For two years, the city rotted.
The population had been cut in half. The Glass People—the merchants, the shopkeepers, the ones who thought they were safe—shattered first.
A quarter of them were dead. Starved. Or eaten.
The rage didn't grow loudly. It grew in silence.
In the dark corners of the taverns, where they served boiled leather instead of meat, a whisper started.
It wasn't spoken by the men. It was spoken by the Rats.
They spoke of a Leader. A shadow from the sewers. A King of the Filth.
They said he would take back the sun.
And so, the day came.
The City Square was empty, save for four soldiers. They stood by the fountain, which had been dry for months.
They were laughing, tossing a piece of bread between them, mocking a starving dog that watched them.
"Look at it," one soldier sneered. "Just like the citizens. Begging."
They didn't hear the footsteps.
Ruther stepped out of the alley. He wasn't hiding. He wasn't crawling. He was walking.
He wore a cloak made of stitched rags, but he wore it like royal velvet.
The soldiers turned. They saw a boy. A sixteen-year-old.
"Get lost, trash," the captain said, reaching for his sword.
He was too slow.
The only sound was the hiss of steel leaving a sheath.
Ruther didn't run. He flowed.
He grabbed the captain’s hair and slit the man’s throat before the man could finish drawing his blade.
The blood sprayed like a fountain, and the man made a sound like a drowning pig.
"Ambush!" the second soldier screamed.
He raised his shield, but he was looking at Ruther.
A shadow darted between his legs. Malik.
He was twelve years old now.
Malik slashed the soldier's hamstring, forcing him to his knees.
Before the man could beg, Malik drove his dagger into the soldier’s neck.
Malik.
He was twelve years old now.
Malik slashed his hamstring, making the soldier on his knees and driving his dagger to the soldier’s neck.
The third soldier turned to run. Ruther jumped on him finishing what he started.
The fourth soldier dropped his weapon. He fell to his knees. "Mercy! I am just following or—"
Malik slit his throat before he could finish the word.
Silence.
The square was painted red. The bread the soldiers had been tossing lay in a puddle of blood.
Windows opened. Eyes peeked out from the shattered shutters. They saw the bodies. They saw the blood.
They saw the boys.
Ruther walked to the fountain. He yanked his sword out of the dead man’s back.
He turned to the silent houses. He raised the bloody blade to the sun.
"I AM THE LEADER YOU HAVE BEEN WHISPERING FOR!" he roared.
His voice cracked like thunder in the dead square.
"YOU HAVE EATEN DUST!" Ruther screamed. "YOU HAVE EATEN FEAR!"
He pointed at the soggy bread in the blood.
"LOOK! THEY FEED THE DOGS WHILE YOUR CHILDREN STARVE!"
"THEY TOOK YOUR GOLD. THEY TOOK YOUR LAND. THEY TOOK YOUR SONS!"
A door opened. Then another. People stepped out into the light. Skinny, pale, broken people.
"WE WILL HAVE OUR GOLD!" Ruther chanted, starting the song.
"We will have our land!" Malik screamed back, his voice high and sharp.
The silence broke.
"OUR FATHERS ROT IN FEAR AND RUST!" a man shouted from a balcony.
"THEY ATE THE MUD; THEY ATE THE DUST!" a woman screamed from the street.
The city roared. It wasn't a cheer; it was an earthquake.
Men started running to him. Women grabbed hammers, kitchen knives, rocks.
It was an army of bones.
And they put their trust, their lives, and their future... in a sixteen-year-old boy whose beard hadn't even fully grown.
Ruther looked at the crowd.
Ruther looked at the crowd. "NO MORE!" he screamed.
"NO MORE BLOOD SPILLED FOR NOTHING!"
"WE DO NOT WAIT FOR DEATH!"
"TODAY, WE TAKE BACK OUR CITY!"
Ruther went down into the sewers. To his home. He called for five names.
"Andree." "Merk." "Leo." "Strang." "Shyn."
Ruther took a knife. He slashed his own palm.
He squeezed his fist, forcing the dark blood to flow into a dirty glass cup.
He handed the knife to Andree.
Andree did the same. Then Merk. Leo. Strang. Shyn. Six streams of blood mixed in the glass.
Ruther took the glass. The iron smell was thick. He drank a mouthful. He gave it to Andree. He drank. They passed it around until the glass was empty.
"Let us be brothers in blood," Ruther whispered, wiping his mouth. "As we are in the filth."
"We aren't 'filth', Ruther," Leo muttered.
Merk punched Leo softly on the chest. "You get his point. Don't break up the mood, Leo."
Shyn sighed, sitting down on the damp ground. "A bunch of kids. Drinking blood in a sewer. History will love this."
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"So," Andree said, crossing his arms. "What's next, Ruther?"
"We make these men into soldiers," Ruther said.
"Many of them have never held anything heavier than a spoon."
"They won't learn fast enough," Strang said.
"The King won't let us stay like this."
"I know," Ruther said. "That is why we do it in two weeks."
"TWO WEEKS?!" all five shouted at once.
"Damn," Strang shook his head. "He is starting to lose it."
"And how should we do that?" Andree asked.
"That is your job," Ruther said calmly. "Not mine. My job is to attack the soldier camps with The men you already have.”
“I will start cleaning the streets."
"And after that?" Shyn asked from the floor. " After we miraculously survive the next two weeks?"
Ruther looked up, toward the ceiling of the sewer, toward the castle far above.
"We take the castle."
Strang threw his hands up. "Okay. He has lost it. No doubt now."
Andree rubbed his face. "Ruther, I will fight with you until I can't hold a sword. But I won't do it for madness."
"Yeah, Ruther," Shyn said. "The count of the men we have who can fight? 2,000 at max. And most of them are street kids."
"Even if we make the people of this city soldiers in two weeks," Leo argued, "we can't make them fight to their death against trained killers."
Ruther looked at them. "How many are the soldiers of the castle?"
"Our lookouts say 50,000," Andree said.
"And how many people does this city have?" Ruther roared.
"60,000... at best."
"Good enough."
Leo shook his head. "But if we take them in a direct assault? We are going to be massacred."
"Don't they have sewers?" Ruther asked.
They nodded.
"Then we attack from there."
"60,000 people going through sewers?" Strang scoffed. "What a dream. You know we can't march like that."
"Who said 60,000?" Ruther smiled. "Only 10,000."
Merk laughed. "You want to take a whole castle... that 70,000 soldiers of the Fire Realm couldn't take... with 10,000 sewer rats? I am starting to believe you, Ruther."
Ruther stepped into the circle. "Didn't we walk to death together?"
"Didn't we kill soldiers when we were shorter than their legs?"
"Didn't we make the King feel fear in his own castle when we were kids?"
He looked each of them in the eye. "Then why do you fear it this time? Death was always the biggest probability. So why is it different now?"
Leo paused. "... He has a point, to be honest."
"If we have to die," Merk shrugged, "I would die fighting. So why not?"
"For the Glass World," Shyn said.
"For the blood of my family," Strang added.
"For every drop of blood that was taken from us," Andree finished.
"Let us make the ground drink their blood!" Ruther shouted.
"Let their heads be toys that the kids play with!" They roared in agreement.
"Ruther!" A voice shouted from the next room. It was the Princess. "Come and taste this."
The roar died instantly.
"I am in the middle of a war council!" Ruther shouted back.
"I don't care. The water is boiling."
Ruther sighed. He looked at his generals. "Sorry."
All five generals raised their thumbs, grinning like idiots. "Go, good husband."
"You sons of—"
"RUTHER!"
"Coming!"
He walked into the kitchen. It smelled of wet earth and boiled weeds.
He looked at her. "I was giving a good speech, you know. I had them ready to weep."
"Yeah," the Princess said, handing him a rusted knife. "That speech won't fill their bellies."
She looked at him, brushing a smudge of dirt from his cheek. "I married the man who kidnapped me because he was a man. Not a windbag."
She pointed at the cutting board. On it lay three gnarly, black roots covered in mud.
"So cut the roots," she ordered. "While you stand there, 'Man'."
Ruther sighed. And he cut the roots.
"You didn't marry me because I was just a 'man'," Ruther said, leaning against the counter.
"You married me because I broke your glass cage. That's why you love me."
"Yeah, that too," the Princess smiled, skinning a rat. "Should I add the rat meat to the soup?"
Ruther sighed. "You always know how to humble me, Type 3."
She kissed his cheek. "Yeah. I always knew how to do that, Type 0.”
“But... I love that Type 0, don't I?"
He sighed.
The seven of them sat down. They had some soup together with the rat meat.
For a few seconds, Ruther just watched them. He saw Merk standing up to beat Leo for stealing crumb.
He saw Shyn shaking his head in disappointment.
He saw Andree slapping his own forehead, muttering, "Stupid."
He saw Strang, ignoring the chaos, just eating his soup and thanking the Princess for the food, before jumping in to pull Merk and Leo apart.
For seconds, Ruther teared up. He was laughing, but the tears were real. Those seconds felt like they hung in the clouds for a lifetime.
But seconds are fast. He wiped his eyes. The laughter died down. The bowls were empty.
And so... the work began.
The work started. Ruther took the street kids and attacked the camps, leading men who could finally handle a sword.
They burned. They massacred. It was starting to show that they were preparing for war.
"Warchief!" A soldier came running into the command tent.
"What happened, soldier?"
"The street kids. They are back."
"Perfect," the Warchief sneered. "Then we can kill them."
"But... they aren't alone. The city has joined them."
The Warchief stood up. "What? So the rumors were true." He drew his sword. "Massacre them. Everyone who is in the street... should be killed."
They started doing that. Or they tried. But the people were ready.
The civilians killed soldiers left and right. They took their bodies as war banners. They took their heads as toys for the kids.
In those streets, blood of the soldiers became the cheapest thing.
Two weeks passed. The men became soldiers. Ruther walked to Leo. "Report, Leo."
"I don't know how," Leo said, wiping sweat from his brow, "but it was a success. They are ready."
"Great. That is why you are the 'Great Leo'."
"Shut up, Ruther."
Ruther smiled. "Anyway. We are taking the castle tomorrow."
Leo froze. "No siege equipment," he sang, sarcastically. "We can't break the walls."
"And where did you think I have been?" Merk said, walking in, smelling of soot and iron.
"Haa?" Leo asked.
"We took the Blacksmiths, Leo," Shyn said, grinning and tapping a rolled blueprint. "While you were training men, we were forging steel. We made rams. We made ladders."
Leo looked around. "Armor?"
"We made some too," Strang said, pointing to a stack of freshly forged breastplates in the corner. "Crude, but it stops a sword."
Leo shook his head, smiling in disbelief. "Then... we are taking the castle. For real."
"Everyone has played their role perfectly, Leo," Andree said. "But we didn't tell each other. For secrecy."
"We are going to mash them," Ruther said. "Like roaches."
"Ruther!" Strang groaned. "Don't mention roaches. I just ate one."
They laughed. The sound echoed in the sewers. "We are taking this castle," Ruther said. "Together." They roared.
And the day came. Men said goodbye to their wives, knowing that death was the biggest probability. But no one cared.
"Dad!" A kid shouted, running to the door. "You aren't leaving, right?"
The man shook his head. He knelt down. "I have to, son."
"You don't have to leave me! The others can go, but you don't need to!"
"Look at me, son," the father said, his voice steady. "I may not come again. But look at your father. Wearing armor. Fighting for your land." He gestured to the street outside, filled with marching feet.
"Everyone paid the price. So, who am I not to?"
He grabbed his son's shoulders. "The day will come when you can say in the street that 'I am from the Glass World.' And no one will kill you for saying it. No one will make you a slave for saying it."
The man stood up and walked out the door. The kid ran after him, but his mother stopped him, holding him back. "DAD! DAD!" And he was gone. Swallowed by the army.
The men gathered. 60,000 men filled the city streets, ready to take the Castle of the War chief. To take the castle that took their lives for so many years.
"Damn.” Leo whispered, looking at the sea of people.
"Yeah," Merk said. "That is a lot."
"But today," Andree added, his hand on his sword,
"They are soldiers. Today... we take what was taken from us."
***
"And you think it’s cool?" Loren asked, kicking at a tuft of grass.
"What is?"
"Me. Coming over."
Alan sighed, tracing the lines on his palm with his thumb. He didn't look up. "My parents are gone for the night. So... yeah. You can come over."
"Let’s go then."
Alan didn't move. "Isn't it weird? Just us?"
"I don’t really care."
"Right. Not like you have a waiting list of other friends to visit."
Loren stopped walking. "Okay, that actually hurt."
Alan sat hunched over, his forehead resting against his knees.
"Hey. What's going on, Alan? Nervous?"
"Yeah. A bit, Shyn."
"Of course you are. We’re heading into a war." Shyn said, his gaze drifting to the small photo in Alan's hand. "Your wife?"
"Yeah."
"Then you have a reason to go back home. So, fight."
Alan leaned his head back against the wall, exhaling sharply. "Do you think we will win? Is it actually possible?"
"Alan, look at you. You’re twenty-one. I’m seventeen, and I’m your leader."
Alan chuckled, nodding slowly. "Maybe you’re right."
Shyn handed him the bow.
"Go on. The war won't wait for us."
"Sounds like you're living in a love story." Shyn said walking out of the alley.
"Yeah, it was quite something you would read from a book."
"Well actually I love stories, but as you can see the battlefield won't let us have it."
Alan saw thousands of men standing, waiting for the Ruther to come.
And maybe at that moment he wanted some peace so his mind gave him that.
"Welcome home miss, it's small but it's comfy."
"Well thank you mister, but you make it sound like I live in a palace."
Alan chuckled, tracing a circle with his toe.
"So?" Loren said.
Alan looked at her, "Cards?"
"Good enough."
***
Ruther stepped onto the platform. His hands moved through his long hair that touched his shoulder.
He gathered his breath. The silence spread like a wave.
"TODAY!" Ruther roared. "WE AREN'T SLAVES!"
"TODAY, WE ATTACK AS MEN!"
"TODAY, WE WILL NOT LICK THE GROUND FOR BREAD! WE TAKE THE BREAD FROM THEIR HANDS!"
The army roared, shaking the windows of the city.
"LET US MAKE A FUTURE FOR OUR CHILDREN!"
"LET US KILL THOSE WHO ENSLAVED US!"
They roared again. And the ocean of men started moving. Forward. Toward the castle.
but Alan wasn't with him.
***
"I lost again," Alan said.
"Are you sure you know how to play this?"
"Yeah, but damn your luck."
"It's not luck,"...it's called skill," she said, flipping her hair playfully.
She reached for the deck, but her sleeve rode up, revealing a dark purple mark on her wrist. She yanked the fabric back down instantly. Alan stared at her arm.
"Why did you want to come here, Loren?"
Loren went still. "I don't know."
"Did your father beat you again?"
"No, it's just..." She sighed. "I don't know. I just feel safer here."
"You know your father will be worried about you."
"I know but I don't care."
"You know your mother would kill us if she found us together like this."
"Yes. But..."
Alan watched her discard a card, his eyes tracing the bruise she tried to hide with her sleeve.
"Why do you feel safe with me Loren?"
She didn't answer for a moment she looked at him, and she bit her lips.
"It's just a feeling i got when you are around."
"I'm not invincible, Loren. Last time your mother caught us..." He touched the faint scar above his eyebrow, flinching at the memory. "I bled for three days."
"You took it for me," she whispered.
"But we can't be like this forever, the people have tongues."
"They say what they say i don't care."
"You should care. If they ruin your name, you'll never get out of that house. You'll be stuck with your father forever."
"So, you want me to leave Alan?"
"I need to know what we're doing here, Loren. What am I to you, Loren.”
"God, you're so stupid. Why can't you see it?" Alan didn't answer. He just looked at her.
"I'm leaving, Alan. Forget I was here."
Alan stood up, reaching for her. "Wait—"
As his fingers brushed her arm, she flinched, ripping herself away and stumbling back. Her eyes went wide, staring at his hand like it was a weapon.
Silence stretched between them.
"I..." Loren’s voice shook. "I didn't mean to... I know you aren't him."
Alan pulled his hand back slowly, holding it against his chest. "I'm sorry.”
“Let me walk you home.” Alan said, she nodded.
They walked through the streets. Eyes watched them. Whispers followed them. They arrived at her door.
A bottle smashed against the wall inches from Alan’s head.
The door flew open. Her father stood there, a giant smelling of cheap ale.
"Didn’t I tell you to get away from my daughter!"
He didn't wait. He grabbed Alan by the throat. Alan clawed at the man’s arms, but it was like fighting a bear. His vision started to fade. Black spots danced in his eyes.
Another bottle shattered—this time on the father’s head. His grip loosened. Loren stood there, holding the broken neck of a bottle, shivering.
"Run!" she screamed.
She grabbed Alan’s arm. They didn't look back until they collapsed in a dark alley, gasping for air.
Alan looked at her. She was terrified. She was broken. He hugged her tight.
"I want to marry you, Loren," he whispered into her hair. "Let us escape this hell together."
He kissed her forehead. It held years of mud and bruises, but they couldn't hide her beauty.
***
And then Alan smiled but not at Loren’s memory it was at the battlefield.
The marching was music. The rhythm of death.
Everyone held a sword—steel that, a month ago, would have been a dream. Now, it was a tool.
Ruther didn't speak. He signaled. Andree nodded.
He took ten thousand men and peeled off, vanishing into the side streets. The flank.
Merk and Leo took the wings, spreading the line wide to surround the gate.
Shyn raised his bow. Behind him, thousands of archers nocked their arrows.
Strang held the back, organizing the reserves.
The Warchief stepped out onto the castle walls. He used half of his energy to amplify his voice, booming over the city.
"YOU SLAVES!" he roared. "YOU COME HERE TODAY TO BE MASSACRED?!"
He pointed a massive sword at them. "THE ARMIES OF THE SUN REALM COULD TAKE NOTHING FROM US! THEY BROKE AGAINST THESE WALLS! AND THE SAME WILL HAPPEN TO YOU, RATS!"
"WE AREN'T SLAVES!" Ruther shouted back. "WE ARE THE MEN OF THE GLASS WORLD!"
He raised his sword. "AND IF YOU DON'T GIVE US OUR FREEDOM... WE WILL CUT OFF YOUR HAND AND TAKE IT!"
The army roared. They didn't just shout. They bashed their swords against their shields. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.
Roaring. Roaring for the blood. Roaring for the heads. Roaring for everything they had lost.
Ruther raised his hand. The banging stopped. Instant silence. He dropped his hand forward.
"MOVE."
War isn't beautiful. Take it as a warning, or take it as advice.
Ghouls. And if you ask what is the difference between Ghosts and Ghouls?
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Ghosts: That's normal English.
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Ghouls: That's Premium English. Just that.