CH. 2: No Home

A young boy, about the age of 7, stumbles through an alleyway. His tattered shirt catches on a stray nail and rips, he turns and looks at the pieces of his shirt barely holding itself together. Falling to his knees he crawls into into corner and holds his knees near his chest while shivering. The spring nights carry a chill that shoves the tattered clothes out of the way and seeps into the bones of the small frail child.

Outside the alleyway a little girl walks with her parents, the lights pushing away the darkness that creeps around every corner. Her parents hold her hands tightly. "Vivian, you must remember not to come out here alone. The alleys are home to monsters that a maiden should never see." Her father says to her whilst looking down an alleyway towards a pile in the corner. The young boy looks at them as the family picks up their pace and briskly walks away.

He was always treated this way since before he could remember. He had always been alone, he had no one to help him, no orphanages existed in this side of town and there was no way for a poor boy to cross over the wall to get to the otherside. He always heard rumors about the otherside, the palaces that radiate a bright glow from the light mana they are infused with. No one who was on the otherside of the wall would help him though, he was just a small grain of sand compared to the entirety of the city. Slumped in the corner he shivers until he slowly falls asleep.

The boy wakes up to the sounds of people walking and talking, small carts rattle along the path. He shades his red eyes from the harsh light of the morning, his pale skin is stretched across his bones, his black hair draped across his face and down his back. As his eyes adjusted he hurriedly stood up and walked out to the crowd, following his same routine he fell to his knees on the side of the road and holds his hands out muttering. "Please spare me some food, or water."

"Move brat." A shop owner comes out and starts hitting the boy with a stick. Purely on instinct the boy scurried away and kneels a few blocks away and starts begging for food and water again. After a few hours the boy was starting to loose faith as no one gave him anything just like the days before, he resolved himself to trying to find some meal in the trash. Starting to stand to walk away he hears a familiar voice. "Where do you want to eat today Vivian?"

"I want to eat..." The little girl seems to be thinking before saying. "Cookies."

Her dad shakes his head and says. "Let's go eat at that restaurant over there sweetie." The dad points at a restaurant down the street."

"Okay!" The little girl smiles and hurriedly walks towards the Restaurant but stops short as she sees the boy looking at them. "Come along dear, we shouldn't converse with beggars."

"But dad-"

"No buts!" Her dad angrily interrupts her and drags her away. The boy puts his hands out to grab onto them. The dad sees this and without moving the boy gets flung into the wall behind them. "A mere peasant dares to reach out to grab onto me!" The dad let's go of Vivian's hand and walks towards the young boy.

"Dad don't!" the daughter grabs onto her dad's hand as the dad stops.

"He won't live long anyways." The dad picks his daughter up and walks off towards the restuarant, the boy coughs up some blood as he crawls back into an alleyway slowly. "Why does everyone hate me?" The boy asks no one as he crawls into a corner and curls up.

"I'm sure not everyone hates you." A voice says back to the boy.

"Apparently you haven't seen how everyone treats me."

"I saw how the girl reacted towards you, she doesn't seem to hate you."

"What does that matter, she can't help me." The boy closes his eyes and slowly falls asleep. In the middle of the night the boy starts to feel a warm spread through him as he opens his eyes and glances around but no one was there, he looks down and sees the blanket on him, his wounds also don't hurt anymore. The boy gets up, while holding the blanket around himself firmly, and starts walking back out of the alleyway but no one was there. Walking back he sits down and holds the blanket tightly as he falls back to sleep.