyla to scale the wall of the building through the side facing the main street, where windows and balconies served as handholds and footholds. I remembered her display of her agility when she climbed trees for a place to sleep. That brought up memories of being tied to trees at night, so I quickly dispersed my thoughts. All the while, a couple of soldiers gathered nearby out of concern of burglary, not that there was much to steal.

I explained the circumstances to them, leaving out the part where I was psychically linked to the kid. It wasn’t a good look as Lyla landed right on the spine of the kid when she dropped from the roof. The kid screamed in pain, both out loud and a hundred times more deafening in his mind. I even instinctively covered my ears, although that was ineffective in dampening the noise in my head. On the bright side, this showed that the kid’s vocal cords were working right, so maybe I could see this accident as revenge for his annoying silence.

When Lyla landed back on the ground with the kid in her arms, the guards dispersed before I even tried to make up some coherent explanation for her reckless actions. The kid didn’t resist, resting in Lyla’s arms like an oversized doll. His clear blue eyes flickered, wandering between states of wakefulness and unconsciousness. A grey flat cap struggled to hide his messy brown hair, with moderate success. His battered garments muttered silent words of their extended history and crude origins. Now that I looked at him, he appeared to be around twelve years old, which meant he was older than my apparent age. His body wasn’t too thin, so he shouldn’t be at risk of starving to death soon. Hydration, though, might be another issue.

His inner world expressed confusion and fear, but none of those sentiments made it out, only the minimal quivering that communicated a sign of life. And then, even those quieted down. I sensed something amiss, and right on cue, a current of hunger rose within me, an overwhelming pressure that threatened to engulf me again.

“Lyla, get him something to eat! Quick! Leave me!” I could only get this sentence out before dizziness blurred my vision and disrupted my balance. The world spun around me, and not long after, I lost my balance and fell.

My head hit the pavement, and I blacked out.