The Road of the Rat King

The sewage gutter was the first world I saw when I opened my eyes, damp, foul-smelling, and filled with rotten vegetable leaves that could never be completely gnawed away.

I was the smallest in a litter of pups, unable to compete for food against my siblings, even slow to hide in a game of tag. When my mother carried me to a dark corner, her claws always bore a hint of impatience, as if to say, this one probably won't survive three days.

But I survived.

The secret to my survival was simple: I could endure longer than anyone and dared to venture more than anyone. While others nibbled on vegetable leaves, I fixed my gaze on the meat scraps in the slop bucket, even if I was chased by big rats through the sewage system; while others hid in the brick seams fearing the light, I dared to climb along the water pipes and sneak beside the garbage bins on the ground—where there were discarded pieces of bread, so fragrant that I forgot the pain of my paws being cut by the wire.

The first time I tasted the flavor of 'power' was on a stormy night. Rainwater flooded into the sewer, and panicked rats huddled together; the small young rats were trampled beneath, screaming. I carried a piece of gnawed bone, climbed onto a raised concrete slab, and shrieked at the chaotic rat swarm. I didn’t even know what I was shouting, only that in that sound was the hunger, panic, and hatred I had bottled up for so long.

Strangely, as I shouted, a few other small rats gathered around me, just as tiny as I was. They stared at the bone in my claws, their eyes full of longing. I broke the bone into small pieces and shared it with them. That night, we huddled on the concrete slab, listening to the sound of rain hitting the pipes, for the first time not shivering from the cold.

From that day on, I became the leader of this group of 'lower rats'.

I knew every dark channel of the sewer, knew which brick hid cockroaches, and which garbage bin had the most and safest food. I led them to avoid the sharp claws of stray cats, dodged the cold glint of rat traps, and divided the stolen food evenly—whoever worked harder got to eat more. Gradually, more and more rats followed me, from a dozen to dozens, and then to hundreds. Those big rats that had bullied me before, when they saw me again, would actively push food in front of me.

I was no longer satisfied with the darkness of the sewer.