Chapter 2
NOTE: Every time there's three '...'s the POV changes from either ?'s to Brine's or Brine's to ?'s. Just in case anyone thought that they were in the same POV. Enjoy the chapter!
I fiddled with with the sleeve of my shirt. I decided to wear a blue t-shirt over a long sleeved white shirt. No-one can see this since it was all covered by my cloak but it was an outfit I was familiar with. I hesitantly pushed open the metal doors to the library, in my six months of being here, I had never stepped in this building even once.
"There you are!" A voice shouted from between some bookcases, "I was starting to worry that we'd have to start without you." It was Steven. Drawing my hood down a bit further, I walked over to the table that Steven and his... Friend? Were sat at.
"As you know, I'm Steven and this is Roth," He pointed to himself and the same boy with a silver band, "This is Jace," A boy with blue hair gave a weak wave.
"I'm Abel!" A brunette shouted, "And this is Hughie." He pointed to a boy with scruffy hair who was sitting next to him.
"My name is Lock," A boy with green headphones said, almost in a bored way.
"Is Sunny not coming?" Steven said after glancing around the table. "Guess not..." He concluded himself.
"Alright! Roth you better start reading." Abel nudged him on the shoulder,
"O... Okay. Day 34
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...
'We met a strange boy at the river. He just sat there, staring at the water.'
"Do you think he's lost?" Abbie wondered out loud for the fourth time,
"If you're this worried, why don't you go back and ask?" Steve never once took his eyes off the map he was holding.
"I'll go with you if you'd like." I slowed my pace so it matched Abbie's. "Steve? We're going back."
"What? If we want to get to the next village before nightfall-" Steve could only sigh as me and Abbie had already walked off. Following the river was pretty easy, it was just walking along a river after all. After we walked for nearly an hour, I was getting worried that the boy had gotten himself even more lost or possibly in danger.
we walked until a row of trees lined the river bed. "There he is!" Abbie cried and ran up to the boy, who had black hair covering his left eye.
'Of course I didn't notice this until he turned to look at us.'
"Hey? Are you alright?"
"... Yeah." He replied after a long pause. If he could talk by just staring with his single eye, I'm sure he would be saying something like "Go away already."
I scratched the back of my head. The shy, silent types were the worst. I looked at the sky, though it was partially covered by empty branches of the winter trees, the sky was relatively clear.
"Y... You're bleeding!" Abbie snatched the boy's arm up. As his white sleeve fell, a nasty gash was revealed.
''How did you get this cut?' Was probably what Abbie was going to say next, however, what happened next might as well have completely defied the laws that I knew.'
He jump high into the air and crashed head first into a branch. He had launched himself with so much force that his body kept going up even though his head was still under the tree branch. He did about three forward rolls in the air.
'What goes up must always come down so eventually he plunged into the river.'
The water wasn't nearly as deep as it seemed, the current wasn't too strong either. However, the boy's eyes dilated in fear, he began a frantic thrashing. Sooner than anyone could predict, the boy was swallowed up by the river. "Hang on!" It was Steve, I never even took notice when he had gotten here.
Steve waded through the waist deep water to where the boy disappeared and gently scooped him up. "I think he's unconscious."
'Upon taking him onto shore, we found that he had a high fever and so we thought that the best way to deal with this was to build a temporary shelter for the night.'
I woke up in a blanket of cold sweat. I reached for my diary though after thinking for a while, I decided that it would've been too selfish to light a candle and risk waking someone up. Look ling around the room, my eye quickly adjusted to the lack of light. Steve and Abbie both had a look of peace, Abbie even seemed to emit a small giggle every so often. I glanced around a bit more until my eyes came to meet a single, soul piercing cyan eye. "Hello." I whispered.
No reply came, "Not much of a talker are you?" I waited for around two minutes before talking again, "Can't sleep either? I never liked the dark, you never know what's in it."
I felt like was starting to ramble on so I waited probably another five minutes when a reply finally came. "But you can hide in it."
Realising that he was talking about the dark I thought I should keep up the conversation, "Is that what you like doing? Hiding?" I heard a soft shuffle, the next moment I found the boy crawling into my bed.
"Yes." He faced away from me and fell asleep. swallowing some light shock, I followed his example, turned to face the other way and also fell asleep.
The morning came, Abbie was already up and changed the boy's bandage. "I do hope you feel like talking more today. I'm Abbigale, most people call me Abbie." She pulled me and Steve forward and introduced us too.
"So how about you?" Steve said in a friendly tone.
"..." The boy had such a puzzled expression, it made me think that he just got asked the question in Swedish or something.
"What about your age?" I tried, looking at his physical appearance, he had a similar height and a skinny build like me, so around 16? Still I thought I'd ask out of politeness. This question got a semi-instant response. He held up two fists and began counting his fingers. The first time he got to four but shook his head and started recounting. Steve closed his eyes in a pained expression which earned a death glare from me and Abbie.
At last he held up both hands for us to see. "Six? You're only six?!" Abbie raised her voice so that it became a high pitched screech. The boy backed down until he hit the wall of our mud hut. "I... I'm sorry I didn't mean to scary you."
"That's one Nether of a growth spurt." I heard Steve whisper, shaking my head at his comment I said, "Where are your parents? Your mum and dad?"
"Here." Was his simple reply, he pulled two ender pearls out of his pocket.
"That's somewhat disturbing." Steve commented, much louder this time.
"Why don't you go get some wood, Steve" I offered, hoping that I can get him out before Abbie starts shouting. Steve rolled his eyes and headed out.
"Axel." I responded to the tug of my shirt, I wanted to ask "what?" But he carried on talking and even smiled slightly, "My name is Axel."
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..."
"Kinda strange that Brine never wrote the name of the boy down." Hughie said, disturbing the flow of the story.
"He probably just forgot." Roth said and turned the book sideways, like he was testing for a secret message. "Want me to keep reading? This seems like a good place to stop for today."
"Let's stop there, I have stuff I need to do." Was Lock's opinion, he turned and left the library. Roth closed and gave the book to Steven. The other kids slowly filed out. I stayed and read a few more books. Until the sun started to dip did I leave the library.
I looked around, trying to get my bearings. I was in the shadier part of town. I heard a shout then spotted a group of boys running away from a baker. "Come back you bunch of-" He grabbed the collar of one boy who threw the package he was running with to another boy, who I didn't think was part of their group. The baker released the boy he was holding and marched up to the unfortunate boy who just so happened to be standing there to catch the package.
"You must be the ring leader!" The boy thrusted the package towards the backer and tried to walk off but was lifted into the air by the front of his shirt.
"Stop!" By then I had walked over to the two. A light ring of people had gathered to watch what was going on. "I apologise for the behaviour of this child. I'd like you to release him."
I could smell the baker's dry breath as he spoke, "This group of little rascals have been thieving from my shop for weeks. It's too late even if you rounded all of them up and begged on your knees!"
"What if I gave you this?" I showed him a block of glowstone. I knew that this was the equivalent of a block of diamond in this town. "I'll give you this if you let this boy go."
Even though anyone looking would have thought that I was brave standing up to the baker, the truth was that I was terrified. I never liked people staring at me, it's even worse now that I have nearly two dozen people gathered around me. I feel like I could just melt on the spot.
Thankfully, he snatched away the glowstone and dropped the boy. He walked away with am ungrateful "Humph!"
"What's in the package?" I asked, prompting the boy to open it. I was expecting an expensive golden plate or something. 'Shock' wasn't the right word to describe what I felt. It was much more like disturbance or disgust that I felt when I saw that the package contained one lone loaf of plain bread.
"What's your name?" I said to the boy. He crouched down and began writing on the ground with a stick. 'Ethan' It read.
"Are you mute?" He nodded. He had silver hair, making his red eyes stand out. "Are you an orphan?" I hated myself for asking so bluntly but my heart was still pounding from facing up to that baker.
He nodded again.
"Come with me."
Once more he just nodded.