The Price Of Disobedience

⚠️ Content Warning – Chapter 3

This chapter includes physical abuse, forced br**ding (implied, not graphic), death of a parent, and child suffering.

Please read with care and take breaks if you need. 🖤

Chapter 3 – "The Price of Disobedience"

The chains were too heavy for a child.

They clanked behind him when he walked, rubbed red against his small wrists, and left bruises around his ankles. He no longer cried when they struck him. He had learned crying only made them hit harder.

They called him “beast” now. Not “boy.”

His mother, he saw her only once a day.

She was kept in a different cage. A small, cold cell surrounded by iron bars and bitter herbs that made her too weak to transform. Her hair was tangled, silver turned dull. Her eyes met his through the bars once, and she tried to smile.

But her body trembled.

> “They’re using her,” one of the guards had laughed. “Her kind breed fast, especially when they’re young. Perfect for making more foxes to sell.”

Renji hadn’t understood at first.

Then he did.

And he stopped speaking for a long time.

The training room smelled of blood and sweat. They tossed him into it every day, forced him to fight older boys, grown demons, even starving dogs.

He learned quickly.

> “Hit them or be hit.”

“Survive or be sold.”

“Smile pretty and they’ll think you’re weak use that.”

He obeyed when they screamed. He obeyed when they hurt him. He obeyed until his mind became a maze of instinct and silence.

But in his heart, he counted the days.

One night, he found a way.

A loose bar. A careless guard. He was smaller now from hunger. He could fit through the crack.

He ran. Not to escape. Not yet.

He ran to her.

> “Mama,” he whispered, shaking her weak shoulder. “Mama, we can go. I found a way, just hold on”

But she didn’t open her eyes.

Her hands were cold. Her body still.

And beside her... the smallest bundle of fur. A newborn fox. Lifeless.

She had given birth again.

And again.

And again.

Until she couldn’t anymore.

She hadn’t eaten for days.

Because she always gave her food to Renji.

Every last crumb.

He screamed.

For the first time in months, his voice broke the silence. He wailed, clawed the floor, shook her body. The guards came running. He didn’t care.

> “NO! Wake up, MAMA!! MAMA!! I was gonna get you out!”

They dragged him away. He bit one. They kicked him in the stomach. His blood painted the hallway.

Then came the punishment.

He didn’t remember how long it lasted.

Just pain.

And laughter.

And someone saying, “We’ll sell this one soon. He’s trained enough.”

A week later, they chained him again.

Put a collar on his neck.

Dressed him in silk.

Washed the blood from his face.

He was going to the black market.

To be sold like a sword or a pet.

And that was the day Renji stopped being a child.

End of Chapter 3

> Author Note:

Yeah… I know. That one hurt.

Writing this chapter was hard. I wanted to skip it. I wanted to protect Renji. But this part of his story matters. It’s why he doesn’t trust. Why he fights like his life depends on it, because it did.

His mother loved him. She protected him until the very end. That pain he carries? It didn’t come from nowhere.

If you’re still here, thank you. For reading. For caring. For hurting with him.

Renji’s story doesn’t end in a cage. He’s going to rise but not without scars.

Please support this novel if you can. Comment. Bookmark. Scream into the void. It all helps.

Chapter 4 is coming… and someone’s finally going to bleed for what they did.

A tired 19-year-old author who cried writing this 😭🦊

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