In a ramshackle shack inside a slave camp, a child was born. The walls of the shack were woven from thatch and wood with ragged animal hides draped across them. Bitter gusts of wind snaked their way through the numerous little cracks in the walls.

Shivering on a bed of hay, a woman cried. Alone in the room, she had just given birth. Not that anyone cared.

The child, still caked in blood didn't cry. It looked at its sickly mother with a curious gaze. When children are first born, they are unable to see as their eyes aren't fully formed yet. And yet this child seemed to sense his mother's presence.

With a tender gaze, the woman wrapped the child in a blanket. She had just given birth, alone at that and yet, she was already walking around the room mere minutes later.

Swaddled in blankets she picked up the child and gazed into its eyes. Sensing his mother's gaze the child giggled.

While the child giggled, the mother's tender gaze shifted into one of sorrow. "I'm sorry my child." She said with a sigh, "Sorry for bringing you into this cruel world. I promise I'll protect you from everything."

...

In this world, humans were strong. They developed faster than normal and were tougher than you or me.

They had to.

This wasn't a kind world.

His mother didn't let him leave the house. If he left they might kill him, or more likely force him into manual labour. Once they found and branded him, he would become a slave like her.

Born to a slave, he would have no rights, no future and no hopes. The battered and weathered walls of the shack were his entire world.

In this cramped and lonely world, he learned to walk, he learned to speak and, most importantly learned to dream.

He spent most of his days in these dreams. His mother lived alone in a shack his late father had built. Apparently, he had left them. Died in a war as mere cannon fodder. The child had never met him anyway.

Actually, this was one of the dreams he often had. When his mother left each morning, just before the sun rose, He would sink into waking dreams.

Dreaming of a father he had never met. A brave man, who fought to protect him and his mother. In these dreams, his father would come and take him from this shack out into the world. Pulling him along with his big strong hands, Into a new place. Anywhere was better than this excuse for a life.

...

One day, he noticed that the draft of cold air was particularly fierce in one corner of the shack. He walked over and peered at the gap. He didn't know how old he was. Time passed differently in this shack, there was no sunlight or season only the walls and ceiling. Still, he had long since stopped crawling.

Cold, biting air rushed in from the hole. Along with, light. He was pretty sure that it was indeed light. The shack had no windows, but he had seen light before. Every time his mother opened the door when she got home she was accompanied by a dim orange glow.

He hated that light. It meant she was back. She would bring him scraps of food, squirrelled away from somewhere. Every day was the same. She would tell him to eat his food and he would ask to go outside.

Or... he used to ask that. She used to smile sadly and tell him it wasn't safe, but one day that changed. That day, when she came home with only bruises and no food, she snapped at him.

"Shut up and just do as I say!" She screamed "Why do you want to go out there? It's cold and people are cruel. Why can't you just be happy with me? Aren't I enough for you?"

The child cried, for the first and last time. He wept tears of injustice and confusion, "I just want to help you. isn't there something I can do? Anything to get out of this place." He begged.

The woman looked at the snivelling child. "Look at you, crying over something as petty as being shouted at. You aren't ready to leave this place. If you do... they'll eat you alive."

Terrified the child shrunk back. 'They'd eat him alive?' Was it so dangerous out there? He doubted his mother would be able to survive if it was. Still, he said nothing.

...

Now, as he looked through the light he was reminded of these terrible memories. It had been a long time since he cried. What could tears get you in this world?

Following the light to its source, he placed his face against the wall. One eye. that's all he could get into the crack. But, that's all he needed.

When he looked through the crack, he was stunned. All he could see was filth. Surrounding his shack was many others just like it. Some in even worse conditions than his. Most didn't even have doors.

Soulless faces adorned the people that trudged through the muddy streets. The men were in chains and the women had rough hands and ragged clothes. He saw a world without hope or dreams. A colony of trapped souls walking through limbo. Trapped in a living hell.

The child gazed upon this world with wonder. It was so bright. So big. There was no roof. Above the people was a grey expanse of clouds. This cruel world of suffering was magical to the boy. It was more than he could even imagine in his dreams.

Still... it was scary. He didn't want the woman he used to call 'mother' to know he had seen outside. She might hit him again. So he tore a strip of cloth from his already ragged trousers that he had long grown out of and stuffed it into the hole.

...

Time passed. The sun rose and set. The seasons changed and the world turned.

The boy knew that all this happened. Not because of the stories his captor would tell him. No! He knew because every day when she left, He would desperately pull out the rag made of weather-beaten clothing from the crack in the wall and gaze out at the world.

By now, the woman he used to call mother's hair was speckled with grey streaks and her posture was bent. He on the other hand had grown bigger. Judging from the men he saw outside, he should be almost fully grown.

Not that he was strong or anything. In fact, he was painfully thin and his skin was so pale it was translucent. Still, he had made up his mind. He would leave soon. He had to.

Every time he looked through the crack in the wall and saw the slaves, he grew jealous. Anything would be better than this parody of a life he had. He was trapped, like a bird in a cage. He knew what birds were. Plenty of carrion circled above the camp. Spiteful things. They could come and go as they pleased... almost like they were mocking him.

...

Lately, She would hit him more. She used to look at him with love, or maybe pity. Now all that was left was self-loathing. He knew she was planning on killing him. She no longer even gave an excuse for hitting him anymore.

Saying things like "It is for your own good." Didn't matter anymore. Maybe she had once loved him. She might have kept him trapped at first so that he wouldn't become a slave like her... Maybe. He liked to think that, when the nights were cold or when she hit him. He would think, 'maybe, she used to love me.'

Her love had been twisted. What had once been fear for his safety, had become fear that he would leave. She couldn't let him out. He wouldn't come back. She was sure he hated her, but she didn't care. She needed him and he needed her. That was how it should be.

Sometimes, when he dreamt, he would imagine what it would be like if his father were here. Would his mother have stayed sane? Actually, it didn't really matter to him anymore. He would probably kill his father if he saw him.

How dare he abandon him! Trap him here with this witch!

The young man's thoughts were warped. This was to be expected of someone who had grown up viewing the world through a crack in the wall.

...

Today, when he looked through the crack he saw something brand new. It was amazing! At the end of the muddy street, a severed head was nailed to a wooden pike. With dried blood trailing from its mouth and agony etched onto his face. He looked at the severed head in wonder. Would his mother look like that when he killed her?

Beneath the head, a woman wept. Crows pecked at the bloated eyeballs. They screeched as they fought over the dried flesh. The boy was jealous of the crows. They could fly anywhere they pleased. Even gravity couldn't trap them.

The young man's hands shook. He was inspired. Today was the day. He would finally do it. Kill that wretched woman and free himself. Taking his shaking hands he placed them on a pot his captor used to cook gruel.

She would be home soon. He knew this because it would get rowdier outside whenever the slaves returned from the factories.

He was inspired. His mind flooded with images of a severed head. His heartbeat roared in his chest and his breathing was shallow.

Shuffling footsteps approached the door. Their pace was unsteady, betraying the weariness of the owner of these feet. A rough and worn hand paused at the door handle. The owner of the hand looked left and right out of habit. She had to make sure no one would see inside her house, they might try and steal her child if they found out about him. It was telling that she still thought of a grown man as a child...perhaps she truly wasn't sane.

Seeing that there was nobody watching, she carefully opened the door and peeked inside. She didn't want her child to try and escape. It was for his own good.

Once she had confirmed the way was clear, she pushed open the door to the eerily quiet shack. A deathly stillness covered the shack.

Just as the woman was about to speak and break the silence that pervaded the shack, something beat her to it. It was the sound of her skull being crushed by a metal pot. The next sound to break the silence was the dull thud as she hit the floor.

Limply lying there. She stared blankly at the dark ceiling. Almost like he had been Swallowed by the shadows a young man walked out from behind the door as he closed it.

"Who... are you? What have you done with my child?" She asked weakly, the light leaving her eyes.

The young man leaned down until he was a few inches from the woman's face. Her gaze settled on the twisted face of a young man. He was painfully pale and his green eyes glowed in the darkness.

All of a sudden, she sighed. A weary sigh of a life lived with much difficulty and spoke her final words "Oh... your eyes... just like your father..." She spoke with rasping breaths "Can... can I finally rest now?" She asked the silent room.

Eyes unseeing she slept. An eternal sleep. Where she dreamt of a family. A loving family. They always had enough food and her husband didn't leave her. It was a beautiful dream.

Left in the shack, the young man panted desperately. Terrified he flung the dented steel pot out of his hand. It clanged as it hit the corner of the shack.

The walls of the shack that had kept him trapped all this time shrunk in on him and the ground spun. His head throbbed in agony and he had to force down the meagre gruel he had eaten for breakfast as it tried to go back up the way it came.

With eyes darting left and right like a cornered animal, the young man panted. He stepped over the corpse of his mother... No! his captor. He Flung open the door that had kept him trapped until now and ran.

His feet hurt as he ran. He had no shoes and the ground was hard. Each slave he passed paid him no heed. This sort of psychotic break was commonplace here.

Out of the collection of shacks, he ran. As if he was being chased by the devil, he ran with ragged breath. Each step carried him further from the shack and out into the terribly cold and huge world.

Everything about this was wrong. It was meant to be a joyous occasion when he finally left his prison. Why had he killed his mother? Why did he have to run? The young man who hadn't cried in years wept.

He came to a wooden fence. Lining the fence were the heads of those that had tried to escape before him, Impaled on the wooden fence, painting it red with their dried blood.

Paying these heads no head, the young man stumbled upon a gap in the wooden planks. It must have been levered open by some sort of animal, a badger perhaps.

If he had been thinking straight at the moment, he might have been thankful that he was so painfully thin and malnourished. Otherwise, he would never have fitted through such a small gap in the fence.

Being scraped by the rough wood as he wriggled through the young man was left with bleeding scratches. Panting and ignoring the pain from these wounds he forced himself through.

Until... something grabbed his leg.

Screaming the young man desperately kicked whatever was grabbing his leg and ran off into the nearby woods.

Behind him was the sound of cursing. "Wretched slave. Fuck! Go get the dogs."

...

Solomon woke up crying. He had known getting his memories back wouldn't end well.