Author's Note: Okay, so I have definitely been uploading a lot of new stories and not finishing them. But this is a very important story because it's a birthday present to my best friend. I wanted to make it a one-shot, but I've decided it needs to be just a bit longer. It'll probably just be a two-shot, at most three chapters. Anyway, this one's for you CherryCokesAndWinterSmokes.

November 26th, 1962

Chris had a bad start to his birthday.

He woke up having dreamt about paradise and found himself in his usual place. The dream had taken him to a place far from Castle Rock, a place like California or Hawaii. It had been a beautiful place, with bright blue skies and chirping birds and happy people. Instead, he was stuck in a town with dark skies, howling wolves and coyotes, and sadness everywhere.

Pulling his raggedy covers off of his body, he stood up and threw on a fresh red shirt and the first pair of jeans he could find. Not wanting to leave his room, one of the only safe places in the house, he sat back down on his bed and stared blankly at the white wall.

"It's my birthday," he said aloud to his baseball glove, the only comforting thing in the room, "It's my birthday. I'm sixteen today. And either I'm stuck in here all day, or I go out there and risk a serious beating."

So he waited there an hour, watching the time tick by on his alarm clock.

Occasionally, he thought about getting up, but in the end he was too tired and didn't really care enough.

Time passed him slowly as he anxiously awaited something to happen. He braced himself for any sudden crashes, shouts, or screams, thuds or slams, but none came. For an hour. For an hour he sat in the exact same position, staring at the wall with a baseball glove in his hand.

Finally, at exactly 10:12 am, the sharp crack of a rock hitting a window sounded throughout the room and Chris jumped sky high off of his bed. Any sound got a reaction out of him, but this one he knew was intentional, that someone was here to rescue him.

Excitedly, he peered through the window, expecting his best friend to be grinning up at him and waving. But his smile faltered when all he found was an angry father on the lawn holding a bunch of heavy rocks and sporting a torn up baseball cap.

"Get your ass down here you lazy bastard!" He started yelling, "It's already after ten and you haven't gotten the god damn eggs from the grocery store yet!" Chris knew his father wasn't drunk. But whenever he woke up with a hangover, he was really grumpy... to say the least.

Chris rolled his eyes and sighed. He had forgotten all about the eggs he always had to get from the grocery store on Saturday mornings. It was Mr. Chambers' second favorite thing to do next to beating his sons, making them go out and do stuff for him. Most of the time he asked for beers and cigarettes, but every Saturday morning was egg-fetching day.

Putting on his favorite, and only, pair of keds, Chris grabbed his "egg-fetching" bag and hurried out of his room before his father could yell at him through the window again. He had no jacket, so he rushed throughout town in the frosty weather with only his thin shirt and jeans to keep him warm.

He continued to feel sorry for himself, with good reason. He had no jacket – or anything else to keep him warm, no loving family, no money, no food, no birthday, and plenty of beatings. "At least he didn't beat me today," and Chris liked to think that that was his birthday present from his father.

He could just imagine it coming from Doug Chambers' voice, "Happy birthday you little bastard. You're in luck, no beatings today."

He shivered, partially from the cold and partially from the creepy thought of his father's horrifying voice. It was bad enough that he was always pounding around the house like an elephant and shouting at everyone with any chance he got, but the thought of a calmly evil voice was enough to give Chris nightmares.

Yet on he ran, bag in hand, until he finally made it into the warmth of Sami's grocery store. Lucky for him, Sami was a good friend of his and made shopping for his father just a little more bearable.

"What's up, man?" Sami practically shouted from behind the counter, packing cigarette boxes into shelves.

Sami Ahmad was a good looking young man, known as the second most handsome boy in Castle Rock. He was tall and lean, but gained muscles by lifting boxes all day, had beautiful gray-green eyes, a perfectly sculpted jawline, a small pointed nose, slightly darker than olive colored skin, a slight quiff of dark hair, and a short-boxed beard, complete with side burns. It was enough to make girls swoon and stop in the street. Even the small scar underneath his left eye made him beautiful.

"Oh, not much. It's my birthday today," Chris replied.

"Damn man, really?! Happy birthday!" He came out from behind the counter to give Chris a heavy slap on the back. Chris often thought that Sami was far too... what was the word? Happy. Far too happy to be a man living in Castle Rock, "How old are ya?"

Chris sat down on a stool from next to the entrance, "16." He grabbed a quick glance at a clock hanging on the far end of the store, "As of ten minutes ago to be precise."

"Well I'll be damned. You're only two years younger than I am." Sami grinned as he made his way back to packing cigarette boxes away.

Noticing that Chris looked upset, his smile froze, "Man, what the hell is wrong with you today? You should be celebrating! 16, man! That's a fuckin big deal!" He threw his hands in the air to emphasize his point.

"Nothing, I'm just kinda tired, that's all." Chris was in no mood to spill his feelings to Sami, the only man in town who seemed so ecstatic to be living there.

"Well, alright then. Man, I don't like people getting me down. Turn that frown around, buddy! It's your birthday. You're supposed to be out there havin' fun, findin' yourself a pretty girl, not in here buyin' those stupid eggs."

Chris sighed. Sami was usually right, though it could be really hard to take his advice when all you could hear was his excitement.

"Alright, fine," Chris said, getting up and placing the stool back in its rightful spot. He ran a hand through his wavy, blonde hair and straightened himself.

"Yeah! That's the spirit!" Sami shouted triumphantly.

And with that, he shoved Christopher Chambers out the door, forgetting to give him the eggs he came for.