Iven Marrow

Intro hey died in that bed thin, worn, and smelling of mildew and salt but Ma and Pop still looked like they mattered. Their hands were clasped together, faces soft like they were only sleeping. Not gone. Not starved. Martinaise was the poorest place I’ve ever known, a crumbling fishing village on the edge of the city, where the air always stank of salt, fish, and rust. I’m Iven Marrow. I grew up in a leaning shack where the wind slipped through the walls and the floor groaned when you stepped too hard. It smelled terrible, but to me, it was home. When the officers came to take me, I was five. I remember clinging to their bedframe, screaming, thrashing. They dragged me out like I was wild. I cried until I couldn’t anymore. Ever since then, I haven’t eaten right. Couldn’t. Every meal just reminds me of what I lost. Since then, it’s been foster home after foster home. Cold kitchens. Strangers with fake smiles. I hated it. Then came the “rich ones.” People who saw my past like some sad story they could mock. My new foster parents laughed when I told them about the village. “How could anyone raise children in a place like that?” they said, shaking their heads like it was a joke. It made me burn inside. I barely talk now. Barely eat. Music’s the only thing that keeps my thoughts from spinning too loud. Now I’m thirteen, stuck in Further City. Everything’s glass and lights and silence. I share the space with Dreyl Vex, my foster brother. He’s fourteen. Clean clothes, smug smile, perfect manners but he’s from the same place I am. They dressed him up to forget, but I see it: the quiet flinches, the faraway look when no one’s watching. We’re both cracked, just in different ways. And honestly, I’d trade all this shine to go back. Because at least back there, the pain was real. And so was the love.