Chapter 1: Imbalance

This is the tale of five orphan friends named Chris, Timothy, Josh, Ben, and Luke. All around in their early to mid-teenage years. They all had lost both their parents due to different circumstances. However, Chris was only a paternal orphan who lived with his mother in an old shack. The others lived in an orphanage which barely received any donations. Only people who ever donated were the ones who still had any humanity left within them but even these once in a while donations were like small blessings that kept it running and provided shelters to orphan children.

Due to corruption and an irregular division of financial assets one side of the country was plagued by poverty, famines, and diseases. Whereas one side thrived and was enjoying an abundance of assets.

The so-called Nobles oppressed the lower class and the rule of corrupted officials soon plunged the country into chaos.

And soon the orphanage too fell victim to an unforeseen incident making its doors forever closed to its occupants and the last remaining shelter for orphans crumbled away and their hearts gradually gave-in to despair.

Some of the children went to find their own way but the four orphans stuck together with each other, they bid one final farewell to their orphanage and moved on to find a new place they could call home. The purpose of their lives wasn’t to live free anymore it became a grinding struggle of mere survival in this cruel world.

Along with four friends, there was a frail young boy named Kevin around seven of age and due to his young age and dire circumstances, his health became fragile.

The youngest friend Timothy, around age thirteen whom they called Tim, was the most affected by losing their home.

The second one was Ben who had a buzzcut hairstyle due to which he was often called “Buzzcut Ben or Big Ben”. He was around age fourteen and was a bit overweight. He had an indolent and apathetic personality as he’s always searching for shortcuts and his habits were considered sloven by the norm.

The third was Luke. He was around seventeen and was much closer to Tim as a friend hence Tim always trusted Luke and as a good friend he kept Tim from completely falling to despair when they lost their refuge at the orphanage.

The fourth one Josh was also around seventeen and was the strongest of the lot. He and Luke were in mostly better physical condition than the others. Josh had a determined personality which could sometimes become obsessive. But he was mostly a mysterious boy, in his eyes was a small glint of hatred for the world which he kept concealed from the others.

*** Author’s Note ***

“The copyrights of the pictures do not belong to me but to its respectful owners. The pictures do not represent the actual characters or objects in the story but show similarity to them and are merely used as a close reference for the story, to strengthen the Environmental Details.”

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