Alexander sighed as he dropped his bag on the floor of the overly large loft apartment in New York. He stretched and yawned- it had been a long day. He ignored the pain in his upper body as he did, and rolled a shoulder, feeling it pop with a satisfying click.

He looked around the loft- it was entirely bare, no furniture was anywhere. The walls were painted white and accented with the brown of the wood beams supporting the ceiling. There was a huge window on the left wall, where he could easily envision couches and a coffee table, maybe. He walked over to it, leaving his bag where it was for the moment. Outside, the loft overlooked the city with its tall buildings and blinking lights, covered in a blanket of snow, the small flakes still falling. Alexander smiled to himself.

The City That Never Sleeps, he thought.

Choosing not to linger at the window too long- someone could see him, and he was on the run, so he didn't want to take that chance- he turned back to the entrance and grabbed his small leather bag, which held only three notebooks, a couple pens, and a day's change of clothes. The little money he had he stored in his shoe, as thieves on New York City streets were less likely to take his shoes straight off him.

He checked the rest of the loft to make sure no one was there. Nobody was, but the building was in bad shape. Holes were seen often in the wall, and there was a large section of the roof missing over what Alexander supposed was the kitchen. He shrugged- it wasn't the worst place he'd ever stayed in, and he was lucky it was here anyway.

He then found the warmest corner he could, and set his bag down to work as a pillow. The hoodie he'd had when he ran from the Je- the place he wasn't thinking about- wasn't exactly the best, but nothing there had been. He lay down, his long hair he so detested splaying out beneath him. Slowly he drifted off to the sounds of the city below him, ignoring the pains all over his body.

Four months later, Alexander quietly slipped into the loft through a hole in the wall he preferred to use instead of the door. It opened into a room one over from his- well, he liked to think it was his-, which was the one with the least condition of all of them.

Stupid, his brain chastised. Nothing is yours, you're a runaway that lives in New York who's afraid someone will walk into the most abandoned place you've seen and-

He focused on his notebook, the last one with some room in it he hadn't yet used. He took his newest pen he'd found that day while rooting through trash bins- it really was quite pretty, he hadn't understood why anyone threw it out- and the words appeared on the page, and then the next, and then the last.

He sighed and looked wistfully at his notebook. It had only had three blank pages left, and filling those hadn't sated his craving to write. He took off his shoe and counted the money in it- one dollar and thirty-six cents. Definitely not enough to buy a new notebook.

You wouldn't be able to buy one anyway, his brain started again. When was the last time you talked out loud?

Alexander swallowed. He knew it was true. Talking was a bad habit for him- he could have gone on for six hours about something he really wanted once upon a time. His mouth had never seemed to stop, and it got him in more trouble he could have imagined. At school with teachers and other students alike, at the many homes he'd been forced to stay in by the foster care system, with the foster care system itself, with police and adults on the street, until he'd arrived at the Jef-

He paused.

Anyway, they'd beaten it into him that he was not to talk and he had finally learned. Finally, after two years, he'd learned. He stayed with them for another four years and a word had never escaped him for fear of the belt that would swing towards him, and the fists and feet and everything hot and he'd still be beaten even for his silence and-

And eventually he'd run, run into the streets of the sleepless city and he'd managed to stay away from the family and the foster care system itself.

He sighed and looked out the window on the left, having given up on wishing for a new notebook and started wandering through the loft. It had been three years of living on the hard streets.

It had been seven years since he'd spoken. He highly doubted that he could do it now, even if he didn't have the same fear that had been instilled into him as a six-year-old.

He honestly didn't know why he still hid from the family and from the system in old buildings and in places on the sidewalk that were warm enough. This loft was the best thing that had happened to him in a long time. Four months here was a miracle.

He yawned and went back to his room, lying down on his bag, shivering, and fell asleep, dreaming of his mother and when they would have enough to eat, before she died and he had to go to America.

The supposed Promised Land, was his last thought before drifting off.