THE BROKEN DREAMS

Freedom.

It tasted like dust and loneliness.

Fred shuffled down the cracked pavements of Emerald Town, a city that pretended to love the rich and stepped on the poor like insects.

He wore a hoodie he found dumped by a trash can — two sizes too big, holes in both elbows, stained with something brown he didn't dare smell.

The coins from the plastic bag?

Gone.

Spent on a stale mandazi and a bottle of dirty water that barely eased the burn in his throat.

Now, as twilight melted into full night, Fred realized a truth nobody ever teaches you in school:

> The streets don't love you.

---

The city transformed after sunset.

Shiny students from the nearby Emerald University flooded the streets in their luxury rides:

Mercedes-Benzes with tinted windows and customized number plates like "QUEEN 01" and "MR BIG."

BMWs that purred like angry tigers.

Range Rovers shining like black mirrors.

Inside, girls laughed — faces caked with makeup, iPhones glued to their hands, the scent of imported perfume trailing behind them.

Boys flexed muscles inside leather jackets, gold chains glinting under neon lights.

Fred?

He was the ghost slipping between the cracks.

Invisible.

Hated.

Avoided.

He tried sneaking into a 24-hour petrol station's restroom to sleep in a stall, but a guard caught him and kicked him out — hard enough to bruise his ribs.

He begged a food vendor for leftover ugali.

The woman — maybe 40, wearing a threadbare kitenge — looked at his sunken cheeks... and still shook her head.

> "We struggle too, son. Sorry."

No one cared.

No one.

---

Near midnight, Fred found an old bus shelter.

Rusty.

Graffiti-smeared.

Home to rats bigger than his hand.

He curled into a ball on the cold bench, pulling the dirty hoodie tighter.

Tears pricked his eyes.

But he refused to cry.

He had promised.

No more tears.

Only fire.

As he drifted into a restless half-sleep, a rough voice woke him.

> "Ey! New blood!"

Fred jolted upright.

Five boys surrounded him.

Older.

Meaner.

All smelled of sweat, smoke, and something worse — desperation.

Their leader — a stocky teen with a scar down one cheek and bloodshot eyes — grabbed Fred's hoodie.

> "You gotta pay tax if you wanna sleep here, man."

Fred opened his palms — empty.

The boys laughed cruelly.

> "Then we take what we want."

Fists rained down.

Kicks to his ribs.

Knuckles splitting his lip open.

By the time they left, Fred's body was a map of bruises.

His only possession — the torn hoodie — was gone.

He lay there in the darkness, shivering.

Naked under the icy sky.

But inside?

The fire grew.

---

At dawn, footsteps echoed near the shelter.

Soft.

Hesitant.

Fred barely lifted his swollen eyes.

A girl.

Maybe 19.

Light caramel skin, thick curly hair tied messily in a bun, wearing a secondhand Manchester United jacket and ripped jeans.

She looked poor — but not broken.

There was a stubborn defiance in the way she walked.

Her name was Dina Mwangi, but Fred didn't know that yet.

She crouched beside him, frowning.

Her hands, calloused but careful, brushed his forehead.

Fred flinched.

Everyone who touched him only hurt him.

But Dina's voice was different.

Soft.

> "You look like hell," she said. "Come. Before you die here."

Fred didn't answer.

Didn't trust.

But his body, desperate for warmth, moved on instinct.

He let her lead him.

---

Dina didn't have much.

She shared a one-room bedsitter with two other girls near the campus slums.

Thin mattress on the floor.

Broken fan hanging by a thread.

A plastic bucket in the corner for washing clothes.

Posters of reggae artists and crumpled motivational quotes taped to the cracked walls.

But to Fred?

It was a palace.

Dina gave him a faded T-shirt and some baggy sweatpants.

Made him strong black tea with too much sugar and stale bread.

Fred ate like an animal.

Afterward, he sat huddled in a corner, still distrustful.

Dina sat cross-legged opposite him, sipping her tea, studying him.

> "Name?"

Fred hesitated.

> "Fred."

> "Age?"

> "19."

She nodded, unfazed by the dirt on his skin, the stench of dried blood, the haunted look in his eyes.

> "Good. You'll fit in around here."

Around here meant surviving.

Hustling.

Doing whatever it took to stay alive when the world forgot you existed.

---

That night, as Dina's roommates snored under tattered blankets, Fred lay awake staring at the cracked ceiling.

Two choices.

Give up.

Disappear into the streets like thousands of forgotten boys before him.

Or fight.

Slowly.

Silently.

Building himself from dust.

> "I will fight," Fred whispered into the darkness.

> "I swear I will fight."

And no one — not teachers, not friends, not the police, not even fate — would ever crush him again.

---