Only a Game (Olympus Drive Chronicles)

Chapter 15: Every new day

Viktor

"I love that thing you do every day-----come back to me."

"Will you quit talking to the sun?"

"No, I shan't, father, I have no friends," I say, tipping my head back and feeling the sun glow warm on face. A brand new day and a promise of hope. Of a life somewhere in the sun with no Labyrinth walls staring down at me.

"You don't need friends. You won't like other people anyway. You're cleverer than them. Now, go get your line," my very cheerful father, as he stows his cane and prepares to climb down to await the drop. New supplies. Maybe new shirts. These are worn thin. And of course more food. We did a good job, well-- I did a good job. There's still dried meat in there and two packets of soup. But someday we'll have more than enough.

"Viktor. I can still see you sitting there. Being weird. Get to work; you can be lazy back in your room."

I ignore him a moment longer.

"Oh do not—"

I leap off the side of the wall, bouncing off one side then the other to slow my descent. I don't know what he excepts, with this place as my playground. I would know it's walls, its paths, it's secrets, far better than him. And of course I know every way up and down any wall, gravity bends its will to me from repeated abuse. It knows nothing else.

And there's my line. Slightly chewed on, lying by the river bed.

"These are not chew toys!" I shout, for nothing to hear me. Not in the day. Not usually in the day.

I hear a high pitched moaning. Or in the day. Fuck me.