PAWS [Hannigram]

Chapter 1

For a Friday afternoon, the small park was pretty empty. Not a big surprise once you understand the circumstances. It was Summer - not many kids were home during that time, especially in the first few weeks of the holidays. Many of them were on vacation with their families or went to Summerschool, and the town was far too small to be considered a tourist attraction in any way, so of course, the playgrounds were primarily empty, aside from very few children and sometimes their parents. 

In short: It was the closest to heaven on earth to Will.

Will was never popular amongst his peers. Even in kindergarten, he’d always keep to himself and silently draw or play with bricks, unbothered by other kids. It was not like nobody wanted to play with him. Rather, Will didn't let anyone get too close. The other kids learned quickly that, unless they wanted to be hissed at and get bit, it was in their greater interest to leave him be.

And of course, he opposed a challenge to older, bigger kids, which was not shocking or unheard of - it was almost a part of human nature to challenge those that stood out or appeared weaker to see whether they deserved to be respected or not. Will didn’t pass any of those “challenges” by any means, but after biting another boy who was much bigger than himself so hard he started to bleed, everyone kept space between themselves and Will once and for all. And of course, he did not complain. In fact, he was quite happy with the results, even after almost getting his parents in legal trouble. He was too young to understand what legal trouble was anyways, so he didn’t pay much attention to what happened after that incident.

So in conclusion, it was easy to see that summer was his favorite season. Not because of the nice, warm weather that pushed people to go for a swim or eat ice cream with their friends, but because of the amount of free time added to his loneliness. Now he didn't have to worry about boring school work and could fully concentrate on doing everything in his power to stay alone. 

One may wonder what a young elementary school boy such as Will would do in the park all by himself. Sure it must be boring to just sit there without anyone to play with. But Will disagreed. He quite liked sitting on the swing and kicking the small rocks to see which ones would get the furthest. He loved the sound of not getting questioned when staring very intensely at bushes, trying to discover a new species of bugs. And yes, it was unusual for someone his age to reject anyone who wanted to be his friend, but at this point, anyone who knew Will for long enough was too tired to question it. 

So of course, it caught him by surprise when his view was blocked by a shadow that didn’t seem to disappear while Will was on another one of his bug discovering journeys. The boy ignored the uncomfortable feeling of someone standing behind him, persumably watching his every move. While the parks were almost always kind of lonely, that did not mean that Will was always alone. He never expected that other kids wouldn’t come as well, but by at large, the football fields were the ones that were of greater interest to the only few other people that would come as well. So all that combined with Wills reputation, it was very annoying to him.

-”What do you want?”, he hissed as he turned around.

Will looked up to another boy. He seemed unfazed by his angry tone and instead went down to his knees so he could take a closer look at a ladybug on one of the leaves. Will watched him closely as he picked it up with his finger and turned to him.

-"Ladybug"

-"..Yes"

The boy kept staring at him and Will was getting ready to bite if he didn't leave anytime soon. But inspecting all his facial features, he could not for the life of him figure out who he was. He was dressed.. quite unusually. Will noticed how his clothes looked very expensive and formal. A dark vest over a white button up shirt with some modest pants. Even his hair was kept tidy and combed with so much care, Will didn't see a single strand stand out of place. They were aligned so well, he could probably count every hair on his head if he knew how to count over twenty.