The Boy With The Firefly Crown

Prologue

Hello dear reader. I hope you are well. I have decided to start a book just cuz. Make sure you always see the short clips right above as they will be in some chapters and are connected to the story/chapter. Thank you very much.

Please vote and comment but most importantly, enjoy.

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Sometime after Shiloh was born he started collecting the people he loved.

One after another. He had started with his mother. He remembered his mother's bright brown eyes. She had that spark of brilliance in those orbs. He had thought it was one you couldn't see in any mortal body. They expressed wisdom and warmth and you could see it from wonders away. Everyone who knew her looked up to the strong, tenacious woman.

His mother treated him and slept by his side when he got sick. His mother held his smaller hands whenever he was lost and scared. It was in her embrace and her words that he sought comfort. She cooked poignant meals as she sang to 'Unchained Melody by The Righteous Brothers' and 'Voy Pa Alla by Antony Santos' which showed her deep Dominican roots. Shiloh remembers her saying that Unchained Melody reminded her of her first lover. She told him she had been twenty. Around his age now actually, just two years older. It wouldn't have been his father, David, as he was told they met when she was about twenty-seven. His mother told him funny stories of when she was in love and he couldn't help but ask what ended their love. She told him he had died of a chronic lower respiratory disease at a young age. Shiloh thought love was forever.

"Memories make you realize that nothing at all lasts forever. See, love can, but it does not always."

She cared for him deeply as he did for her. Took care of the things he hadn't realized he missed and snapped her fingers whenever he spaced out.

"You, my dear, dream awake too much for your own good." She had said with that slight Spanish accent. Her voice was like syrup being poured out of a creamy white pitcher. "Embrace and cherish reality."

So much he wished he could've taken those words more seriously. "What if I had nothing in this reality to embrace and cherish, mama," He had said as he looked down at the tombstone. He was thirteen years old and his brother was two years older. Shiloh was at least grateful that he had Dorian next to him. He didn't lean against him for comfort. He didn't wrap his hand around his brother's to commiserate. They just stared. They just looked down.

Next on the list was his brother. Dory was a box. One full of very splendorous and peculiar stuff. But Shiloh was sure of one thing, and it was that he adored him. He never made him feel alone.

"What happened?" Dorian asked Shiloh when he noticed he looked sad. He didn't know why he was crying. He'd felt sad for no reason at all and it wasn't because their father didn't let him play outside this time. He shrugged.

"C'mon you twat." He hit him in the shoulder playfully and grinned to cheer him up but it didn't work. He immediately stopped beaming but Dorian didn't show his concern. He didn't know what else to do.

"Smile, you don't own all the problems in the world." He tugged at his little brother's ear and Shiloh shook his head to avoid the touch with a small grin so Dory went to ruffle his head instead just to tease him more. This made Shiloh chuckle a little. He huffed once he'd left his room.

Then there was his dog, Milo. He wasn't exactly a person, but he was special enough. The dog followed him everywhere and stood in front of the bathroom door when he was inside. The only downside was that Milo humped anything that moved. Shiloh still loved him. Too much. His father had let the dog escape when it was barking too much apparently. The next day, his father came home with a heavy box and put it on the floor right in front of Shiloh.

"A car ran him over."

Shiloh mourned his dog and buried him near an abandoned railroad which is where he went when he wanted to get out of the house. He had put rocks on top of where he buried him along with his favorite toy and collar with the dog's name engraved.

He had learned to understand life as others wanted him to. And he had learned himself the consequences of certain actions. The first night with his father had been very strange. He was used to being treated coldly by his father. But that night, Shiloh had gone to his own room right away as he planned to mourn his mother alone. He just wanted to hug his pillow by his side and pretend it was his mother, but the door opened abruptly and interrupted his melancholic thoughts. 

He sat up stiff on his bed as his father stood in the doorway. His father stood in silence and his aura gave off a mix of sorrow and wrath. He had a trimmed beard and thick, bushy eyebrows. As he came closer and hovered above him, he noticed more wrinkles on his forehead and the bruised bags below his pale green eyes. His father was one of those men who had lots of body hair and was a very bulky man with a slight beer belly. He remembered pinching and twirling the hair on his father's arms when he was little, but the man would just slap his hand away and look at him with his index finger raised as if threatening him. He remembered the first time his rough hands forcefully grabbed his cheeks and the spiteful words that came out of his mouth that night. Ungrateful vermin. The reason for these actions was Shiloh forgetting to clean the kitchen. His mother had done that before her death and Shiloh helped or stayed with her there to make conversation on their days. He wondered if he made her do these things the way he made him.

He did everything his father asked for. Whenever his father called him, he flinched at how hard and violently he screamed his name every time even if it was for the simplest things. He would raise his hand at him if he didn't look his father in the eyes when he wanted him to. Slap, punch, grab. David could always do what he wanted. He had learned and understood with time to stay submissive to his father. Since he was just a kid, he'd been taught that he couldn't speak if not told to. He couldn't act on his own free will if not given permission. He'd always raised his hands at school to talk or go to the bathroom. He had learned and understood that if he shut up and acted with permission, he was a good boy. And he had always wanted to be a good boy for his parents and teachers. So he followed the rules.

"You're such a good boy, Shiloh." He'd heard his elementary teachers say.

"You're the goodest boy in the entire universe." His mother raised both her hands to the ceiling of his room filled with little glowing stars. She had stayed with him after he'd had another nightmare and she was more than happy to keep him company. He remembered her soft fingers gently caress the side of his face and move the hair away from his eyes. "But most importantly, you're my boy... my universe."

Whenever David called him, he would always stay and he would listen to what his father had to say patiently. Slap. His head whipped to the side and his left cheek stung.

Am I not a good boy?, He asked himself after receiving the violence of his so-called father.

He had grown and still stayed submissive. But with him started growing hatred for David. He dared speak back to his father once, which earned him a broken rib and several bruises. He felt so helpless on the cold floor with a few broken tiles. So naked. But the anger still remained. He just hated him more and more. But his sorrowful feelings surmounted those of anger towards David. His own brother can't even protect him. And he'd understood honestly. He didn't blame him. Dory was nowhere to be found when these terrible things happened. He'd appear just after it was over, looking at him with such melancholy. It was a hurt that you could see clearly in his glossy eyes. His brother had told him that he couldn't do anything for him anymore. He wanted to know why. He really did. But somehow he'd understood. I'm afraid too.

He wanted to be loved is all. And Shiloh couldn't get that from one of the last people he had with him.

Tonight, he wrapped himself with the thin sheets of his bed. The room was cold and Shiloh tried to calm his shivering body. He's locked his bedroom door just in case his intoxicated father barged in and decided to do such atrocities to him again. Tonight, Shiloh fell asleep with a frown on his face as he always did. Staring at the glowing stars on his ceiling as he always did. The glowing stars he stared at with his mother when he was cooed to sleep on those bad nights. He curled as he felt colder and lonelier. He wanted to be happy and he could not help but feel these awful things. Hopeless. Useless. Disappointing. Sorrowful. He really did want to be happy. He just couldn't bring himself to be happy. He just felt so sad.

But no one needs to know that.