Chapter 4: The Little Village
Author's notes: Alright, this chapter and the ones following it are of my own work. I hope I do dreamydaydreamer's original chapters justice.
Slowly, but surely the fogginess of unconsciousness began to fade from Harry's mind. As he became aware of his surroundings, Harry realized that he was on a soft bed in the middle of a small, but cozy room with off-white walls and a wooden floor. Finally, the last few memories of what happened earlier came back to him. "Oh rats, I gotta get out of here." Harry thought as he scrambled to get out of the quilt that had been tucked around him. Luckily his bag was sitting at the end of the bed and with a quick look inside of it, he found all his belongings as well as the small bit of food he had left. Quickly, he shrugged his bag onto his shoulders, but the straps rubbed up hard against his bruises as he did so. Harry bit down on his lip to keep himself from crying out in pain, knowing that silence was key to escaping this mess.
Wanting to avoid creaky steps in the wood, Harry softly crept towards the door. He then placed his ear against it to hear if his 'captors' were not far off. "He just came up to me out of nowhere, sir. Poor child looked positively chilled to the bone." He heard the woman…Maria say. It sounded as if they were just done the hall.
"Of course he did. He'd been out there all night. Surprised he still living." The man who tackled him said.
"Thank you for your assistance. Now if you could just show me where the boy is…." Said a male voice Harry didn't recognize.
Harry's eyes widened at those words. Not caring about how much noise he made, Harry ran towards the small window that was above the bed. With a hard pull, the window opened with a loud creak. The child couldn't help but look over his shoulder as he climbed out the window, hoping the adults were still busy talking. After getting his whole body outside the window, Harry let go of windowsill and dropped down to the ground. It wasn't a far drop, but it was enough to hurt a boy who was malnourished and bruised.
The child hardly took a second to get back to his feet before rushing off towards a forest behind the cottage. He ran and ran and ran for what felt like an eternity, but was really only about thirty minutes. Harry finally stopped to lean against a tree to catch his breath. His whole body ached with exhaustion and he had to fight to stay awake. He was so tired from his lack of food and water, but he knew he had to keep going. So as quickly as he could, Harry grabbed an apple from his bag and nibbled on it as he started trudging through the snow.
After a while, the boy came across a half-frozen river. Harry dropped to his knees and even though the water was absolutely freezing, he kept dunking his hands in it to get as many handfuls of water as he possibly could. The water felt so good going down his parched throat. With a satisfied sigh, Harry leaned back against a tree to rest for just a few short minutes. "Where should I go now?" he thought as he looked around at the forest, "I guess I'll just start walking upstream. Maybe I'll find another village." And so after another few minutes of resting, Harry got up and headed upstream.
He trudged through the snow, stopping every now and then to rest or eat a light lunch. At sunset, he came across another village. This one however seemed like it was more…old fashioned. Some of it almost looked a little…medieval. The houses and buildings were Tudor and looked as if they'd been there for a few hundred years. The market place was alive with people shopping for Christmas or just getting groceries. Harry looked around in wonder at all the lovely Christmas lights and decorations that twinkled on nearly every building on main street. It was all so…magical.
Unknowingly blowing his cover, Harry wondered out of the shadows and onto the main street. He'd never seen such beautiful things before. The shop windows were full of shiny trinkets and trimmings. Children were running up and down the streets throwing snowballs at each other. People of all shapes and sizes were carrying huge stacks of wrapped packages. There was even a group of carolers heading up the streets towards what Harry thought were houses.
The boy followed the carolers towards the homes of the villagers. He didn't know why and part of him worried if he'd be caught again, but something told him to go. So he followed them, keeping a few feet away so they wouldn't start asking him questions. Eventually as the last few beams of sunlight vanished, the carolers began to disburse and soon Harry was once again left on his own. It was getting even colder as the sky grew darker. "Oh, but where can I go?" the boy asked himself as he wandered down the streets.
When he reached the end of the last line of houses, he came across a run-down shack that might have once been as cozy as the cottages next to it. Part of the second floor looked as if it had been blasted away in some sort of explosion, but the lower half still looked as if it could be used as a makeshift shelter for a little while. So cautiously the young boy shifted his way through the weeds and rocks surrounding the house and pushed open the old door that was barely attached to the hinges. It slowly opened with a loud squeak. Harry crept inside the foyer and found stairs that had been shattered to bits. Apparently it had happened some time ago if the layer of dust was anything to go by.
The child walked through an archway to the left and saw what was once a parlor. An old fireplace was against the western wall. Two comfortable-looking red couches sat around it and a matching armchair sat in a corner next to a tail antique lamp. The room was indeed rather drafty, but the ceiling above was still intact so Harry crawled up onto the longer couch and pulled the blanket and pillow out of his bag. After making himself comfortable, the little boy's eyes grew heavy and soon he fell into a comfortable sleep.
Author's notes: I know it's somewhat short, but I wanted to see how well this liked and if I'm capable of finishing this story well.
Reviews would be lovely and extremely encouraging.