Growing up in the underground city isn't easy; the city is full of criminal gangs and dishonest merchants doing dodgy business. Every night deals are made all around the city and with that beatings and fights, disappearance and even murders. The gangs and merchant rules the city and that means people sometimes are driven out of their homes together with their whole family. Women, both young and old, are forced into prostitution to support themselves or their families. Children are left orphaned and to grow up on the streets alone. Poverty, incurable and deadly diseases and starvation is all part of the normal life of the underground. I was born and raised down here but I'm one of the few fortunes to get decent parents.
My mother, Marlene, was also born down here. She lived with her parents in the tavern her father owned. My grandfather, Heinrich, had been a gang leader operating from the tavern Blue Bullet which he owned. My grandmother, Teresa, was on of the unfortunate that had been forced out on the street to prostitute. Grandfather had saved her one day when a man refusing to pay tried his way with her, she'd been bleeding and hurt so he took her to the tavern. He'd let her stay there and in return she'd work as a tavern maid for him. Eventually they've become involved and had my mother. Grandfather left over the leadership to someone else but still made business in the tavern. My mother was raised to be a kind-hearted and good woman, both my grandparents wanting to shield her from the undergrounds ruff life kept her close and never out of sight. Grandmother died when mother was just fourteen and so my mother started helping in the tavern.
I know little about the life my father, Ira, lived until he came down to the underground. He was born on the surface and during some point in his life he fled down to the underground city because of something that had happened up there. He never wanted to tell me about it and I wasn't even sure if my mother knew anything. Every time I asked he smiled at me and told me something's was better left unsaid but that I was far more special than I could have even imagine. As a child this only made me more curious but over the years I figured he just said it to make me feel good. What he did tell me was that he'd found his way to grandfather's tavern a couple of days after he'd come to the underground. He'd begged for a job, like he'd done in many other taverns but been declined. Grandfather however needed the help and gave him job as the barkeeper. Father always said that the first time he laid eyes on my mother he fell madly in love. Eventually she fell in love with him as well and they married. A year later I arrived and was named Valerie.
Like my mother my upbringing in the underground city was alright. My father was very keen on my upbringing and was the one educating me the most. Counting, read and write was priority as well as how I behaved. Often father spoke about the importance of being kind and gentle, considerate and honest, but also strong-minded and principled. Mother taught me about to take care of household with cleaning and cooking. She told me that even if we lived down in the dirt, it didn't mean we had to be dirty. To my parents dismay tired to teach me how to stand up for myself and fight if needed, teaching me how to handle a knife and were to hit. He'd done this with my mother as well and even though she disliked it she knew the importance of being able to defend yourself. Grandfather told me that if I could run for it, I should. Only if it was the last thing I could do I should turn to fighting for my life.
Life in the tavern was quite calm for me, but a little boring. I wasn't allowed to help in the tavern nor go outside alone. When I turned fourteen I was finally allowed to help my mother in the kitchen, after imploring my parents and grandfather and pointing out the fact mother started helping as a fourteen year old. Soon after that I got to go with them to the market and buy groceries, which was as close to an adventure it could come for me. When I turned fifteen I got a little more responsibility and got to help and serve the days and evenings when it wasn't a lot of people. Occasionally the tavern was closed down at the evenings and during those times I wasn't allowed to leave the upper floor, where our living courter was. This of course I knew meant bad business and I've come to understand during the years that not only my grandfather had a small part of this but that my father had gotten quite a large part in the business making at the tavern. It made me wonder if the reason to why he'd fled down here was because of some criminal affairs going wrong on the surface. I never asked of course, since he clearly didn't want to tell me. And even if I was curious I really didn't bother much about it. My father was a wonderful man in my eyes; he loved me and my mother and all he ever did for me was trying to make my life as good as possible down here.
I used to eavesdrop from the stairs, to curious for my own good when business was going on. That's how I knew how big a part my father had in all of it. It was during one of these evenings when father was going to make business that my life changed forever and it all begun with two thugs that used to hang around in the tavern coming in as we was about to close and clean for the night. Father told me to go upstairs and as always I did but only to stop midway the stairs to eavesdrop. One of the men told my father that a special man would come in tomorrow evening and that he had a life changing deal he wanted to discuss with my father. They told him the man would come around ten the next evening ant that they expected the tavern emptied by then. My father accepted it and the men left. I continued up to my room, wondering what a life changing deal could mean.