AN: I try to keep myself from doing too many author's notes, particularly on multi-chapter fics, but this one's important. Please, if you happen to notice a typo or a sentence that looks funky but you can't place it, let me know either in a review or a PM. Thanks!
ALSO suppose I should alert y'all, there is some implied grossness toward the end of this chapter, so be aware.
The years that brought the boy into his adolescence were harsh and unforgiving. He'd held out hope that his mother might return for him right up until the caravan moved on to Belgium in the summer of his tenth year. It was only then that he accepted that his mother truly had left him behind. Now sixteen, he hated her for leaving him behind, for selling him for what he could only imagine was a truly meager sum. Was I truly worth so little to you, he wondered.
Firouz, the man his mother had left him with, had been unkind from the start. Never a kind touch, never a soft word. The boy knew Firouz as a monster who snarled at him in languages he couldn't understand for doing things he never could've dreamed were wrong.
As he grew, the only part that changed was the boy's understanding of language. Now he could understand most spoken English, French, Farsi, and even Dutch to an extent. His tongue still stumbled over many words, but when he wanted to be particularly defiant he could string together a coherent sentence. It wasn't often that he was willfully defiant, however. The beatings weren't worth it.
It was smarter for him to play dumb and pretend that he couldn't understand the majority of what was said to him. Firouz was less violent when he thought the boy wasn't understanding him. That didn't mean that there was ever a time without pain for the boy, however.
Once London was but a memory, the boy was locked in a cage for the entirety of the journey across the English channel to Belgium, and most of the way to where they finally set up camp. Nobody told the boy where they were, and he wasn't sure he wanted to out himself as smarter than he appeared.
It was in Belgium that he was first chained to a stake. To prevent him running away, Firouz would later explain. How his flight had only been considered a possibility upon leaving the country where he'd been born, the boy would never understand. But once the idea that he was capable of escaping was in his head, he knew that it would be his future. From that moment on, there wasn't a moment that passed that the boy wasn't weighing his options and waiting for someone to misstep. All he needed was one small mistake on the part of Firouz or the other men and he could slip away into the night.
At least, that was his theory. He knew already that he was strong enough to carry the chains that bound his wrists. He theorized that he could uproot the heavy stake that kept him tethered to the ground if given enough time. But in practice he found himself shaking too hard to even attempt it.
The punishment if he were to be caught would be severe. The lashings he received for misstepping while in the view of a paying audience or for retaliating when struck by Firouz or another were immensely painful and often left him sobbing into the tattered rags he called clothing. If he failed to escape, he assumed Firouz would beat him nearly to death, as he had seen him do to another freak child back in London, just before they'd traveled on.
The image of that boy trying to defend himself with his strange, claw-like hands was forever burned into his mind. Sometimes it made him angry, but mostly it just frightened him. He hated how much he feared Firouz. He hated having to fear anybody. I should be feared, he thought, it is my face that frightens people so!
In the twelve years he had been with the freak show, only two people had ever bothered to try to teach him anything. Firouz spoke to him constantly during lashings and meals, hoping that the boy would begin to speak. Another freak, a young man who'd been born with a deformed spine that left him permanently doubled over, read to him. He never learned the young man's name, but after supper he would hide near where the boy was kept and read whatever books he could get his hands on to him.
But that young man had long since been left behind and the boy couldn't remember if it had been in France or Austria that he'd last seen the man he could almost have called his friend. The boy had no real concept of loneliness, considering he'd spent a good amount of his life stuffed in a cage and denied even the most basic human contact, but he decided that what he felt for that hunchbacked boy must've been loneliness. He missed him so.
It was on a particularly dark and stormy night that the boy found himself left completely alone in a small, dark tent. He was not afforded a lantern, but it did not matter. He could see nearly as well in the dark as he could in the light. Firouz and the others weren't aware of this, as far as he could tell. He was deprived of light because they thought it was an inconvenience for him, not because they knew he could function without it. His chains were long enough that he could reach the exit but not much farther beyond, and over the sounds of thunder he could hear the roar of a crowd. There was a thin rug near the stake for him to sleep on.
He decided that he rather liked being alone this way. Nobody was poking him or hitting him, no one was dragging him into a cage, it was almost as if he'd been forgotten. He hadn't been given his evening meal yet, but he'd gladly go hungry if it meant he didn't have to endure any pain.
It was as he was contemplating his lack of supper that he heard the first shrill scream. His eyes widened and he dropped to the ground, fearful that it may have been a wild animal tearing through the camp. It took two more screams before he realized it was no animal. It reminded him most of the young girls that would shriek and cling to their mothers upon seeing his ghastly visage.
He crept over to where the fabric of the tent separated and peered outside. The camp was mostly dark, only a few lanterns still lit near the center of camp. The screams seemed to be coming from behind his tent, somewhere near the edge of the little settlement. Each shriek sounded more desperate than the last, and that awakened an anger deep inside the boy that was unlike anything he'd ever felt before. It was as though something deep within him snapped and he could no longer control himself.
He turned his attention to the chains that bound him to the stake at the center of the tent. It was at least a foot in diameter and driven deep into the ground, with the heavy chain wrapped countless times around it and secured with multiple padlocks. He had studied his chains extensively over the past few months since they'd arrived in Greece, and he knew that if he could unlatch even one of the locks he could likely unwind the chain, but he was never allowed anything that could act as a lock pick.
He began to wonder how heavy a rock would have to be to smash a padlock. Looking around his tent in the darkness, he noticed a particularly large rock that was nearly the size of his foot. How his handlers had overlooked such a formidable weapon, he'd never understand, but he was grateful for it. He wrapped the long, thin fingers of his left hand around it and brought it over to the stake.
He brought it down as hard as he could on one of the locks, and it dented significantly. When he reached down to pull it away, the loop came away easily. He dispatched with the other three locks in a similar fashion and unwrapped the chain. He looped it over his shoulder and returned to the tent entrance, willing whoever was screaming to cry out just once more so he could locate them. The chain felt so much lighter than it ever had, as though it had been replaced with a rope of the finest silk.
A lovely weapon it will make, he thought as he exited the tent. One final, choked wail escaped from a very familiar tent, that of Firouz.
He broke into a clunky run, his legs not used to the freedom of movement. As he approached the tent, he was amused by the lack of guards. How many times has something like this happened? Do they all just turn a blind eye because he's Firouz? He growled as he thought of his own time spent in the man's private tent. That pain had been a special, terrible pain unlike anything else the man did to him. It had taken a long time for the boy to push those memories from his mind the first time.
Now he hoped they would remain as fresh and raw as they felt right then. They fueled his anger nearly as well as the pained whimpering that was coming from within the darkened tent. For a long moment, the boy stood near the entrance to the tent, listening and waiting.
A thick chuckle was the noise that made him enter. So, Firouz wishes to laugh at pain? I shall show him pain, he thought as he took the chain in both hands, holding it taut like the rope that was held against his neck so often onstage, a threat of death for the walking corpse. So often the question was asked of his audience, 'can a corpse die?'
So often they would lean forward in anticipation of learning the answer as Firouz would choke him. Tonight he would ask a question, his first since the single-word question of, "Mama?"
"Can a monster die?" he asked, his voice a low, throaty croak.
"Whose is that voice?" Firouz asked. The boy smiled. By speaking, the man had given away his location. He turned and navigated through the long tunnels of silken sheets that lined the inside of the man's large tent until he reached the makeshift bedchamber. What he saw made his blood boil. There, upon the man's bed of cushions and plush blankets, was Firouz in a most compromising position with a girl who couldn't have been more than ten years old.
"Who's there?" Firouz asked again as he pushed himself to his feet. The instant he was off of the girl, she rolled away from him and hid.
"Come now, you don't know the voice of, what is it you called me the night you purchased me? Your most prized possession?" There was a note of amusement to the boy's voice as he realized that Firouz couldn't see him. He stepped closer to the man but remained just beyond his reach.
"The boy with the death's head?" Firouz asked with a disbelieving laugh. "Impossible. The corpse-boy cannot speak! He is a mute!"
"That is how he wishes you to see him," said the boy. Firouz was looking toward the entrance to the room; his back was turned to the boy. He would never have a better shot than he did right then. He lunged forward, bringing the chain down around the man's neck and pulling it tight. Firouz threw his arms up and clawed at the boy's arms. It was only then that either of them realized exactly how much taller the boy was than the man. Firouz came to the boy's underarm, but just by barely. He was no match.
The noises that escaped from the man's throat were unpleasant, and each one made the boy's grip tighten until the man ceased his fighting and slumped forward against the chain.
The boy let go and Firouz fell to the ground with a heavy thud. The girl who'd hidden somewhere in the room gave a shrill scream as she realized what had happened, and it was only then that the boy began to hear signs of life from elsewhere in the camp. He knew he was running out of time.
He turned to the body on the floor and began to rummage through the man's pockets. In his shirt pocket, he found the key he was looking for. He made short work of undoing the chains that bound his wrists and turned to the man's body once more.
At the man's hip, he found a small purse filled with coins. He took it and one of the scarves that hung near the bed before stealing away into the night.
All around him, the camp stirred and woke. The boy stumbled and fell a few times, letting out terrified moans each time he landed on the ground between tents.
He didn't allow himself to stop running until he was far beyond the outskirts of the camp, in a thick patch of trees that the moon's light couldn't penetrate.
For the first time in his life, he was free. He had no concept of freedom beyond no longer having to endure undue pain, but that was enough for him. To think of the larger connotations of his freedom would only serve to terrify the boy as he found a hollow stump that he could squeeze into and hide for the night.
The sound of the angry mob that quickly assembled back at the camp made him eager to continue onward, but even with his ability to see in the dark it would be difficult and dangerous to travel too far in the darkness.
He knew he wouldn't sleep that night. How could anyone sleep in his situation, after all? Adrenaline coursed through his veins from his daring escape and the life he'd claimed—
His eyes widened in horror as he realized that he had actually killed a man. He looked down at his impossibly long-fingered hands and wished that he could shed them and grow new ones that weren't guilty of such a crime.
I am a monster, he thought miserably as he wedged himself into the hollow stump. It was barely tall enough to conceal him as he sat, but he didn't worry too much about the men from the fair finding him there. Part of him, a particularly morose part of him which called itself his conscience, hoped that he would be found and justice served.
He wondered if the child he saved would understand his intent. How terrifying it must have been to be in such a compromising position having to listen to a man die.
Beyond his stump he heard distant shouting and screaming as the mob searched for him throughout the night, but it never came so close that he worried he'd be found.
As the voices finally quieted and morning broke, the boy almost felt hopeful for his future.