His Protector | DreamNotFound

Chapter 20

A quick note! From now on some chapters will contain some self harm! It's not very detailed or bad, but I hadn’t mentioned it in the description when I started writing this story because I  didn’t plan on writing it, so I thought I'd mention it here one time extra.

Please stay safe and take care of yourself! <3

I really like this chapter and took a long time writing it, I hope you guys like it too! :)

TW: self harm, blood, biting

Clouds of breath left his mouth as he hugged himself closely for some warmth. His fingertips were numb, same for his frozen toes. A small stripe of moonlight was coming and going as his curtain was slowly moving by the ice-cold wind. He wished he had something to cover the hole in the wall with, to stop the temperature that was going to be his death from coming in, but the materials he possessed were limited. With effort, he reached out for the feather he had written with all day long, surprised as the black ink wasn't frozen yet. His parents always made him do lame but important things, such as signing papers and checking finances. Even though the young boy was only 15 years old, his parents already expected him to do all of their work. After he had failed classes and tests multiple times, his family saw him as a disgrace, not fitting to be a real member. That was the reasoning for why he was stuck in the cramped basement all the time, only allowed outside to present flaws or other things in the paperwork. He had been stuck in this same room for two years now and hadn't had a breath of proper fresh air in those years. The only way to see what it was like out there was the small window in the back of the room, where now all the coldness was coming from. Before his parents put it in the room they closed it off, but he had managed to remove the planks that were covering it. The curtain in front of it stopped his parents from finding out. Beyond the window was not much to see, just the wooden wall of the house next to theirs. He had never heard of their neighbors, they were always silent.

He cursed as the small bottle of ink got knocked over by his shaking hand as he was sticking his feather into the ink again, the fluid spreading across the unsigned papers.

'No no no no no, please,' he pleaded when he attempted to get rid of as much ink as possible. A sob escaped his mouth as he observed the damage it had done to the paper, half of them were completely soaked and unreadable. He rammed his fist on the shaky table, a cold tear rolling down his cheek. He was useless, not fitting to do anything society expected him to do. How was he going to explain to his parents they had to get new papers for him to sign because he screwed up? The last thing he wanted was two angry and upset parents who already thought of him as a burden, a shame to their perfect image. At least they still had his flawless brother who passed school and tasks without putting effort in it, soon to be married to a wife their parents picked for him. He never did anything wrong, making him even sound worse than he already was.

He suddenly turned his head as the door unlocked, his mother scrunching her nose as she looked around the dirty room, cobwebs in every corner of the room. Her eyes widened as he saw his hands covered in the black stuff, the papers steadily between his fingers.

'What have you done?' She asked angrily, ripping the sheets of paper from his hands and studying them intensely. She slapped him across his face forcefully, stinging spreading through his damaged skin. Tears were stuck in the corners of his eyes, threatening to spill at any moment.

'I- I'm sorry, i- it was so cold and my hand just-'

'You can't do anything we ask from you, can you?' She abruptly interrupted him. 'When are you going to stop acting so childish and grow up?' He swallowed, not answering the woman he called his mother. She huffed, taking all the now worthless sheets of paper from him.