Risembool
Night, settled snugly over the wind-tossed waves of the Risembool countryside for so long, was at last beginning to begrudgingly stir and lift. It was retreating, slowly and lingeringly, leaving the hills grey and sober before the morning splash of colour. The moon, a sharp sliver of the usual orb, remained stubbornly in the sky, and would continue to do so for a few hours yet. The stars, however, were shrinking away, and the earth remained silent, motionless, hanging on the balance between light and dark.
A wind rolled down the hill and across the other side, tumbling up the slope to stir the branches of a tall tree, black against the grey-tinted teal of the sky. It was cragged and broad, untamed and wild, and its branches reached threateningly up towards the few stars that still dared to shine. The tree seemed abandoned, forgotten, yet still it remained. Once, a swing had hung from it, and children had played in its boughs. Now, no longer.
The wind rose again, rustling in the branches and through onto the form of a boy, huddled on the corner of the dead house and curled up for protection against the wind, and the rain, promised yet not delivered, of the receding night. He shivered briefly but violently, knees pulled up close to his chest, as the wind stirred and rippled the shirt upon his back. The cold had inched its way deep inside his unfeeling limbs and from there had moved upwards towards his torso, sinking into flesh that reeled from the shock of the unforgiving temperature. Still, he shivered only occasionally, when an extra gust of wind alerted him to the cold.
He didn't know how long he had been there. Moisture had formed around him in the grass he sat on, and the sky had conceived clouds which grew and swelled around him, but he hadn't moved. A deep numbness had set into the limbs that still had the sensation of feeling, and he knew that his movements would be stiff for days. Still, he had no intention of changing his position just yet. He would usually rather stay somewhere too briefly than stay too long, but here was different. He had hardly had a life here; or so it seemed to him. So he wrapped himself up, not in blankets but in memories, and sat outside for as long as he possibly could.
The wind dropped again, and all was still, as if in memory of the brief time they had had there. The tree steadied and settled, and the sky behind it slowly brightened as a pale blue tone mixed itself with the grey. Birds shattered the silence out of shock and ignorance as the light grew and spread upwards from behind the shell of the house where he sat. They took off as one and circled the scene in wide flustered spirals before returning to the tree and making themselves comfortable again.
He moved, raising his head and looking around with blank eyes, registering the beginning of day. Sure enough, his neck was sore and the muscles had tightened all the way down his spine. He moved his head from side to side to relieve the pain. He shifted his legs so that they lay straight in front of him, and winced as cramp crept up from his foot to his hip, gripping his muscles in a tense, edgy pain. He loosened his arms, moved his fingers carefully. He wiped his face, pushing the damp hair out of his eyes with frozen hands that tangled clumsily in it and fumbled to tie it up behind his head.
He stood, straightening up just as the razor edge of the sun sliced around the horizon and lit up the house with a golden light.
Author's note: Yet another! Whoo! Sorry about its emo-ness, but hey.
Thanks to NoZoMi17 and Legendary Chimera (yet again), who reviewed my last story.