Then suddenly… A hand picked me up from the ground.
It was strong. It felt like iron. One moment I was staring at the asphalt, waiting for the end, and the next, I was dangling in the air.
I was crying. I couldn't stop. My head hung low, my chin hitting my chest, and my heart was pounding against my ribs like a trapped bird trying to break out of a cage. Thump. Thump. Thump. It hurt. My whole chest hurt.
I had just seen Death. I saw it with my own eyes. It was big, and loud, and fast. The wind of it still felt cold on my skin. The fear wasn't just in my head; it was heavy. It sat on my shoulders like a wet blanket. I was shaking so hard my teeth clattered together. I was crying a lot. I was crying so much I couldn't breathe right.
Then, the hand jerked me. It wasn't mean, but it was firm.
"Hey!"
The man shook me, snapping my head up, shaking me awake from the shock that had frozen my blood.
I looked at him through my tears. It was a man. He looked old, but strong. He was about the same age as my father. His face was kind. It was a soothing face, the kind of face that tells you everything is going to be alright. But right now, that face was twisted. His eyebrows were squeezed together. He had a worrisome look, like he was scared too.
"Are you okay, kid? Are you hurt? Check yourself! Say something, kid!"
His voice was loud, but it wasn't angry. It was desperate. He grabbed my shoulders and checked my arms. He spoke with a face so caring, so full of worry for a stranger like me, that my chest tightened up again.
I started crying again. Harder this time. The tears filled my eyes until everything turned into watery blobs. They blurred my vision. I blinked, and for a second, through the blur, his face changed.
Somehow, he reminded me of my father. The way he frowned. The way he held me so I wouldn't fall.
People started to stop. A crowd gathered around us to see what happened. They stood in a circle, whispering, pointing. It felt like the whole world was watching. Many of them pulled out small boxes from their pockets. These boxes had bright lights on them. They were pointing the boxes at me and the man.
Flash. Flash.
The lights were blinding. They hurt my eyes. It was like lightning without the thunder. I tried to hide my face, but there was nowhere to hide.
The man saw this. He growled at them. He quickly grabbed me, pulling me close to his side, and started walking fast. He shouted at the people to move, shouting that he was taking me to the doctor.
I stumbled along beside him. My legs felt like jelly.
"Thank… Thanks… Tha—Thank you, sir," I stammered. I couldn't get the words out. My throat was dry and tight. My voice was broken, cracking with every syllable. "You saved my life. I… I… I was about to die there."
I said it with that pathetic crying face of mine. Snot was running down my nose. I must have looked like a mess. I must have looked weak.
"Hey kid, listen to me," he said, not slowing down. "What's your age?"
I sniffled, wiping my nose on my dirty sleeve. "My age is nine, sir."
He nodded, looking straight ahead, his grip on my shoulder tight. "Where is your father, kid?" he asked. "Why are you out here alone?"
He had such a fatherly face when he asked that. He sounded just like him.
Upon hearing this question, the dam broke.
The word "Father" echoed in my head. It bounced around my empty skull. I couldn't hold it in anymore. I cried and cried. I wailed right there on the sidewalk. I cried more than I ever had in my entire life. I cried for the fear. I cried for the loneliness.
The pain in my chest was bigger than the fear of death. It was a sharp, hot knife twisting inside me.
We kept walking, but my steps got heavier. Every step felt like I was lifting a heavy stone.
And then, another monster woke up inside me.
My hunger caught up with me.
It hit me like a punch to the gut. My stomach cramped, twisting into a knot. The world didn't just blur; it spun. The ground tilted sideways. The sky swapped places with the street.
I went limp. My legs just gave up.
The last thing I remember was the man's voice. It sounded far away, like he was shouting from the bottom of a deep well.
"Hey kid, stand up! Hey kid, are you okay? Hey kid, wake up!"
Then, everything went black.
( A Few Times Later )
I gained consciousness a few times, but it was flickering. Bzzt. On. Bzzt. Off.
Every time I opened my eyes, I was in a different location. I don't know what those places were, but I remember voices. Loud voices. Concerned voices.
In the first place, I was lying on something hard. I heard someone say, "That boy faded out of hunger. Look at his ribs. Poor kid."
The voice sounded sad. Then my vision got blurred again. Gray fog filled my eyes. Darkness took me, pulling me down like a heavy weight, and I was unconscious again.
I woke up once again.
This time, I was in a white space.
Everything was white. The walls, the ceiling, the floor. It was so bright, so clean, I thought it was Heaven. I thought the metal box had actually hit me and I had died.
Am I dead? Is this where Father is?
I tried to move, but I couldn't. There were rubber threads wrapped around me. Tubes. They looked like clear snakes. And there was a sharp pain in my hand. I looked down.
A needle was stuck inside the back of my hand.
Silver. Sharp. Deep inside my skin.
I panicked. My breath hitched. They are hurting me! My heart raced, banging against my ribs again. The machine next to me started beeping fast. Beep-beep-beep.
The fear was too much. My brain shut down. Just like that, I lost consciousness again.
And now, I have regained my consciousness again.
My eyes fluttered open. The bright white light was gone. It was softer now. Warmer.
I sat up slowly. I am in someone's house. Probably the house of the person who saved me. I still felt dizzy and hazy, like my head was full of cotton. My thoughts were slow, moving like they were stuck in mud.
I looked around. I was in a room triple the size of my tent.
My eyes went wide. It wasn't huge compared to the buildings outside, but to me? To a boy who lived in a patch of dirt? It was a palace. A literal castle.
The walls were painted a creamy color. There was a wooden floor. The condition was a bit old—there were scratches on the floor and the colour was fading in the corner—but at least it was better than my tent. It didn't smell like mold or dirt. It smelled like... rose. And dry wood.
I looked down at myself. I wasn't wearing my rags anymore.
I was wearing someone else's clothes. A t-shirt and soft pants. These clothes were cool. The fabric was smooth against my skin, not scratchy. But they were very loose in the chest area. The shirt hung off me like a sack. I don't know why. Maybe the person whose clothes these are has a pretty manly chest. Maybe they have huge muscles.
I turned my head. There was also a window in the room.
I could see the lights of the city glowing outside. Orange and yellow lights, blurry through the glass. It was raining. I could hear it.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Whoosh.
It was night time. The sound of the rain against the glass felt so comfy. It made me feel safe. I was warm. I was dry. I wasn't out there in the cold mud. And most of all the ceiling was not leaking.
I was looking around, touching the soft blanket, when suddenly, I heard a voice coming from behind the door.
Footsteps.
I thought it was that same man who saved me. The Nice Man with the fatherly face.
I tried to stand up to show my gratitude. I needed to bow. I needed to say thank you properly this time.
Just as I was about to stand, I failed and stayed on the bed, blanket on me, i just gave up on trying to stand, then suddenly the door opened.
I froze.
I saw her.
That same woman with the big chest who gave me money on the road earlier. The one who looked at me with pity.
She froze too. Her eyes popped open.
"What the hell are you doing in my house!!" she screamed aloud.
Her voice was so loud I almost lost consciousness again. She looked furious. She looked confused.
I was shocked. I blinked, my brain trying to connect the dots.
"What are you doing in a nice person's house?" I asked back.
As I said this, that same man who saved me appeared from behind the girl. He stepped into the light. He looked at the screaming woman, then at me.
He grinned at me. A big, wide grin.
"Oh? So I am a nice guy? And wow you guys already know each other, amazing. You made things easy for me."
He had something in his hands, wrapped in paper, but I couldn't understand what it was. I didn't care. He was safe.
As I was about to stand up and bow down to show my appreciation, my body betrayed me again. The dizziness came back. The room tilted.
"Thank you, Nice Man, for saviiiiinggggg…."
My voice trailed off. The world spun again. I lost consciousness and I dropped from the bed to the floor with a thud.
After a short time, I woke up again.
This time, it wasn't a noise that woke me. It wasn't a shake.
It was a smell.
A strange smell. A good smell. A powerful smell.
It floated into my nose, thick and heavy. It smelled like fire and salt and juice. My mouth instantly filled with water. My stomach let out a roar like a wild lion. GRRRR.
"Hey kid, you are up. Hey, don't get unconscious on me again, you dumb case."
I blinked my eyes open. The Nice Man was crouching in front of me. He said this with a huge smile.
"What are you doing, sir? And what is this strange smell?" I asked, sitting up slowly. I sniffed the air loudly. Sniff. Sniff. "It smells… amazing."
As I asked, that same beautiful woman came out of a room down the hall. She was holding plates and a weird box. It was thin and shiny. Light from it was falling on her face.
"I am cooking meat, kid, so you get some energy," the man said nonchalantly, like it was the most normal thing in the world.
My eyes went wide. Wider than dinner plates.
Meat? Real meat?
I looked at him, totally amazed. I had so many questions.
"Ohh. Wow. So, which dead animal meat is this, sir?" I asked, my voice full of serious curiosity. "And whose is it for? And where on the road did you find that dead animal, sir?"
The room went silent.
Dead silent. The only sound was the rain outside.
The man stopped smiling. The woman stopped walking. They froze.
They got extremely shocked. They stared at me. Then, their expressions changed. They started crying. Not loud crying, but tears just started leaking out of their eyes. They looked at me with wide, sad eyes. Filled with pity.
I didn't understand what I said that saddened them. I looked back and forth between them. Did I say something wrong? Was I not supposed to ask about the roadkill?
"What kind of life were you living, kid?" the Nice Man asked me. His voice was thick and shaky. His eyes were swimming with tears.
I tilted my head.
"Normal life, I guess," I said nonchalantly.
"Where are you from, kid? Tell me," he asked in desperation. He stepped closer. "Where did you sleep? Where did you grow up?"
"I am from that forest abandoned park. Why?"
As I said that, the air in the room changed instantly.
The warmth vanished. The room felt cold.
I saw fear on their faces. Genuine, shivering fear. I saw confusion. I saw terror.
They looked at each other, then back at me.
"This girl told me that some kind of Entity lived there," I said gently, pointing a finger at the woman. "Is that true? I never saw any Entity there in the past nine years."
I looked at them, genuinely confused. I really wanted to know. If there was a monster in my woods, I should have seen it, right?
"There were only me and my father. So can you tell me who was that Entity?" I asked with a dead straight face.
The silence that followed was heavy. It was suffocating.
The only thing I saw on their faces was absolute terror.
They weren't looking at me like I was a boy anymore. They weren't looking at me like a lost kid they saved from the street.
They looked like they had seen something inside me. Something dark. Something dangerous.
They looked at me like I wasn't human.
Like I was some kind of… ENTITY.