Prologue

"Living underground was torture", some said.

None of us had ever seen sunlight and experienced the feeling of warmth on our skin, much less met people other than those who lived there or, fed on meat instead of the usual rotten bread that was served to the so-called poor people. Children without parents, were treated by the same citizens like animals for slaughter, until they died in some random hole in the city and people passed over them like useless sacks of shit.

My own mother died of illness, in a room in the old building called Moline Rose: a habitation lived in by twenty women, one more attractive than the other, giving pleasure to the men who paid the monthly fee to receive whatever service they required from them. In those days, I did not understand why my mother would let anyone into the room, into our room, where we both spent our days and shared our lives.

She was not a bad person, as many people said. The rumors in town became more and more insistent: "How is it possible that she allows her daughter to be attended to during meetings with men of all types, races and sizes? What a cheap wench."

Most of the time, I pretended not to listen and put in front of my priorities the errands that my mother would saddle me with during the day; she could not because of her work and especially because at that time, she encountered a severe sore throat.

The days passed, as did the years.

My mother was getting worse and worse, but in the hut we were in, she had not been the only one to get sick.

One day Kuchel Wyatt began to be unable to get out of bed. Not even the old slacker in charge of the hut's finances, George Stylinston, bothered to go check on her. On the other hand, even though I was a child, I used to take care of my mother's state of health and, with the few pennies she managed to earn from her job at the time, we would buy a slice of bread and the rest in medicine to ease her pains.

But one day, in the dirty and rotten hut, a very tall and petite man came in, wearing an old black hat and a long coat of the same color that reached his knees.

He looked like a hunter, or belonging to some special group that I often saw in the alleys of the city while I was performing my duties.

I spied him through the peephole of the ajar door to the room, keeping quiet to prevent him from noticing my presence. The upper floor consisted of four dormitories: two on the right and two on the left.

We stood next to Miss Wyatt's, who had not left her room in several weeks.

I could no longer see her walking down the halls in her skimpy clothes that looked great on her, and I was a little sorry. I liked looking at her and she was a great woman, like my mother and the others who lived there.

The man stopped in front of Miss Wyatt's dormitory, undecided whether to knock or not. He was constantly adjusting his hat, darkening his face with the shadow of the latter. His face shone with sadness, and my eyes were enchanted as I gazed at his clean face, without any layer of beard, such as I had seen weeks before from less groomed and smelly men.

He, on the other hand, was much more attractive.

I slowly closed the door, leaving the room in semi-darkness, were it not for the moonlight reflected off the window. My intense light hazel eyes rested on the now slim figure of my mother, stretched out and covered up to her neck by the white sheets of the bed. She had been asleep for days, so I let her rest without bothering her at all. However, as every time, I warned her that I would go out to do some chores so that when she woke up she would not worry.

I slid onto the bed and on all fours approached my mother's figure, coming to meet her face with mine.

"Mom, I'm going out for a moment, okay? I'll be back soon, don't worry about me and keep sleeping."

I whispered to her, smiling softly, as she, taking in my words, continued to sleep soundly. I walked over to her and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, putting my feet back out of bed and jumping off.

She quickly exited the room, hoping to see that still indecisive man out the door again. I closed the door to the room behind me and raised my head, seeing him there, helpless and indecisive with his knuckles resting on the wooden door, as I hoped.

"Sir, are you by any chance a friend of Miss Wyatt's?" In many situations mom told me to always be nice to people, and if they took advantage of me, I had to stand up for myself one way or another. But the man's intense blue eyes, scrutinizing my short childish stature with raven hair that reached my knees, in a way gave me a strong confidence.

"What's a brat like you doing in this place?" He asked curiously, lowering himself on his knees to get to my height, adjusting his hat.

"I live there," I pointed with my index finger to the door a few steps behind me and looked at him again, "with my mother, who is now asleep, though."

The man stared intently at the door indicated to me, then returned his gaze to my eyes and stood up.

"I came to see someone."

"Miss Wyatt?" I insisted, seeing his expression change.

"Do you know her?"

I nodded my head, "Yes, I used to see her walking the halls," I revealed, bringing a finger to my chin, "but I haven't seen her lately, and no smelly gentleman has come to visit her."

The man sighed at my revelation and laid a hand on the doorknob, first devoting a half-smile to me.

"Take care of yourself and go back to your mother. This is not a good place for a smart and pretty little girl like you." He commented and lowered the handle, throwing open the door to Miss Wyatt's room.

That day, my fate could be transcribed in many ways, but the willpower I emitted allowed the inner me to survive until that moment. The man in the black hat became a new face that I classified as familiar, and with him Rivaille, who labeled him: the surviving child.

I still remember seeing him unkempt, with a hollowed-out face and a dry physique, as if he had not eaten in months. His mother had died in the same condition as my mother, and the man in the black hat told us that they had died of a communicable disease from their work, that they were battling a nasty uterine infection.

Two years have passed since that day, and Rivaille and I, under the guidance of our parent, have trained ourselves to survive underground. Our guardian at that time taught us an ancient way of making "conversation" with rude passersby.

"Today I will teach you how to use a knife, cut up the unfortunate person and come out a winner."

It was one of the catch phrases he often used before tearing out the jugular of any miscreant before our eyes. I was enthralled and Rivaille disgusted, his eyes reduced to two slits and his body trembling with every slash and splash of blood that came to his face.

I found Rivaille an attractive and very predisposed young boy at the age of twelve. I ended up falling in love with his ambiguous silence, his cold, impassive gaze, his strange way of holding objects. Since recovering from anorexia, he had become such a taciturn little boy, and his facial features had become so delicate that my heart palpitated.

One night we were both in bed, in the same room. He approached me as I had my back to him, trying to catch up on the hours of sleep from the last evenings spent in the alleys of the underground to procure a living. He laid a hand on my hip, barely exposed by the tank top I was wearing, lightly stroking the flap of skin.

"Rivaille?" I called to him with my eyes half-closed and my voice slurred from sleep as he continued to caress my exposed skin.

"Did I wake you up?" I wanted to slap him in response, but I was out of strength and had no desire to fight him. After all, he had never given me that kind of attention; I was always the one looking for any gesture.

"What do you think? Kyan has been tasking me with work lately, making me lose sleep, but it's a hard task for someone who wants to get out of this hole of a city." I turned my back to him and pointed my clouded eyes to an indefinite spot in the room as Rivaille pulled me to his chest and chained his face in the crook of my neck in a hug.

"I'm sorry you have to work for two, Kesey. In the last confrontation I injured my foot and Kyan poured the dose of responsibility on you."

I smiled. I liked it when he cared for me. His attitude brought me well-being and liberation, making me forget for a moment why we were struggling against the world. Rivaille continued to hold me in his embrace and I heard him sigh. I felt great relief, especially feeling his warm breath beat against my neck. That boy was transmitting a strong heartbeat to me, and who knows if it was the same for him.

"I've been thinking about something, Kesey," he exclaimed in a whisper. A harmless gasp escaped me. "When we are older and responsible for our every action, I want to marry you. I will ask for your hand, because I want you by my side in every battle, in every war, in every moment. You will be my shadow as I will be yours, and nothing and no one can destroy each other's shadow."

The child Kesey took those words literally, believing every one of his sealed promises, but the adult Kesey of the future, would reason a little more about those words.

Rivaille was as harmless as he was despicable. I loved him. I loved his every imperfection, every cell in his body, every impulsive and unusual gesture he made during our missions, just to snatch a kiss from me. And I could not do without him, so much so that I became independent of him.

The years passed and we grew up. Kyan had abandoned us without a word during a fight Levi had had with a local thug. I watched as the little boy's eyes grew darker and darker and blood spatter framed that face as angelic as it was demonic, while the man who had taken care of us for quite some time walked away, turning his back on us.

Rivaille was in pain like a dog, and I tried to give him strength as much as I could.

We took care of ourselves, not looking for Kyan everywhere and in every way. He had gone his way and we had gone ours. We met Fan and the three of us became the most talked about criminals in the Underground. We lived in the tavern where Fan was the manager and Rivaille and I were his helpers. My fiancé and future spouse began to have a manic obsession with cleaning, and every time Fan and I had to please him if we didn't want to suffer his wrath and explanations of how many microbes a strand of dust contained.

"Tomorrow is the big day!" said Fan, sitting comfortably on the tavern sofa with his legs crossed. I smiled and Rivaille, who was holding me close to her, sitting on her lap, looked at him impassively.

"He kept his promise." I answered him over the moon, feeling Rivaille's fingertips caressing my back on the fabric of my dress. "Will you take care of the consecration of our marriage, Fan?"

The friend, who had become like a brother to both of us, looked at us and let a big smile appear on his lips. "With pleasure. At least something good will happen after so many years cooped up in this cesspool of a city."

"Watch out for the fancies Fan you get pathetic." Rivaille retorted, sinking his face against my shoulder, encircling my slender torso with his hands.

Fan raised an eyebrow, but continued to maintain that smile that started from ear to ear, knowing by now Rivaille's completely apathetic nature. "If it weren't for Kesey putting up with you, you would definitely be alone your whole life with that temper you have. But hey, I'm happy for you, a little less happy for Kesey."

Rivaille lifted his head from my shoulder, just enough to give him a dirty look that had no reply. I looked up and lifted myself off my future spouse's legs, taking his hand. "I think we'd better go to sleep. It's going to be a long day tomorrow." I affirmed, heading for the stairs leading upstairs, tugging at the gruff boy who kept sending dirty looks at Fan.

"Have a good night, guys. Be sure not to have sex the night before the wedding that brings jinx."

"Fan, you're a dead man!" Shouted Rivaille, finding us upstairs, making me giggle. Rivaille looked at me and reserved his usual cold stare. "What are you laughing at, damn you? Do you want me to kill you?"

I encircled my arms around his neck and lifted my chin up with superiority. "Kill me? I remind you that I'm as good at it as you are..." Rivaille swallowed. "I could kill you in your sleep without making you cry out in pain, as good as I am."

"Delicate, you say?" He whispered hoarsely, laying his hands on my hips squeezing them tightly, causing me to emit a low, subdued gasp. "Whenever I fuck you, you're not so gentle and you don't even need me to be. You like it so much when...." I plugged his mouth with both hands, before his provocative speech was heard by Fan's prying ears, and glowered at him.

"Damn it, do you by any chance want Fan to hear you?" I whispered, a palm away from his face, seeing his eyes grow clearer and more lascivious. I removed my hands from his lips, letting them fall back to the level of my hips. "Let's go to bed!" I made to leave, but Rivaille forcefully grabbed one of my hands, so hard that my torso abruptly rotated and my chest collided against his.

"Do you really want to go to sleep, Kesey?" The pleading tone of voice and the grimace of disappointment he assumed made my heart tremble. I thought I loved him too much, but it was also true that I was a superstitious person.

"Of course, why else are we here?"

The next day I officially became Kesey Wyatt. We got married in Fan's tavern, and we were both fine with that; we were wanted, and getting married in a civil ceremony in a church would have been a death sentence.

We loved each other very much, but the good times were short-lived. Rivaille and I wanted a child, but the situation we were living in did not allow us to risk it. We were in our twenties, young and immature.

We procrastinated, until one fine day they broke into our city's underground; the Army of Recognition, a team of specialized soldiers seeking the truth about our country. The commander who headed the core, Chris Mandara, asked us how we had learned to use the two-dimensional devices without the necessary training. None of us answered, and the one who suffered more than Fan and me was Rivaille himself, who was beaten to a pulp.

"Stop it! Stop beating him, you slimy bastard!" I shouted to the soldier who was holding Rivaille's face splattered in the mud, as I tried to wriggle out of the grip of the comrade who was holding me on my knees and tied up. Rivaille was not looking at me and I kept staring at his face paralyzed in the mud. I wanted to scream. Rant. But I could only cry like a child. No one had ever set Rivaille straight like that, and I knew how ashamed he was before our eyes.

"I'll tell you again: how did you learn to use two-dimensional devices?" Chris approached me, and I observed the man's height and the seriousness emanating from his gaze. Rivaille, seeing the commander lower himself on his knees to reach my height, gasped and tried to unload the military man's weight, to no avail.

"On our own, we learned on our own." I replied.

Chris raised both thick eyebrows in amazement. "Self-taught, then?" I knew he did not expect any answer from me, and I continued to look at him. "This is the first time I've heard something like this, but it was satisfying to chase you." He added, standing up. "Therefore, I want to propose a deal to you three," he pointed at us and motioned to his soldiers to untie us. "If you join the Army of Recognition, I will not turn you in, much less have you arrested." I squinted worriedly and Chris continued, "Also because there are no women-only prisons and you would go to a common cell of men who have not seen a beautiful woman like you in a long, long time."

Rivaille squinted, still trapped by the soldier's grip. Fan, once freed from the restraints, positioned an arm in front of me, shielding the man's intentions. "We will do what you want and join the Army of Recognition, but don't you dare harm her or address her in this way." He retorted dryly.

Chris looked at him. "It was not my intention to send her, on the spur of the moment, into the lions' cage and allow the slime to take advantage of her." He revealed sternly, almost offended, causing me to breathe a sigh of relief. "All three of you will have citizenship and live outside the prisons, which will allow you to have a different life than you have lived so far." The commander shifted his gaze to Rivaille and then to the soldier, who had had no intention of relieving the pressure of his foot on the back of his head. "I gave you an order, soldier!" He repeated the order authoritatively and sternly.

The soldier slowly lifted his foot fearfully and released Rivaille from the pressure, stepping back. I took the opportunity to approach him and grab his muddy face, wiping it with my palms. Rivaille said nothing and looked ardently at the commander, who did not stop staring at us.

"You, Chris Mandara," he said in a scratchy voice. "Would you really have done it if we had not accepted your offer? Would you have thrown the one person who matters most in my life into a cage of sick bastards?" The tone of his voice became angry and cutting.

Chris replied without much remorse, "Yes, I would have, and I wouldn't have regretted it." The opaque blue eyes of the boy clutched in my arms widened in an angry gesture.

"You bastard!" He shouted, charging his hand into a fist ready to launch the attack.

"But you agreed, and that's what counts. There's no use brooding over an answer you didn't give." He added, calm and reflective. Rivaille fell silent, but his chest vibrated with anger. "Are they really important to you, this woman and this man?"

"More than my life, asshole!" She stood up abruptly and came within inches of his face. I looked at the void.

Chris smiled. "Good answer, Rivaille."