Chapter 3: The Road to Power

The streets never sleep. They never forgive. The night was my enemy, a constant reminder that I wasn't just fighting for survival—I was fighting to keep the last remnants of my humanity intact. I had become one of the invisible ones, a shadow, a beggar. A thing that nobody cared about.

For weeks, I lived like that, hiding in alleys, moving through the shadows like a ghost. The cold nights were the worst. I remember wrapping myself in torn, filthy blankets I had scavenged from dumpsters, shivering under the weight of hunger and exhaustion. My stomach twisted in knots, and I could feel the gnawing emptiness eating away at me from the inside out.

But hunger wasn't the only thing I had to fear. There were worse things in those days. The streets were full of monsters, but not the kind you saw in stories. These monsters were human. They preyed on the weak, on the lost. People like me—orphans, strays, beggars—were the perfect targets for the vultures who lurked in the shadows.

The drug dealers, the human traffickers, the organ harvesters—they were all out there, and they didn't care if you were a child or an adult. All that mattered was whether you could be used, whether you were worth something. To them, I was worth nothing. I was a stray, a piece of trash that could be thrown away without a second thought.

It was a man named Lucio who caught me first. I had been wandering, hungry, eyes darting from corner to corner, looking for any scraps. I had learned quickly to keep my head down, to blend into the background. But one day, I slipped. I made a mistake. I stood too tall, looked too confident for someone who had nothing. Lucio spotted me almost immediately.

He had the look of a predator—a thick neck, a brutal face, and eyes that saw everything as an opportunity. He came up behind me, hands gripping my shoulders with too much force. Before I could react, I was shoved into an alley, the smell of stale urine and sweat filling my nostrils. His voice was rough, grating as he leaned in.

"You look like you could use some work, kid," he growled, his breath hot on my face. "How about you start doing something useful? I got some people who'd love to put you to work. Make you real useful."

I didn't answer. I couldn't. My throat had gone dry. My instincts screamed at me to run, to escape, but I knew better. The moment I showed fear, I'd be a target. I had to survive, at all costs.

Lucio's grip tightened. He was about to drag me off, to sell me like one of the many lost children who disappeared without a trace. And that's when it happened.

Dong Ho appeared like a ghost, like some kind of apparition from a forgotten world. The first thing I noticed was his hair—white, like the snow. He didn't belong here, not in this world of rot and decay. He walked with purpose, his presence somehow calming despite the violence that hung in the air.

Lucio didn't see him at first, too focused on me. But I saw the old man approach from the corner of my eye. He was calm, serene, almost unnervingly so.

"Let go of him," Dong Ho said softly, his voice carrying a weight of authority that immediately made Lucio hesitate. It wasn't the tone of someone threatening violence—it was simply the presence of someone who commanded respect. Lucio, to his credit, didn't back down immediately. Instead, he laughed, a low, mocking sound.

"Who the hell are you, old man?" Lucio sneered, his hand still tight on my shoulder.

Dong Ho didn't answer at first. He simply took a step closer, his eyes meeting Lucio's. The air shifted, and suddenly it wasn't just an alley anymore—it was a stage. The tension was thick, palpable. I knew something was about to change.

Before Lucio could react, Dong Ho moved. Faster than a snake, he stepped in, his hand slapping the side of Lucio's neck with a force that should not have come from someone so old. Lucio crumpled like a ragdoll, the sudden shock of pain cutting through his arrogance. He didn't even have a chance to scream.

I stood there, wide-eyed, watching as Dong Ho calmly pulled me away from the mess, not a word spoken between us. The moment we were out of the alley, I finally managed to speak.

"Who… who are you?" I asked, still in disbelief.

Dong Ho didn't look at me as he continued walking. His pace was steady, deliberate.

"I am someone who has been through hell, just like you," he said quietly. "And I believe you can do better than this."

I had no idea what he meant. I didn't know how to react. All I knew was that he had saved me. He had given me something I hadn't had in a long time—hope.

The journey that followed was unlike anything I had ever known. Dong Ho took me in, provided for me, and showed me the world through different eyes. We traveled for years. From the streets of New York to small, out-of-the-way towns where nobody cared to look. There, he taught me the things I needed to know—things that no one had ever told me before.

He taught me survival, not just in the way of the streets, but in ways that would prepare me for something greater. Hunting. Foraging. How to move like the wind, how to read the terrain, how to survive in a world where everything had become a predator.

But his true gift was in the martial arts. I was a quick learner, and though my body was still that of a boy, my mind was sharp. Dong Ho took me in as his apprentice, teaching me not only how to defend myself but how to become something more.

He introduced me to the art of the dagger, a form of combat that would become my signature. I remember the first time I held a blade—a small, simple thing, nothing like the knives and shivs I had used on the streets. This felt different. This was discipline. This was power.

Dong Ho would never let me use the weapons until I had learned their true purpose. "It is not for violence," he would say, "but for control. The world respects those who can control themselves."

I was only fifteen when it happened—the day he disappeared. I was just old enough to understand what it meant to lose someone who had taught me everything, someone I had come to see as a father figure, a mentor.

One morning, Dong Ho was simply gone. No warning, no trace. I woke up in the small camp we had set up by the woods, and he wasn't there. His things were gone. The campfire was still smoldering, the smoke curling into the sky, but he was gone.

I spent days searching, calling his name into the wind, hoping for some sign. But there was nothing. No message. No clue. Just an emptiness that gnawed at me in a way that the streets never could.

I had been abandoned again. Alone. But this time, I wasn't the same scared child I once was. I had learned too much. And what I had learned, I would use to build something new.

Six months after the fall of New York, I stand at the top of the world I have rebuilt, looking down at the city of ghosts. I think of Dong Ho and the lessons he taught me. I think of the training, the journey, and the years I spent learning what it meant to survive.

And now, I stand alone—a king, not of the streets, but of the world I have created.

The question is no longer about survival. It's about control.

And nobody will take that from me.