The Demon Boy

Day Four - Morning

     Daylight glows grey through the bedroom window. It's a bright grey, testifying how the storm had abated during the night. What remains of the rowdy tempest is a gentle shower and chalky clouds that'll burn off with the sun.

     The boy wakes grudgingly. He had enough of the waking world yesterday, thank you very much. He'd rather stay in bed today and not worry about food, or Myr, or finding shelter from bloody rain that never stops. He'd rather he didn't think about food at all. The reminder dredges up his aching appetite from wherever it had been buried in his sleep. His stomach growls loud enough to be heard from the kitchen next door.

     He recognizes the routine that has defined his time here. (He'd be an idiot not to.) He wakes, aching and hungry. He sneaks to town for the food and compassion he needs. He sneaks back full of neither, having just enough of both to keep him alive another day. He circumnavigates around Myr, lest he suffer his wrath, before fatigue knocks him out for the night.

     Is this how his days will go? Is this all there is to his life?

     He sighs, grimacing at the shattered and torn feeling left in his limbs from being chilled for hours on end. It feels like exhaustion, but worse. Exhaustion, he knows like an old foe. Exhaustion, he knows how to fight. This, whatever 'this' is, is worse. It's the lingering rawness from slowly freezing and it's not in his muscles, where fatigue weighs on him. It is everywhere, trickling deep inside him to where the cold rain cracked his thin bones open to scrape the marrow out and fill him with ice. It wasn't even snowing, yet it was so very cold.

     The boy shivers. Maybe he still is frozen. Not as bad as yesterday, now that he's dry, but the pain is still there, isn't it? Who's to say the ice left while he was comatose on the chesterfield?

     He shivers harder, but for different reasons. This is not where he was last night. This is not where the cold felled him. Someone carried him here. Someone knows where he sleeps at night. Someone saw him helpless and unguarded and the tiniest thought in that direction sends his skin crawling like there's an ant farm inside him. He knows damn well how to press an advantage like that and he fully anticipates getting pressed for it. Doesn't know how they (whoever 'they' is) found out about his safe haven. Not that it's safe anymore.

     The boy strains his limbs to move, goddamnit. He's stiff and sore and starving, but they're more reasons to get out of here. It's not safe. He can barely sustain himself here when he's well. How's he to manage when he tremors as he stands?

     Pins stab into the soles of his feet where they touch the floor. It has nothing to do with splinters of any kind and everything to do with the aches and pains that come with thawing. He doesn't so much as glance at his shoes, neatly placed next to his bed; there's no way he can put them on his feet the way they are now. He doesn't feel better with each step he takes. He feels worse, but he keeps going, keeps forcing one foot in front of the other in an attempt to get anywhere that isn't here. He makes it past the door, into the hall, and makes it no farther.

     When his knees buckle beneath him, slamming yesterday's fresh bruises back into the hardwood floor, the boy understands he no longer has the strength to escape. That he could stand and walk at all is something he owes to spit and a prayer, not some miraculous wellspring of strength he'd found in himself. Put plainly, his abilities are finite and without any relation whatsoever to how high or low his hopes may be.

     He drags himself to the wall to props himself against it for as long as he dares rest, darting eyes watchful for anything that nears. He doesn't search for Myr because he doesn't need to see him to know where he is. A pair of working ears are enough to track the drunk upstairs and down. It's the foreigner he watches for because it's the quiet threats that take you by surprise. It's the quiet ones that you watch for because they can do their worst without you knowing they were ever there. The boy knows because he's quiet too.