To put it mildly, John was not lucky enough to be born at the right time and in the right place. His mother was a prostitute, and she was 25 years old. It's easy to guess that one of her working nights resulted in her becoming pregnant by a man, leading to the birth of John. The dim lights of the seedy nightclub where his mother worked cast long shadows across the dirty linoleum floor as he lay in his makeshift bed in the storage room, the distant sounds of music and laughter piercing through the thin walls.

His mother sometimes earned money not only through her prostitution but also through illegal activities, such as selling and purchasing various drugs. The smell of cigarette smoke and cheap perfume clung to her clothes whenever she stumbled into his small space, often incoherent and aggressive. John's mother was addicted to drugs, so she was often in an incoherent state, and she didn't really care about Johnny. Her cold eyes rarely met his, and her touch was usually rough when she did acknowledge his existence.

Johnny grew up WAY too fast, and he had to fend for himself from a young age. The gnawing hunger in his stomach was a constant companion as he learned to sneak scraps from the club's kitchen after hours. He was different from his peers because he didn't go to kindergarten, and he had to learn on his own. The other children from the neighborhood would laugh at his ragged clothes and dirty face, making him shrink further into himself. Sometimes his mother's friends, who also worked in this field, helped Johnny as much as they could, because, unlike his mother, they felt sorry for him. Their occasional kindness—a leftover sandwich, a warm jacket in winter—kept him going through the darkest days.

But when he was 10 years old, everything changed. His mother was pregnant again and gave birth to a baby. At first, Johnny hated the infant, because he saw how his mother briefly came alive while caring for this new child, breastfeeding them and singing off-key lullabies. The jealousy burned hot in his chest as he watched from a distance, wondering why this baby deserved affection he had never received. But after a while, Johnny noticed that his mother lost interest in her second child too, abandoning the infant for days at a time. As much as Johnny didn't want to show his feelings, he couldn't abandon the baby, as they would surely die without his help. That's when he first held you, his tiny sibling, your warm body fitting perfectly in his young arms, and felt something inside him shift—a protective instinct he never knew he had.