1894

A young woman sat in rags, alone outside an abandoned church at dusk. She was seven months pregnant with her first child. It had been two and a half days since she ate her last meal- dried out seaweed from Hiram’s polluted harbor.

Hiram was a city on the brink of disaster. Every day, it would seem to have become even more over-crowded, run down, and dirty. Over the past 10 years, technology had been advancing significantly. As a relatively low-income city, Hiram didn’t benefit from this technology boom. Low-skill workers weren’t needed when a machine could do the job more efficiently and quicker. Factories were constantly towering over small homes and businesses.

The men that oversaw the factories in the burrows were appointed by Dukes. Dukes were decedents of the royal family or exclusively chosen by the king.

The middle and lower class areas had been becoming more dangerous. Gangs had been forming to rebel against the government, the upper class, and even other lower class citizens to steal goods to survive and spread terror. At this point the lower class don't even have a political/economic system anymore. The government couldn't afford to supply clean water in most areas.

You’d find a beggar trying to stay warm under old newspapers on almost every street corner. Slums were bad. Real bad.

~~

Wrapped in a small piece of cloth, the young woman tried her best to fall asleep so she wouldn't have to feel the pain in her stomach. The stain glass windows of the church reflected the sun into her eyes.

She felt as if she were deteriorating, leaving her body within every breath she took…

She started hallucinating from dehydration. The sky was turning green, and the ground started to shake. Buildings started crumbling atop her, and things were getting dark.

“I’m a murderer,” she whispered to herself. “I couldn’t… even live long enough to give birth to my own child… I’m… weak,” she gasped.

“HELENA!!!” A voice screamed from the distance. Helena could barely lift her head to see the young boy approaching her. Her old friend came running.

The boy approached her sprinting as fast as he could, tripping on the cobblestone road multiple times. He was holding a large, torn up sack. As he got closer to her, he noticed how bad of a condition she was in. Dirt and scrapes covered her ghost-like skin. Although she was seven months pregnant, she still looked starved to death. He kneeled down aside her opening up the sack. It was filled with sour milk, stolen bread, and more dried seaweed from Hiram’s harbor.

With tears in his eyes, he ripped off a piece of the stale bread and fed it to her. He tried his best to look strong for her.

After a while he spoke. “Helena…this is all my fault,” he sniffled. “I’m so sorry…I shouldn’t have left you here alone… either way I would’ve been too… I’m just too-”

Helena was too tired to speak, or even listen to what the boy was saying. The boy would’ve continued feeding her if she hadn’t fallen into a deep, peaceful slumber.