CHAPTER 188: CHAPTER 188: A CHILD IN THE ASHES

Before the conquest, Paris was all that Adrien had ever known. He was born and raised in a small house located in a narrow alley near the artisan quarter. His family wasn’t wealthy, but they were happy. His mother, a gentle woman with warm eyes, often baked fresh bread whose aroma filled their modest home. His father worked in a nearby forge, returning each evening with funny stories and hands blackened by soot and metal.

Adrien attended the neighborhood school, where he learned to read, to count, but most importantly to dream. He loved playing with his friends after class, running through the cobblestone streets, hiding behind the trees in the nearby park. He remembered with nostalgia those sunny afternoons, the clear laughter of his classmates resonating joyfully under the blue sky of the city.

Everything changed the day Paris’s sky suddenly darkened.

He was fourteen when the dragon invasion struck without warning. He still remembered every detail of that fateful morning: the alarm cries, the terrifying rumble that shook the ground beneath his feet, the sky tearing apart under the monstrous wings of dragons that emerged by the hundreds, darkening the horizon like a living storm.

At first, Adrien had remained frozen with fear, unable to understand what was happening to his so peaceful world. Then, chaos became total: the panicked screams of the inhabitants, houses collapsing in flames, the monstrous silhouettes of dragons descending upon the city like nightmares come to life.

In the confusion, Adrien had lost his parents. He found himself alone in the burning street, eyes wide with terror, desperately searching for his mother’s reassuring face or his father’s brave gaze.

But he found no one. No one other than the dragons.

He was captured almost immediately. A clawed hand seized him violently by the collar, lifting him from the ground like a rag doll. He screamed, struggled, but his efforts were useless against the crushing force of his captor. The dragon’s hoarse voice still echoed in his ears:

— "Stop screaming, human vermin. Your destiny is now ours."

They had thrown him brutally into a metal cage with other captives, all haggard, all terrified. The journey to the detention camp had been atrocious, without food, without water, only the desperate cries of other prisoners and the constant pain of his handcuffed wrists.

When they finally reached the camp, Adrien discovered total horror: an immense barracks surrounded by high barbed walls and constantly watched by armored dragons, their cold gazes charged with contempt and hatred.

He was quickly separated from the other prisoners, grouped with those considered fit for forced labor. He soon discovered what being a slave really meant.

Each morning, before dawn, the dragon guards woke them brutally, pushing them out of the barracks with savage cries and violent blows. Adrien would never forget the sound of the whip cracking in the air, tearing the skin of those who dared to lag behind, the screams of pain that followed, and the cruel, satisfied look of the dragon holding the lash.

From the first days, Adrien understood that any weakness was unforgivable. The working hours were endless, exhausting. He spent his days carrying heavy stones to rebuild buildings according to the dragons’ brutal tastes, or digging endless trenches under the vigilant and threatening gaze of his torturers.

Each day was a battle to survive. His young adolescent body was at the end of its strength, his hands covered with bloody blisters, his legs trembling under the constant weight of the stones he carried.

When evening came, Adrien returned to the barracks, exhausted, starving, but unable to find sleep. The muffled cries of pain and discrete sobs of his companions in misfortune constantly echoed in the darkness of the overcrowded dormitory. Fear, pain, and hunger had become his only faithful companions.

One evening, when he was particularly slow to reach his place in the barracks, he felt the guard’s whip fall cruelly on his back. The pain was immediate, burning, atrocious, making him fall to his knees, tears in his eyes.

— "Get up, dirty human!" roared the dragon, without mercy. "You’re only good for working or dying."

Adrien got up slowly, painfully, swallowing his tears, his frail body trembling with pain and exhaustion.

That evening, lying on his rudimentary bed, he stared at the dark ceiling of the barracks with empty eyes, his thoughts swirling in his head.

— "Why... why did all this happen to us?" he murmured softly, without expecting an answer.

The life he knew had become a distant memory, almost unreal. His parents, his warm home, his friends... everything had been torn from him in an instant of pure violence. All that remained now was suffering, pain, constant fear, and this persistent sensation of being broken, emptied of all strength, of all life.

In his dark gaze, the light of innocence and childhood had disappeared. At fourteen, Adrien had seen more pain, horror, and despair than most adults could imagine in an entire lifetime.

However, deep in his heart, beneath the layers of anguish and pain, a small spark remained. A weak spark, almost extinguished, but which persisted despite everything: the tiny hope of seeing his family again one day, of seeing Paris free, of living again, simply.

He slowly closed his eyes, trying to hold onto this minuscule spark that seemed nonetheless about to extinguish at any moment.

Then, a gentle and reassuring voice, like a discrete whisper in his mind, reminded him of what his mother had always told him when he was sad or discouraged:

— "As long as you’re alive, Adrien, there is hope."

Days passed, gradually transforming into weeks. Adrien’s daily life was now nothing more than a merciless repetition of atrocities and exhaustion. Each morning, the brutal cries of the dragons violently pulled him from a restless sleep, each night, the constant pain and cruel memories prevented him from sinking into restorative sleep.

The boy he once was seemed to belong to another life, a distant and almost unreal life. Adrien could barely recognize himself when he accidentally caught his reflection in the muddy puddles of the camp. His childish features were now emaciated, his once lively eyes were dull and haunted by constant pain. His body had become thin, his arms and legs covered with scars and bruises inflicted by the whip or forced labor.

Each day had become an immense challenge to overcome. The weight of the stones seemed increasingly heavy on his frail shoulders, and his hands trembled constantly, his damaged fingers unable to correctly execute the tasks demanded by his torturers. His growing weakness constantly earned him violent blows from the dragon guards, their cries of contempt, their incessant insults.

His mind slowly began to sink into a sort of strange numbness, a semi-awakened state where reality mixed with imagination, where illusion sometimes became more real than the terrifying world surrounding him.

Each night, lying on the soiled straw of his barracks, Adrien remained awake, unable to close his eyes without immediately seeing again the faces deformed by the dragons’ hatred. His breathing became rapid, panting, each rustling in the darkness making him fear a new blow, a new humiliation.

But, in these moments of absolute terror, an idea slowly crept into his exhausted mind: a crazy, impossible dream, but so sweet that he clung to it desperately to avoid sinking definitively.

He imagined each night, with an almost sickly precision, that a hole would suddenly appear in the cold and dusty earth under his bed. A secret hole, invisible to the dragons, a passage to freedom, to deliverance, to a place where pain would no longer exist.

This idea became an obsession. Adrien clung to it each evening, plunged into it with feverish intensity, his imagination detailing precisely each aspect of this miraculous hole: its mysterious depth, its reassuring darkness, its welcoming silence. He imagined himself crawling into it, slowly descending, leaving this atrocious world to finally breathe freely again.

Some nights, exhausted to the extreme, Adrien even began to see this hole actually appear before him, in the oppressive twilight of the barracks. He stared at it, hypnotized, firmly believing in its existence for a few precious moments, before realizing that it was only a hallucination.

Each time he realized it, he felt a stinging pain in his chest, a disappointment so deep that it made him sob silently, his heart broken by the cruel absence of this passage to freedom.

To punish himself for believing in this illusion, Adrien pinched his arm violently each time the hole appeared, desperately trying to anchor himself in reality, even if it was unbearable. The painful pinch generally sufficed to dispel the hallucination, but it also cruelly reminded him that his dream was only a fleeting, ephemeral, cruel illusion.

Yet, night after night, Adrien continued to hope in silence. He knew he was crazy to cling thus to such an impossibility, but he had nothing else left. This imaginary hole had become his only mental escape, his only source of hope, however tenuous and illusory it might be.

One night, as he was lying as usual, eyes wide open, staring at the dark ceiling, the silence around him became almost palpable, strange, unreal. Suddenly, his heart accelerated: slowly, precisely in the center of the floor before him, he saw the hole appear again.

His heart clenched painfully. He closed his eyes, convinced that the hole would disappear as it had each time before. But when he reopened his eyes, his heart missed a beat: the hole was still there, black, deep, real.

With a trembling hand, Adrien pinched his arm violently. A sharp pain shot through his body, but this time, the hole did not disappear. It remained, perfectly clear before him, like a silent promise, like an impossible reality suddenly become tangible.

Short of breath, he sat up slowly, staring fixedly at this mysterious hole that seemed to attract him irresistibly. He placed his bare feet on the cold and dusty floor, his heart beating so hard that he thought it would explode in his chest.

One step after another, slowly, he approached the hole, his knees trembling. Each step seemed unreal, like in a waking dream. He could almost feel the cool and comforting void of the passage calling him, promising him a refuge far from the daily horror of the camp.

But as he approached, suddenly, two eyes slowly appeared at the bottom of the dark hole. Two orange pupils, bright, strangely reassuring despite their almost supernatural intensity. Adrien froze immediately, both frightened and fascinated, his breath cut by this unexpected apparition.

Then, a calm, deep, almost warm voice resonated softly from the depths of the secret passage:

— "Hello, my boy. Would you like to take a ride?"

Adrien remained perfectly still, unable to move, unable even to respond. He stared at these orange eyes with total disbelief, a gleam of mad hope suddenly shining deep in his dull eyes.

Was this still a hallucination, a cruel illusion created by his exhausted and desperate mind?

But this time, he instinctively felt it was different. The voice was too real, too gentle, too reassuring to be just a simple invention of his tormented imagination.

The hole was there, real and solid, just like this voice, just like these strange and bright eyes that seemed to wait for him patiently, without any apparent threat.

Adrien slowly extended his hand toward the hole, hesitating, but deeply attracted by this unexpected promise of a real escape.

His heart was beating so hard that each pulse resonated in his ears, but he was no longer afraid. For the first time since the conquest, Adrien felt something he thought he had lost definitively: true, powerful, undeniable hope.

And slowly, very slowly, he murmured with a trembling voice but filled with new determination:

— "Yes... I want to leave."