An Introduction to Hope and Despair
#1 of Veritas
Veritas
An Introduction to Hope and Despair
First Entry November 11 1763
As I write this journal in the hopes that someday someone may stumble across my remains and find it for it has become apparent to me that I shall never leave these dungeons. I write this on the only book allowed by prisoners in his imperial majesty's prison a journal. I lay on my cot in the underground chambers of Dunheld Keep, my residence for the next 105 years, not that I shall ever live that long, it's just that these guards enjoy leaving the decaying remains of the deceased as a gift for the new inmates, as I write I can look to my left and see the desiccated remains of a ferret, and I can only shudder to think what awaits me as I look at his arms and legs, each joint torn out of the sockets by the rack the wasted frame being held together merely by scraps on muscle and tendons that the rats have yet to get to. It's horrifying in here! During the day there it's nothing so bad, but during the night all I hear are the screams of agony from the torture room down the hallway, that and the rats. It's the rats that I fear the most, you can hear them scurrying in the dark creating images in the flickering torchlight, tearing away at whatever they find especially the corpse in my cell. And even then they will still try to eat away at your fingers and toes, unless you leave them some of the bread that you are fed each day by the guards when they remember. I suppose to really understand my circumstance you need to know of my life and times therefore I shall begin from my first memories.
I was born on January 15 1739 at 3 o'clock pm, I was christened Elijah after the catholic prophet of old I was the son of a loan shark, my father Joseph and his wife, my mother Selene who had died birthing me, both were foxes. My father had always seemed to be withdrawn from life and at a young age I learned to hate him, not my father Joseph but what he became as he spent all of our money on alcohol. When he was drunk it didn't matter what I did to placate him he always seemed to hate me and it always resolved in blows, as a child there was very little I could do to stop the pain and blood from my nose. I remember one night where after he had hit me my nose would not stop bleeding and I could not help but scream out for fear of my life. Unfortunately I roused my father's ire once again; I don't remember the blow that left me unconscious. Though he never said anything as I grew I could see it in the way that he looked at me when he was drunk that he blamed me for my mother's death. The night after I decided to run away after another of his uncontrollable rages that left me bruised and bloodied. At the age of ten I had run away from the only home I knew into a world where I knew almost nothing about.
I had survived for a while by working in a local factory cleaning the machinery and making a sixpence a day, enough for a daily meal but not enough for a room so I lived on the streets of London, little better than an urchin or pick pocket except that they made better money and were better fed. It was hard difficult and dangerous work, and the taskmaster beat anyone who did not work hard enough. And though at the beginning I was beat often it was never worse than what my father had done to me and after awhile I had gotten a hang of the it, the machines had a rhythm to them and one had to quick enough to not get caught in between the iron gears. Eventually I wasn't getting beaten at all.
I hadn't made a lot of friends at the factory but then I wasn't really looking for any, until I met Nathaniel. I had been working at the factory for three uneventful years and it was his first day at the factory and he hadn't a clue what to do, he was a feline with fur that I was later told marked him as a Calico and I felt sorry for him, remembering the sting of the masters blows so I took him off to the side helped him best I could, from that point on we remained stead fast friends. We had done everything together, work, play, and thanks to the generosity of his family lived together in a small, cramped, and dirty apartment in the Whitechapel district in the London proper, it was the most welcoming home you could imagine despite it's squalor. His mother was wonderful woman named Dibella, she always seemed to maintain a cheery demeanor despite the hardships of life she always said that while one could ill afford to live it was still a popular pastime, whenever she looked at my thin and wasted frame she would tsk matronly and said she would have to get some skin on my bones. Nathan's father was an invalid by the name of Martin, an tom cat who's fur and hair clumped together in pads from lack of care, his long hair lay stringed with caked on grime. He had lost an arm while he had worked repairing the ceaseless machines at a distant factory and it had become infected, the wound refused to heal and constantly wept green and yellow pus tinged with the crimson of tainted blood leaving his body weak and frail not soon after I moved in he fell ill with fever and all the money we could scrap together went to hire a doctor who smelled of drink, he took our money and told us that my adoptive father would die and there was nothing he could do I remember Dibella's anger that day, she screamed obscenities at the man and threw pots and pans at him demanding our money back if he was to do nothing. Hell hath no Fury. It wasn't long before the Bobbies barged in and ended the dispute, letting the doctor go and fining us for assault. It wasn't the first or last time I felt the sting of injustice.
It was around this time that I was walking my way home from work with Nathan that we crossed an oddly dressed fellow on the corner of Regent St standing on some crates calling for the unity of the working class, I must admit that this intrigued me Nathan was eager to go but I wished to hear more so I told him to head home and that I would be there soon. I listened further while the man painted me a picture of the world where everyone contributed to the welfare of others, where no one was better, higher up the social ladder. Where workers were glorified for their hard work and each man would receive an equal share of the profits of that labor. With the anger and humiliation and unfair "fines" that where forced on us still fresh in my mind I readily took on of the pamphlets offered to me titled The Communist Manifesto, the new profound and wonderful ideas inside of it opened me to hope that with my contribution the world would be a better place that there would no longer be those who died of starvation not for lack of a job but for lack of the money that the owners refused to share with those that made the profits, no more of the homeless lying dead in the snow from exposure, all would be given housing, all where equal. Thus I became a Communist and a Disciple of Karl Marx the savior of the working class.
The idea of a factory owned by all of the workers there appealed to me, so when I saw that such a factory was being built I continued to work at my privately owned factory and secretly stashed some of my daily earnings, though I felt guilty for keeping desperately needed money from the family (for Martins condition worsened and medicine was not cheap nor is it now.) I was convinced that I would make it back with the factory with much more and that in the end we would have a better life. We would get a new home, a real doctor for Marin who I loved dearly as a father figure, and live comfortably for the rest of our lives. When the factory opened I came forward with my money (no small amount) and offered to invest it in the factory and work there if I were to be paid a decent amount that was a percentage to the total earnings of the factory, they agreed. A few days later the newly constructed building was burned down.
The Bobbies marked it down as a malfunction of machinery, but it had yet to open and nothing had been touched. The other investors and I myself never saw our money again. Again my dreams had been crushed.
At the age of fourteen I had undergone some changes in my thinking and behavior. Now when I watched Nathan undress, I became self conscious and tried to hide the all too apparent bulge in my breeches, when I slept I dreamt of his supple frame and slender body I woke and found myself thrusting and pumping into the lumpy mattress, and it did not help in the least that we slept beside each other. But worst of all there were time that when I woke my breeches were wet and sticky and I'd have to change or wash them before anyone else awoke. It was torture being in such close proximity to him and yet there was nowhere I'd rather be.
I must finish writing now for I can hear guards approaching, and I pray it is not for me.
As it says in the title this is just an introduction to a hopefull series and is semi historic (i have tweaked the dates of the release and publication of the Communist Manifesto aswell as the general age of the Revolution, special thanks to Legolas for mentioning that I had forgot to mention this). Also this is an attempt at a different style of writing so any criticism is appreciated.
-Fenris