He woke up all at once, completely, the echoes of a nightmare making him breathe in gasps, his heart racing, but already he could not remember what he was so scared of. A…monster…maybe? Monsters were real, weren't they? A monster could be coming for him. So he breathed in quick gasps and felt his heart hammering in his chest and clinched his hands into fists and scrunched up as small as he could make himself.

For a long moment, that was all he did. He did not open his eyes, because if he didn't open his eyes then he couldn't see what was stalking him in the dark. He had an idea it was dark, terribly dark, and there had been growls, screams, horrible voices, and…

It was quiet now. He could hear his own heart, and his own breathing, and beyond that…softer noises. Whirs and murmurs and a distant siren. City noises. Not monster noises. Finally, he opened his eyes, then pushed some cloth out of the way, and it wasn't dark at all. He was in a shadowed place, but it was shadowed because of buildings blocking the early morning sun not because it was night. At least, he thought it was the rising sun and not the setting. It had been dark, and now it was light, because that was what happened when one woke up. He was lying huddled beneath a large cloth, like a blanket. Beneath him was not a bed, though. It was hard asphalt, a road, but rough and buckled as if an earthquake had shaken it from its usual form. Two roads, really; he was right in the middle of an intersection, in a large crater.

It was a quiet neighborhood, wherever he was. Or maybe it was just that all the exciting loud happenings had already happened, and no one had come to clean up after it yet. There were smashed up cars, and more craters. A delivery truck had been treated so roughly that it looked rather like a smashed pinata, crumpled and split open in its own crater and mail scattered all down the street like candy. There were no people, except one man, and he was lying face down near the pinata-ed truck, not moving. He didn't look hurt, not exactly, his brown delivery outfit a little rumpled but not torn or dirty, though for some reason he was lying in a large puddle of gold glitter paint. There was a stick lying near him, broken in half. It really did look as if the man had played pinata with his truck, had a glitter bomb burst on him, and then decided to take a nap in the middle of it.

He looked around but the sleeping man really was the only other person. Slowly, cautiously, he stood up, letting the blanket slide away, strangely liquid for a blanket. It pooled like silk at his feet instead of bunching, even though it hadn't felt like silk. Not that it really mattered what it was made of. He had bigger things to worry over. He wasn't sure what he was meant to do, where he was meant to go. The vestiges of his nightmare made him cautious, but curiosity made him bold, and after a moment he approached the man.

He himself was not a man. That was probably important. And a strange thing to be discovering, probably, because surely he had never been anything but what he was. He was much smaller than the sleeping man. Boy, his mind supplied as if his own existence were a riddle to unravel. He was a boy. The boy was wearing soft brown pants and a long shirt that went over his knees and he had on no shoes, which was a problem when he got closer the ground got rougher and also, if he was not careful, he'd step in one of the splatters of paint. There was such a lot of it, mostly under the man but all around him too.

He deliberated solemnly for a long moment, then grabbed a parcel from among those strewn about from the wreckage. It said it was TO MR. TRAVIS ST-, 2332 B FLEE-, though the rest of the address had gotten paint stains that made it illegible. The boy read what he could, then carefully ripped it open and tipped out the contents into his hand; a bracelet of two snakes entwining themselves around each other, one white and one green. There was also a note.

Son,

Stay safe, stay together, and keep your head down. I do not like the portents we have seen. The trigger word is ἀδάμας.

H

The boy read this, stuck the paper in his pocket and the bracelet around his wrist. His wrist was tiny compared to the bracelet, but that didn't matter because the snakes obediently slithered around each other until it was tight enough to not immediately fall off. He looked at his new bracelet with a pleased grin and whispered, "Adamas." The snakes in the bracelet moved once more, almost too fast to understand, the whole thing expanding and changing, and in the next moment he held the golden hilt to some kind of weapon made out of a metallic, crystalline material, like the bracelet had been. It looked like a sword with a wickedly hooked end, but that was due to the boy's smaller size; it was bigger than a knife but not a fully sized sword. It fit his size perfectly and the boy laughed, waving it about as if it were a toy.

Then he went to work, using the new blade to help him as he rearranged what had been its packaging into serviceable paper shoes for his feet. Once that was done, he took a moment longer to stare contemplatively at his weapon.

"Adamas," he said, louder this time, and was honestly startled by his own voice. It was high pitched and young. He knew he was a boy, and boys have high pitched, childish voices, but for some reason he still wasn't expecting it.

The weapon turned back into a bracelet on his wrist. The boy started his journey to approach the sleeping man, no longer caring if he got paint on the bottom of his feet since they were protected by his paper shoes. He still tried to avoid the paint; it was slick and sticky at once and for reasons he could not name it made him uncomfortable.

He also wasn't sure why he felt he had to approach the man. Perhaps it was because he was all alone and the man was a person. It just felt right, to go to him. But when he was actually right up next to him, close enough to see his face, which was white, except where it was gold, and still as if it were a marble statue and not a man, the boy felt suddenly afraid. Like this had been part of his nightmare.

"Excuse me?" he whispered to the man, reached out a hand to shake his shoulder, but drew it back before it touched. The man was lying so still. Maybe he wasn't sleeping. Maybe…maybe the monsters got him. Maybe he was…

He turned away from the man and went to the broken sticks. Staff, his mind supplied, and incomplete. It made something in his stomach turn to look at it, some deep heavy emotion looming over him at the mere sight of it. Like he knew what it was, what it should be, and if he remembered then he would be…sad? Horrified? Angry? Some emotion too heavy and horrible for a child to name, though children are nonetheless capable of feeling it. Grief, his mind whispered, I fear grieving. Why should a stick upset him more than a maybe sleeping, maybe dead man?

He didn't know. He didn't know what had happened here, why he had woken up in the middle of an empty and deserted street. He didn't know…he didn't know a lot of things.

As is typical with many children when faced with things too big for them to comprehend, he ignored it. He left the broken staff and he left the sleeping man alone and went back to his blanket and pulled it over his head and stuck his left pinky in his mouth and chewed on it while his right hand went to his own hair and wrapped the curls it found there about his fingers, and he hummed to himself and waited for the world to right itself.

He might have stayed like that for five minutes, maybe ten, probably not more, when the second man arrived. The boy didn't see how he arrived; there was a brilliant ray of sunlight, as if the sun had suddenly glinted off some metal to pierce his eyes, and when he could see again there was a red convertible where there had been none, likely the source of the glinting medal. Though how it could drive over the buckled and broken asphalt, through the debris, was a mystery. A large man jumped out and looked about wildly. For a moment, he faced the boy who was still sitting in the crater, his blanket held about him like a cloak, and the boy wondered if he should wave or try to run away. In the end he did neither, and it didn't seem to matter, because the man's gaze swung away again, until it finally rested on the sleeping man.

"Brother!" the man shouted and ran to him. "Nononono…" he kept repeating as he reached him, hesitated, then turned him over. As the boy had suspected, the sparkly gold paint had completely ruined the sleeping man's outfit. Not that the boy could see very well, what with the distance and the other man in the way. The man didn't seem to notice that he was getting paint on himself, too, he just kept muttering to himself, curses mostly, and then "my baby brother, that monster will be destroyed, you will run again."

He pulled the sleeping man into his arms as if the man were a child himself. They were both adults but the sleeping man was the smaller of the two and his weight did not seem to give the awake man any trouble. The sleeping man did not stir, gave no sign he was only sleeping, even as he was laid gently in the backseat of the car. Then the other man started to get in the driver's seat, but hesitated and looked around again. The whole front of his clothes was covered in paint now, and likely his car would be too, but he didn't seem to notice his clothes. He was looking for something else. A moment later, he went and grabbed the two bits of staff and then he hopped into the car at last.

The boy almost waved then, almost called out, because he suddenly understood that he was about to be completely alone without even the sleeping man for company. But before he could make up his mind that it was better to take the chance and not be alone, there was another flash of sunlight glinting in his eyes, and when his vision cleared the car and the men were gone.

What the boy felt then was overwhelming in its intensity. A feeling of loss, of being utterly alone, even of grief. None of which he had a name for or knew where the feelings came from. From the same place as nightmares and monsters, perhaps. What he did know was that he felt like something heavy was pressing against his heart, squeezing his chest so that tears had to come out of his eyes just to get relief. He sat huddled under his blanket and cried and cried and cried, a child's cries that are loud and messy and unimpeded.

He wailed, then sobbed, loudly, then quietly, then silently, and this made the tight feelings that had been pressing in on him release somehow, like a pressure valve being opened, until he was all cried out. Then he lay a bit longer, feeling exhausted despite having done nothing, but he did not fall asleep. In the end, he wiped his face on his blanket, then stood and let it fall away. Then he reached down, and folded it up into a bundle. It folded smaller than it looked like it should, almost as if it were spun sugar, melting down even as he folded it, until it was no bigger than a handkerchief and it fit in his pocket alongside the note for MR. TRAVIS ST-.

The boy slowly walked down the street, away from the wreckage this time, towards the faint noise of whirring and murmuring. The street grew less cracked and buckled as he went, which made things easier, and the cars were unsmashed, or no more smashed than might be expected in a less savory part of town; dented and taped over windows and tied on bumpers but drivable. And then he went around a corner and there was life. It was not an abandoned ghost town after all; there were cars that were moving, there were people walking, there was the low hum of the hustle and bustle of an early morning commute and the commencement of the day.

It was reassuring but overwhelming after the stillness, and for a long time the boy stayed back in the shadow of an alley and just watched. A woman walked by, giving furtive glances around as if she did not feel quite safe, but she did not notice the boy in the alley. Then a group of teenage boys walked by, taking up all the sidewalk and then some, talking too loud. Mostly to complain about being up so early, about upcoming tests, about girls, and about a party that was apparently happening that weekend. They didn't look around at all.

Then came the man with the dog. It was a very big dog, the kind that looked like it still had wolf in its recent ancestry. And though the dog walker had a bored expression, the dog was keenly alert. It noticed the boy. It barked once, twice, then wagged its tail in a way completely unbecoming in such a fierce breed. In a moment, it was tugging hard at its leash to reach the boy.

The boy stumbled backwards. He was not exactly afraid of the dog, not when it was wagging its tail so playfully and not snarling or baring its teeth, but compared to him the dog was enormous. So was the dog walker. Standing on his toes, the top of the boy's head wouldn't have gotten even as high as the dog walker's waist. And the man looked to be of average man height compared to everyone else on the street. The boy didn't know why this fact felt strange and wrong. Children always start off small and get bigger a bit at a time; surely he was now at the tallest he'd ever been. But it still surprised him when the dog charging for him could easily have licked his face without needing to jump up at all. If anything, the dog might have had to lean down a bit. So it was instinctive for the boy to draw away, to hunch up small.

The dog walker never even noticed him, just called, "Zeus, here Zeus," in an annoyed tone, tugging hard at the leash until the dog had to rear up to stay where he was. The dog fought, eager and excited, and it was big enough to give the man a struggle, but eventually the man got the dog along far enough that it gave up and chose something else to try for. The boy watched, until both dog and man finally rounded a corner. Then he hunched up and sat on his own heels and hugged his knees and hummed, not in an upset way, but as if he were thinking.

He did not seem to know a lot. Not where he was. Not where he was going. Not what had brought him there. Not what he should do.

Not who he was.

He was a boy, a very small boy, and he had soft clothes, a blanket that could fit in a pocket, and a bracelet that was also a weapon and really belonged to someone else. He wondered if it should bother him that he had stolen it. He had a vague idea that stealing was thought wrong? He didn't feel bothered, though; he felt lucky. He also had paper shoes, and when he looked down at them, he could see on the top of the left one the partial address of who the parcel had been for. Somehow, it had gotten even more paint and was almost unreadable.

TO -R. TRAV-
2-32 B FL-E-

Still humming softly to himself, the boy looked at the address, then looked around. He saw a row of apartments and corner store down the road where the dog and man had disappeared. Not useful or interesting. He looked the other way down the street. He saw a couple of pawn shops, a vape shop, a coffee shop, an abandoned looking place with boarded up windows, a laundry that also had a boarded-up window but still seemed to be open and in use, and, at the very end, a small park. Even from there, he could hear the high-pitched screams of children at play.

The boy learned something else about himself; he had instincts for being stealthy. His first thought when he saw the park was not 'yay, swings!'. No, that was his second thought. The first thought was that this was a place to hide in plain sight. He didn't know why he needed to hide, but somehow he did know that a small boy walking around by himself attracted attention. A small boy playing on a playground with a lot of other kids did not.

He waited until two women walked by together, less nervous or furtive than the single woman had been, and then he skipped along behind them until they reached the park. There he broke away from them with them none the wiser, and went to the swings.

The next half hour was actually fun. He ignored that he still didn't know anything about himself or where he was going to go next, or even that his stomach was starting to make uncomfortable grumbly noises. He swung on the swings, and he played tag, (he was super-fast and good at it too, even against the bigger kids) and went down a slide that made his curly hair stand out and let him zap the next kids he saw, and he laughed and played and it was fun.

But after about half an hour, child minders started calling out their individual children and his play group got smaller and smaller until it was getting hard to hide that none of the grownups, still sitting in huddle, gossiping and sipping coffee, belonged to him. Sooner or later, some well meaning grownup was going to look around, then ask him 'Sweety, where's your mommy or daddy?' and he didn't think the answer of 'I don't know, I think maybe he was sleeping in a puddle of gold paint and someone took him away in their car and I'm all alone' would go down well. If that man had been some kind of guardian to him at all, and not a stranger.

He was almost certain he hadn't been a stranger, but he could not, no matter how he strained his brain, remember anything about him. It bothered him. So he stopped trying. The swings were more interesting, and he seemed to know how to pump his legs, which was more than the little girl next to him who just kept swinging her legs wildly out of tune with her body and making the whole swing jiggle instead of swing. He felt the wind in his face, and the swoop of movement in his body and it felt right. The slide felt right too. Tag felt right.

But soon everything would be wrong again and it was time to go.

He again followed people out of the park, a couple of women with a baby stroller this time. They walked and walked, and the boy might be good at running but this was starting to get to him, and sooner or later they'd look around and notice a little boy following them. Finally, they were approaching a street crossing with cars whooshing along and a NO WALK light over the crosswalk and the boy knew he had to get away because once they stopped they were way more likely to notice him. Besides, he was TIRED from keeping up with their much longer legs, and his paper shoes did NOT stop his feet from feeling the hard concrete, and he wanted a quiet, alone place to rest. Just before the crossing was a smaller crossing, no lights because the cross street was narrow and quiet, little more than an alley except it had a long row of quiet houses which most alleys don't have, not to face. He ducked down it.

He had his eyes darting everywhere as he did, to see if any people were going to notice or say anything, and hoping he would not have to run because he was too tired now to try it even if he was fast. And he saw the street sign, a plaque on the corner building's side rather than on a pole.

FLEET WAY

He looked at the sign, then looked down at the address on his foot, and he hummed quietly. Then he hunched down and found a mostly hidden space behind a dumpster to sit. It wasn't a nice place; it smelled, and he had to be careful where he stuck his hand, or bottom for that matter, because the ground had trash and old chewing gum and a sticky bit, and broken glass. But he was so tired didn't care. He stayed there, hugging his knees, and then again chewing on his pinky and tugging at his hair because it was comforting. He stayed and he stayed.

Then he woke up without fully understanding that he had fallen asleep, and the light in the sky had changed from morning to afternoon, and his stomach made another very loud gurgle, and he sat up, only barely avoiding the sticky spot.

For a long moment he just sat, very still, a slight frown on his lips.

"I am a boy," he whispered to himself, feeling a need for someone's voice, "and…and…and I am delivering a parcel."

It felt better to have a Purpose, even if actually doing it meant he'd have to give up his new bracelet. Maybe. He could always give MR. TRAVIS ST- the letter and keep the gift. Should he feel bad about contemplating that? He didn't. Anyway, MR. TRAVIS ST- should be happy he gave him anything at all.

The street was dark, but not as dark as it had been now that the sun was high. It was quiet, which was good because there was no one around to stop a little boy wandering down it all alone and either ask pointed questions about why he was alone or…or to grab him and do whatever horrid things bad people do to little boys who walk around alone. But it also meant there was no one to camouflage with; no one to shadow and make everyone think he wasn't really alone. There weren't any shops down this street, it was all town houses, tall and crowded together. He found 2332, which looked almost exactly like 2330 and 2334 on either side of it and wondered what to do next. He could walk up the steps knock at the door and…what? Say he found their parcel? Say he opened it, but they could have the letter?

Suddenly, his great Purpose seemed kind of pointless and dangerous. He sat on the steps to the house instead, and felt his bottom lip tremble, and his chest tighten, like maybe he needed to cry again to relieve the pressure. He hugged his knees to himself, tightly, and bit his pinky hard, too hard, the pain went sharper than he meant it to and he could taste blood.

"Hey, kid," said a stranger's voice. "Who are you?"

He looked up sharply, finger still in his mouth. There was a man, and for one startled moment he thought it was the sleeping man come back. But no, his clothes were different, and his hair didn't have any gray, and his face was not white like marble and he had no gold paint on him at all. Even if his face was kind of the same.

When the boy didn't answer, the man sighed, and said, "Another special deliver from Dad, huh? This is new, though, putting the packaging on the feet."

The boy didn't know how to answer that either, or what he was supposed to do when the man crouched down to sit on the step next to him. Or when the man frowned, and reached a hand towards the boy's foot. Run? But he didn't want to run anymore and he didn't know what he'd be running from. Besides, the man didn't touch his foot, just brought his hand near.

"Is that…ichor?" the man asked, frowning even more, even as his hand jerked away.

The boy still didn't answer, just sucked on his bleeding pinky, though he rather thought all the bleeding was already done. He could still taste the copper tang of it, though. A strange and unfamiliar taste that made him uncomfortable, though he couldn't say why. His stomach made more of the gurgly noises.

"Hungry?" asked the man, smiling again. The boy considered this. He wasn't entirely sure what 'hungry' was. Or he did know, just like he knew how to read and speak and play and hide, but he'd never really considered 'hungry' applying to himself.

"Hey," said the man, when he still didn't answer. "Why don't you come in with me and I can get you something to eat and…and that sounds so sketchy doesn't it? I promise I won't hurt you. Pretty sure we're brothers, anyway. And brothers protect each other."

That didn't sound exactly right to the boy, but maybe? Anyway, his stomach was rumbling and he was tired. Tired of walking. Tired of not knowing who he was. Tired of being alone. So when the man stood up and offered his hand, the boy reached out and took it with the hand not currently being sucked on. The man led him, not up the steps into the house, but around the side to another set of steps going down. The door opened at the man's touch, and when the light was flicked on they were standing in a small living room space with a beaten up couch, a stack of pizza boxes serving as a table next to it, a crooked bookcase filled with textbooks in one corner, and a stack of televisions, laptops, wallets, and purses another. The whole place was not exactly decrepit, but it was clear the man didn't care that much about vacuuming or dusting or the like.

"Here, you can sit here and…er…play with this while I get you some lunch," the man said, and he dropped some kind of gaming device in the boy's lap from the pile in the corner, then disappeared into the tiny kitchen nook. The boy looked after him, looked around the living room, then looked at the device in his hands. He stared at it for a moment, then tried to fit it into his pocket. It was just a bit too big, so he put it down on the cushion instead. Then he hugged his knees, grabbed his hair, and chewed on his pinky (more carefully this time) until the man came back with a paper plate holding a sandwich and a glass of something brown and bubbly.

"I don't have any milk, sorry, but kids like soda, right? And…er…it's peanut butter and strawberry jelly."

The man gave him the plate, set the cup on the box table, then went back to the kitchen. A moment later, he came back out with his own plate and cup. He sat down next to him, balancing the plate on his knee. The boy watched him take a bite, then carefully copied with his own sandwich.

The peanut butter was okay. A little sticky and gloppy, which was unpleasant, but it tasted alright, and the bread helped it go down. The strawberry jelly was D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S and the boy hummed and crammed more in his mouth and almost forgot how to swallow and had a moment where he had to cough a lot, while the man patted him on the back.

"Hey, not so fast. Try not to choke," the man said. Then, with a quiet, understanding sort of voice, "Been a while since you last ate, huh?"

This was the first time in his entire existence that he could remember eating, but that didn't mean much. Anyway, his mouth was too full now to answer.

The soda was sweet, which he liked, and the bubbles made it a bit bite-y. It took him a few sips to decide whether he liked that or not, but he decided he did.

After they were done, and the man showed him into a bathroom where he helped him wash his hands and face, and then left to let him use the toilet. And the boy knew how to use the toilet but…it was like eating; he had the knowledge without the experience. It turned out experience could have come in handy because he…missed…a bit. He did clean it up after. Sort of. It was hard to reach everything. Anyway, when he came back out, and the man made sure he had washed his hands, the man only huffed a bit, not quite laughing, so that was alright.

At the end of it they were back on the couch, and the boy hugged his knees again and he STILL didn't know what was meant to happen next. He kept thinking about the sleeping man, and about the man who came in the car and took away the sleeping man. The park had been so much simpler.

"I'm Travis Stoll," the man said, into the ensuing silence. So he was the person the parcel was for. Probably. There probably wasn't another person whose name went TRAVIS ST- who lived at this address. He should give him the bracelet. Or at least the letter. He said nothing.

"What's your name?" Travis Stoll asked next, which was a natural enough question. The boy didn't know how to answer it. He said nothing.

"Oookay," said the man. "Well, I've got to call you something, little brother. Maybe I should call you Parcel."

The boy giggled, which surprised both of them. Then Travis Stoll smiled.

"Alright, Parcel, welcome to the family. I live here with my brother Conner. We're going to the university nearby. This apartment is safe from monsters; I don't know if you've met those yet and I'm not telling you more if you haven't because that's a sure way to…well…anyway, you look young for anything to be after you yet. But this apartment is safe either way; Dad called in a favor with his aunt to make sure of it. He might not be the most…hands on dad…too much trauma to play happy families, I guess. I didn't understand it when I was your age but I'm starting to get it now. But my point is, he looks after us. Like sending you to me. I guess…I guess I should get you to camp?"

The boy stared at him, trying to make sense of everything he had said. He liked the 'no monsters' thing. He didn't know anything about a dad. Or about a camp. He didn't know anything at all, really.

"You can talk, right? Like, you aren't…what do they call it now…disabled?"

"I can talk," he answered, startling himself once more with his own voice. Then, as if all he needed to be able to talk was a single break in the silence, his words were pouring out of him. "I don't know my dad, or the camp, or, or, or my name. I don't know anything. I woke up in the street and there was a delivery man sleeping in the street in the middle of gold paint and another man took him and I found your package and I opened it and I came here because I don't know where else to go."

It came out all in one long stream of words, words almost on top of each other, and then he stopped and he reached into his pocket and he pulled out the note. He handed it to Travis Stoll. For a moment, Travis just looked at the hand holding out the note with wide eyes. For a moment he didn't seem inclined to take it at all. Then he did, but he didn't read it.

"You saw a delivery man…asleep in the street…covered in gold and…and another man took him away?"

So the boy told the story more slowly, answering questions about things he hadn't understood or thought important at the time. Yes, the staff was definitely broken. No, it did not have any snakes on it. No he didn't see any snakes anywhere else. Yes, the man in the car had definitely called the sleeping man 'brother'. No, he didn't see the car leave because it was too bright. No, the man in the car did not seem to see him, even though he wasn't hiding. He was just under his blanket.

Travis wanted to see the blanket. The boy felt reluctant, though he couldn't say why. But Travis insisted, and so he pulled it out and let it unfold bigger and bigger until it was the size of a blanket again. Travis picked it up, and held it out, and it looked less like a blanket when he was holding it and more like a cloak. It even had a hood. Somehow, the boy had missed that at first.

"This is…I think it must be…where did you get this?"

"It was over me when I woke up." Travis considered this, then bundled the cloak up again and set it on the couch.

"Dad must have protected you," he decided. "He was…attacked? And he protected you. And somehow got you to me. Parcel…" he trailed off, looking troubled.

"Is that who I am, Parcel?" asked the boy into the ensuing silence.

"Do you really now know your name?" asked Travis. "That's…worrying. I wonder…" he trailed off.

"I can be Parcel," the boy decided. "For now, until we know." It felt good, making a decision, choosing for himself. Parcel sat next to his maybe-brother, humming quietly, and maybe he still didn't know much of anything, but at least he wasn't alone.