Chapter 1: Who are you?

At night in a certain city. The air was filled with the honking of vehicles in traffic, the drivers were getting cranky at being unable to reach homes in time for dinner and they retaliated by honking their horns loudly. The chattering of the pedestrians could also be heard as some of them were making fun of the unfortunate motorists stuck in traffic, others were engaging in idle chatter and doing their own things, these two groups of people combined with the noise from the motorists created an atmosphere that was befitting of such a large city.

Admist the lively atmosphere of the city, a man stood unnoticed at the top one of the street's largest buildings. How he got up there would remain a mystery.

"Damn it all. I am about to kill myself and no body in the entire city gives a damn. This is all too f*cked up. I wanna be noticed damn it!" The man thought out loud, but even with all his shouts his voice never reached the crowd below.

The man on top of the building was a twenty nine year old man, his name was Mark. He disowned his surname from a young age, and by now he had long forgotten about it. He had blonde hair and blue eyes, but his hair was rumpled and his eyes were like that of a zombie, totally devoid of life. Even though he was relatively young, his skin has wrinkles and his face was covered in scars.

"Screw it all, my life is worth little more than shit to the bastards who know me, and even less to those who don't! That's why I wanna kill myself, but are you seriously telling me that nobody cares enough to spot a man standing dangerously close to the edge of a building with unknown intentions?

Aren't they supposed to call the news while posting the shit on social media! Aren't police officers supposed to be rushing to my side trying to dissuade me! What the hell is wrong with me and my perpetual bad luck!" Mark kept on shouting but most people still didn't notice him, the ones who did either didn't care enough to point it out or they thought he was a mad man and deemed it better for him to die painlessly by jumping off a fifteen story building.

"I'm gonna do it! I am gonna jump!" Mark said to himself. He had strengthened his resolve before coming here and had no qualms with jumping from such a height, given his situation, but the fact that nobody paid any attention to him even then irked him.

"I'll do this, my life has been screwed from the very beginning. I don't have any attachments to this world, I'll do this!". He kept on shouting to himself, he closed his eyes and was about to go for the jump when he heard a person's voice. The voice didn't belong to him.

"Hey do you mind, I'm trying to take a break here". Said the unknown speaker.

Mark quickly whipped his head to the side and noticed another man, he was in his early twenties but he looked just as old as mark.

He had dark circles under his eyes which signified a lack of proper sleep, he was still young but his face already had wrinkles and his youth had almost been completely drained away from his body. He was a typical contracted office worker, doing his best and more just to keep his job all the while earning a meager salary which was barely enough to put food on the table.

He had an exasperated expression, he had obviously gone to hell and back courtesy of his department head and other superiors. He didn't even care that someone was attempting suicide right beside him and just depressingly ate his snack bar.

"Wow, I heard that those big corporations treated their workers badly, but this is....." Mark said.

"Oh you ain't seen nothing". The second man replied.

"..."

"..."

There was an awkward silence as neither men said anything for a long time, Mark decided to break the ice by initiating a conversation.

"I've gone through way worse than you though.."

"Excuse me?" The second man said. It seemed that Mark had struck a nerve by comparing his misfortune to the other man's, and a very..... peculiar argument ensued.

"You have no idea how it feels to be forced to work in this screwed up company. The boss wanted to make this a family business so he occupied all the company's important seats with his goddamn family members, most of which are even as young as me and I'm twenty two goddamnit! The other old geazers got furious at this, but none of them had the nerve to question the boss' decisions so you know what they did?" The second man didn't even wait for an answer before he added.

"They passed down their frustrations to their subordinates, who in turn passed down their's to the bottom feeders like my self! Now, we're forced to work overtime for the stupidest reasons and any slight error even if it was one person made a mistake with their latte then all of us have to suffer for it.

You won't believe how many people have gotten laid off due to the dumbest mistakes and you don't have even the slightest idea of how hard it is to be juggling work alongside trying to not get on the higher-ups bad side!

The only exceptions are the company's hot girls, but guys like me are doomed to suffer under the old bastards with over sized sticks up their a*ses! And before you ask, we HAVE reported them to the appropriate authorities, but our pleas fell on deaf ears and the dude that instigated the entire thing got fired the next day!

It's times like this that I wish I listened to my parents, they kept on telling me to focus on my studies and become a medical doctor but I refused and look where that got me! My contract ends in a few months but I might not even be alive by then, these bastards would have killed me with work! Even as we speak, I have loads of uncompleted work to do, courtesy of those old geazers. I don't even have the time to think about suicide!!"

"...."

"Even after hearing all this, do you still think you're worse off than me? Do you, huh?!"

"Hmm. I do"

"Pardon?"

"I said my life is worse than even that!"

"Eh! That ain't possible!". The second man argued.

"Oh you really think so! My life is at least ten, no, a hundred times more f*cked up than that!!"

"Prove it". The second man refused to believe Mark's claim, but he was in for a shock when Mark actually started talking.

"For starters, I was an only child born in a dysfunctional home. My mother was a prostitute, while my father was a medical doctor upfront but a gambler on the side. He studied medicine and his salary was pretty good, but instead of using that money to take care of his dear family he would go out and gamble it the f*CK away!

My mom was a freaking slut, she wouldn't spend three hours at home before she disappears and when she does, she doesn't come back till the next god damn day! I grew up in solitude.

When the hospital found out that one of it's workers was a freaking gambler, they decided to fire him but unfortunately for ME the old man had already developed and addiction and started borrowing from the bank to play his stupid games and he started racking up a huge debt. When my dad lost his job, my mom also got the bright idea to divorce, and then she got remarried to a goddamn mafia boss. My dad got depressed and he thought it an 'oh so wonderful' idea to wash his sorrows away by gambling some more, he racked up an even greater debt and in a year after the divorce, he was owing not just the bank but also some shady dealers huge sums of that went up to six zeroes!

The people he was owing pressured him and then he decided to take his own f*cking life, dropping all that debt on my head like a goddamn life grenade! The law protected me from the bank since I was barely twelve then, but there was little they could do against the mafia and other shady dealers my dad screwed with. I got kidnapped by one of them and was forced to work as a child prostitute. I spent the next three years 'learning the ropes' and by the time I reached fifteen, I was forced to work as a full blown male prostitute in one of their hostess bars!!!" Mark stopped for some time to catch his breath as he spoke in a 'not so solemn' tone. Instead of acting all sad and depressed while telling his sob story, he shouted and cursed continuously in a manner that screamed 'f*CK the world'.

The second man's mouth was already slightly ajar, his eyes wide in pure shock. Noticing his expression, Mark said:

"Oh, you ain't seen nothing yet, I'm just getting started! The story only gets even more depressing from here on out! My life as a male prostitute was sh*t, the only customers that we got where either averagely pretty girls with an extra large stick up their a*sholes or walking abominations wearing make up and carrying fancy handbags.

My situation was more like human trafficking and as such, the customers were allowed to do anything they liked to me!"

At this juncture, the second man already had his hand covering his mouth as he shook his head sadly. He truly pitied the Mark who was already pulling out his hair while recounting the events of his past.

"You hear that, they were allowed to use me in any way they damn pleased, they f*cked me up seriously! Just because your daddy can afford more expensive cars than most doesn't mean you get to use a human like a walking s*x toy. Those bitches abused me hard and anytime I retaliated, I won my self a major a*s whopping from the bosses right after the customer left!"

"I am sorry for your-". The second person wanted to say something, but was cut off.

"That isn't all! There was only so much to be earned from a hostess bar so they also sent me out to fight for them without any proper training. I was forced to get entangled in fights between various underground factions and god knows how many times I got my ass kicked. After they noticed my horrible talent for fighting, they made me keep working as a freaking prostitute! The business eventually got busted, but by then I was already twenty one years old! And you know what that means? no more law to protect me, that's what. The bank and the rest of those shady dealers started coming after me for their money, they couldn't go after my mom since she was being protected by a powerful entity in the underworld!!

The bank gave me an ultimatum of five years to pay up, while the other guys were even less generous. Luckily though, I had some savings from the entire prostitution thing and coupled with the cash I made from selling a few of my organs, I made enough to pay up the bank and most of my debt. But I had nothing left and the other guys weren't very welcoming of that information, they beat the living sh*t out of me time and time again. I tried reporting to the police but that instantly backfired and I earned myself an even harder a*s whopping for all the 'hassle' I caused my oppressors. Those bastards gave me the beating of my life and put so many scars all over me". Mark said while pointing to the numerous scars on his face and arms, even taking off his shirt to show a larger one across his back before continuing again.

"After countless begging and bootlicking, I managed to get a job as the janitor of J high school. I was ecstatic since I would be able to pay off my dues, the pay was strangely high, but when I resumed for work I realized why. Starting work in that sh*thole was one of the worst mistakes of my life, the kids there were literal demons. They littered the floors just to piss me off, some of them even taking the liberty to beat cr*p out of me, and when I tried reporting sh*t to the principal, all that old bastard did was give the students a light warning and you know what they did afterwards?". Mark asked, leaning towards his partner for an answer.

"T-they beat you even harder?" The man responded.

"Exactly! Those little demons kept on beating shit out me and there was nothing I could do about it. It was quite a prestigious school and the student's parents were all big shots, I couldn't afford to piss off more important people by harming their kids. But alas, lady luck was never on my side!"

"What happened?" Asked the other guy, by now he was already invested in Mark's story forgetting all about work.

"It was when I walked in on two f*ckers having a passionate afternoon in the school storage room. I chased them away, and you know what those two little f*cktards did? They reported me to their parents, wrongfully accusing me of forcing myself on the girl and beating up the guy when he tried to rescue her!"

"What the hell! That's screwed up. Didn't you at least try to defend yourself?"

"I did. But unfortunately, there were no cameras in the storage room so it was a janitor's words against a congressman and a renowned fashion model. It was quite obvious who the principal believed. He wanted to fire me but the two students played the saint by pleading on my behalf, the action drove the final nail into my credibility all the while promoting theirs! I kept my job but my salary was reduced by half. I couldn't meet up to the dues and earned myself even more beatings. I have been working in that place ever since, but my debts just kept increasing! I got kicked out of my house due to the very same reason and the other bastards I'm owing sent me a note threatening to kill me if I didn't pay up fully by tomorrow! I'd rather take my chances at suicide than allowing myself to be tortured to death by those motherf*ckers!!" Mark finally finished his story, but he was panting furiously like someone who had just run a marathon.

"So what do you think? I am probably the most unfortunate man alive, dammit!" Mark said.

There was a long silence, the other person was now leaning on the rail while looking forward at the city with calm eyes.

"Hey...you..". Mark said as he studied the young man.

His atmosphere had completely changed from back then, it was like he had suddenly become a completely different person, it was a change that Mark with his usual perceptiveness didn't miss. More like he couldn't miss such a noticeable change.

Squinting his eyes suspiciously, he asked the question that weighed on his mind.

"Who are you?" Mark asked, his expression turning cold.