Just a thief
Barefeet met the cold earth as they maneuvered in the dark night.
Kai looked behind as he continued running, a brown sack tightly wrapped around his hand.
Not a single shadow was following him in the thick of the night but the boy didn't stop running.
His feet carried him to an abandoned alleyway and finally came to a halt. He melted within the darkness and tightly coiled his body.
A rotten potato, a few tomatoes and sack of coin. Green eyes greedily stared at the contents in the sack. His hand grabbed a blood red tomatoe and took a large bite, the juices dripping onto the hard ground.
He bit and chewed, bit and chewed, bit and chewed until there was no tomatoe left.
His stomach felt satisfied for the minute, the intense growling of hunger subsided. After his meal, Kai tried to shift into a comfortable position with his limbs placed in awkward positions.
Sleep was far away tonight. Thoughts of Dai Li Agents hunting him down plagued his thoughts. What if he got caught? Who would come to his rescue?
Now and then I get insecure
From all the pain
I'm so ashamed
As long as Kai could remember it was him, himself and only himself.
The orphanage toughened him up. He had been always been scrawny but he was fast, stealing became second nature in order to survive.
Soon he got adopted. A wealthy family welcomed him into their home. They acted as if they loved him, smiles wide, eyes twinkling with joy at their new son.
If his heart wasn't encased in a layer of earth, Kai would've fallen for the act. He could've been happy, let all the smiles and kind words lull him in a false state of happiness.
Sadly, Kai was no fool.
A thief was what he was and he was never going to change.
He stole, he ran and he did it all over again.
So consumed
In all your doom, ooh
But when he was alone with his thoughts, much like this night, his mind would wonder.
Why had his mother dump him at the orphanage? Had she sensed the kind of person Kai would've become? A petty thief?
Would've he become a thief at all? Could he have turned out to be a happy child? No burden of being cautious and scared of trusting, but laugh carefree like most children he observed from the distance. He could've been a normal young boy…
STOP!
Kai's inner voice screamed as his walls rose again. He couldn't do this to himself, always thinking about the alternative. It caused him headaches( and heart aches).
Trying hard to fill the emptiness
The pieces gone
Left the puzzle undone
Ain't that the way it is
His hands wandered into the brown sack and felt the heavy sack of coins as the round metal clanged together, music to Kai's ears.
All the things he stole closed the huge hole in his heart that he denied existed. They brought Kai satisfaction that lasted for a moment, a moment that he could feel contempt.
Even the adrenaline of playing cat and mouse was a way of coping. The thoughts of, 'what next?', and finding ways to evade capture were control measures of chasing the thoughts of, 'why?'.
Why was he abandoned? Why did he have to grow up knowing the pain of broken bones? Why did he become a thief?
Why, why, WHY?!
Tears at this point were trailing down Kai's face.
He was all alone in an alleyway. No one knew where he was. If he died tonight, no one would care.
His loneliness was his fault. Everyone that tried to help him Kai had pushed away. He had done it on his own. There was no one to blame but Kai.
But people were all the same. They would eventually hurt, and maybe even abandon, him. That's why he stood sturdy like a boulder when people tried to crack his hard exterior, he couldn't let anyone break his barriers.
He was just a thief after all.
You're beautiful
No matter what they say
Words can't bring you down
Kai could feel sleep slowly inching its way into his mind as his eyes began to feel heavy. He shifted again, trying to find that comfortable position on the hard ground.
Kai accepted his current life and always looked forward, no matter how many times he glanced back.
What was done, was done.
He would never let anyone close into his heart, the stolen items would have to do. They would, they have to, close the painful gap in his heart.
The stars winked at the boy bellow. His life was never an easy one, but it made him stronger than the rest. If he had been a happy boy, he would have never learned the art of surviving and being smarter than the rest.
Kai accepted himself wholeheartedly. He was crafty, a liar and greedy.
Most importantly, he was just a thief.
I'm filling for our earthbender and this is what I came up with. It was definitely fun to write and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
Pro-Bending Circuit: Round Three
Character: Kai
Fear: Being abandoned and alone
Prompts used: potato, brown, Kai and Beautiful- Christina Aguilera
Words: 817