Losing Hope.

1

wordcount : 1080
TW : <3
CW : bruises, scars and seemingly abandonment.

KARL'S POV
"I want to go home, it's so cold!" I whined, I pulled at the bottom of my sleeves, Dream elbowed my side.
"You are being dramatic! It'll be warmer over the tracks," we start to cross the bridge over the train tracks. I hear a clash and look down at the tracks, I stop walking, Quackity does as well. We pause and stare at the rocks being thrown, the bridge was extremely long, starting at the lake on Dream's and Quackity's street, mine and George's was on the side with the train track. In the distance, I could see naked, pale legs, an arm throwing rocks through the wire cracks.
"Someones in our spot," Quackity said before we started to catch up to Dream and George, George was pulling on Dream's arm dragging him.

"Can you see that person?" I asked and Dream looks out to the brick wall, he hums. It was odd someone was there— it was our place. Everyone in the neighbourhood knew we sat there, the parents too, our Mum's were pretty involved in the community.
"Can we still go? We could sit over the tracks?"
I shrug,
"My mum said we should stop sitting up there," I said with a light shrug. The platform above the tracks was technically dangerous, there was a ladder on the wired fence leading up to a platform, only a few metres of space. it was made to fix old electricity wires that had been damaged and removed by now.
"It'll be fine, Karl," Dream said, clearly somewhat annoyed with me but his calmness reassured me. My mum wouldn't find out if we went up there, there was someone in our spot, where else were we to go, outside.

When we reached our spot, we froze in our tracks, a boy, his face extremely pale and sick looking, he avoided eye contact, keeping his head down. He must've been freezing, it was snowing only a few days ago and it was still freezing. I was cold in trackies, a hoodie and a heavy puffer jacket. He never looked up. His legs bare, grey shorts laid on his thighs, splattered with what looked like blood. His legs bruised, basically none of his legs were clear of the painful looking blue and purple marks. His knees were completely black and bleeding. I raised my head to analyse the top half of his body. Scars lacing his wrists, red lines up and down his arms, his shirt was plain black but there was a tear at the bottom of the sleeve. I looked up at the boys, eyes glued to this boy we had never seen in this small town.

"Hey, lets go talk for a minute?" I mumbled, they looked at me worried, they followed me to the other side of the brick wall. A panda mural painted, a tribute to the town from some company we raised money for years ago.
"Should we call the police?"
"None of us have phones."
"Can we run to Karl's?"
"We should take him with us."
"What if there is nothing wrong with him?"
"George! He is clearly being abused!"
"Calm down, lets talk to him,"
"I don't want to talk to him," Quackity mumbled, I look at him confused.
"Can't we just go home," George said.
I looked up at Dream with hope he would agree with me, we had to help this kid.
"Karl, lets both go?" he asked.
I look behind me to the wall. I finally nod.

"Hi..." I said squatting by the boy, he looked up, big greyish green eyes met mine, complimented by the purple and red tracing his eyelid. His hair fringing to his forehead, it looked dirty. I noticed a huge cut across his lip to his chin, the red undertones didn't match the white shade on his forehead. His neck covered in what looked like hickeys or burns, he looked just 10, I wouldn't guess any older.
He had no expression on his face, he looked tired, his eyes were red.
"I'm Clay.. And this is Karl,"
"What's your name?" I asked quietly. He turned his head, pulling his knees close to his chest and resting his cheek on his knees, facing away from us.
"Okay.. Do you need help?" he looked back at us, he looked more awake, a slow nod followed after this movement.
"How about we take you back to one of our houses and we can get you some food and a shower and a Mum can sort his out, we can go to the police," he clearly hesitated for a moment, he finally nodded.

"Cmon, we can go to my house, my Mums home," Dream said. Quackity and George peaked around the brick wall, I looked up.
"This is George and Alex," I said pointing to both boys as Clay stood up.
"Let's go?" the boy nodded and pulled himself up, I unzipped my puffer and took it off, handing it to him, he gave me a soft smile. He pulled it over each arm, it sat at the top of his thigh, he was the shortest of all of us, proving my point he must've been younger than 13, which we all were or were turning.
We started to walk, the boy was slow. Dream stayed behind with him while Quackity, George and I walked just a few metres ahead.
"What's his name?" George asked quietly as we started to cross the bridge back to Dream's house, I looked back to see Dream talking to the boy. His head was down, hands buried in the pockets of my jacket. I look back at George,
"he hasn't said anything," they look back. I copy to see Dream still talking quietly to the boy, he seemed less on edge than before.

We weren't far from Dream's house, we were now walking closely to Dream and the brunette boy. Dream was talking to him, trying to figure out what was going on but the boy had nothing to say, through words or physical movements.
"What can we call you?" Quackity asks, his head drops to the ground as he pulls the sleeves down on my jacket.
"We can call you Pandas? Until you're ready to talk to us, because you were behind the panda wall," Dream says, a smile spread across his face, he looks proud of himself. Pandas' head raises to see Dream, he nods, barely.

"Pandas, it is." George pronounced.