A small grubby hand reaches over the dusty boards of the market stall and snatches desperately at a wizened apple any self-respecting farmer would have thrown on a rubbish heap days ago. Unfortunately for the small, grubby, and altogether bony child that hand is attached to, the stall keeper is none of those things. The stall keeper, Hadiq, is short for a grown man yet still of sufficient stature to tower over the street rat. He is also enormously fat and scrupulously clean. Fitting for a man who runs his own caravan and has a reputation for being able to squeeze blood from a stone if he could sell it for a few copper. He and his caravan are the only merchants that deign to stop in the dusty old desert outpost where the boy lives, just a way station and a well on their path between real destinations. Hadiq's use of camels is the only thing that allows his caravan to take this path, other merchants go around the coastal road and leave the town to wither without trade or work.

"Pah!" Hadiq snatches the boy by his wrist and spits a wad of phlegm into the gutter, "Little rat! Think you can steal from me?"

"Please great sir I am just so-" Hadiq silences the boy with a meaty paw around his throat.

"Away with you, wretch! You'll scare off all my customers." Hadiq drags the boy towards the nearby alley and gestures grandly to the dusty (and empty) marketplace. The boy thinks the fat man is joking, no one in the town has enough money to buy anything Hadiq is selling, and even if they had coin the penny-pinching miser of a merchant sells only the lowest quality merchandise at the highest possible price. A necessity of doing business, Hadiq would say, for who else would bother carting anything out to this sand pit in the middle of nowhere.

The boy's vision starts to go dark as he claws helplessly at the man's arm. Just as he thinks the end has finally come for him Hadiq tosses the boy carelessly into the alleyway with the rubbish. A rat squeals as it is forced from its' nest by the sudden intrusion and the boy gulps air between bouts of rough coughing. I haven't eaten in days, you fat bastard! It's not like you need one more apple...

Hadiq grumbles his way back to his stall for a long day of counting his money while he waits for a chance to swindle one of the desperate folk of the desert town. In the alley the boy lies forgotten among the garbage, his shaky hands unable to lift his weight, too parched with thirst to even cry. Hours later as the last of the townsfolk shutter their windows and shut tight their doors against the night's chill the boy's sobs slow and then stop.

The alleyway falls still and silent, a small figure crumpled in the corner, little more than bones and rags draws his last breath. A rattle sounds in the back of his dry throat and as the darkness closes in he cries out in the silence of his mind. Great Shaylah! What did I do to deserve this life? Why? Why did you hate me?

...

...

...

Do you ever stop complaining?

Shaylah? The boy thinks at the voice in the darkness.

Not even close, soul. My oh so bright and sunny sister wouldn't be seen dead in this rat hole.

Were the boy still in possession of a stomach it would have roiled, or gone cold, or perhaps simply emptied itself in terror at this. If the merciful Sun Goddess did not come to collect his soul then that would mean... are you... Sekht?

The lord of blood and pain? Me above kid! No I'm not that imbecile either! Grow some taste and at least compare me to one of my relatives that isn't a complete shithead.

Um.. uh then.. you're-

Silence! I'm the God of Second Chances. Todd.

Todd? That's not very... godlike really?

Oh and I suppose Shaylah, Sekht, Mersuun, Kaybalt, Aschia and Perulm are are all better? There's nothing wrong with Todd, it's a perfectly serviceable name. People can pronounce it at least. Shut up.

... am I going to the afterlife now?

No, screw that, and screw you, and for good measure screw all the backwards idiots that live in this country. The spirit which once was the boy begins to find this entire exchange more perplexing than terrifying. His life had been one long series of misfortunes anyway, no reason for his death to be any different. At least it was interesting in a way. You, my fine hungry friend, have all the conditions necessary to shake up this region. A soul so brimming with bitterness that it can't pass on to the afterlife. It's a good thing you were more starved than you were angry or Sekht actually would have gotten first dibs and you'd be waking up as a shade now. Instead we get to have some fun!

With that vague pronouncement the voice vanishes and the soul of the forsaken boy feels a vast pressure surrounding it. Unseen by the town the boy's remains crumble to dust and ash. The swirling particles crowd together, tighter and tighter, squeezed in a cosmic vice until a single crystalline chip falls to the paving stones and slowly worms its way into the hard packed dirt. The crystal seed burrows deeply into the earth and begins soaking up the slow dripping of mana which permeates the world. Above, the town withers a little more each day. The people leave, or they die, but one by one the town falls silent and is consigned to the sands. As the years pass the seed grows and waits for the day to awaken.