Hero and Perfect

Prologue

Hero and Perfect.

Perfect ran. Skinny legs pumping. Dust kicking up from his small feet as they dug into the dry sand and dirt of the playground  that was so near to his home.
'Please', he prayed silently , lungs burning from fear and too much effort as three bigger boys behind him chased him down.

"You even run like a girl', Ruk Feng yelled as they caught up with him at the edge of it - right across the street from the safety of the home he was trying so desperately to reach.

There was a moving truck at the house next door to it and movers were busy finishing up. The truck pulled away revealing a tall heavy boy of perhaps  ten or eleven , standing in the driveway holding a large box.

"No! ' Perfection gasped. ' No ! Please don't do this." He ducked and spun, throwing sand in the face of his largest purser , who howled in angry surprise, clawing at his face.

"You're gonna die now! Get him!" The temporarily blinded boy shouted.

One of the others had lunged forward and managed to get behind Perfect.
The taller boy grabbed at him , catching him by his shirt collar and yanking him back. Holding him, cursing and pinning back his thin arms as he struggled.

Another punched him hard in the stomach. Knocking the wind out of him, as the furious boy raised his fist.

A shadow fell across them.

There was a loud scuffle.

Perfection found himself dropped to the ground , choking and gagging for air , as several meaty sounding thuds accompanied by shouting , filled the air around him.

He was abruptly hauled up and thrown over a hard shoulder. Then carried across the street and dumped unceremoniously in front of his own home.

He couldn't breathe.

Tears were trickling down his face as he wheezed , trying to catch his breath.

"House?" His brusque rescuer asked in English.

Perfect  squinted up at the large boy , but the sun was behind him and he could hardly see.

He closed his eyes and managed to inhale part of a breath, trying to speak. His stomach hurt.

The sun was beating down on him, hot and oppressive in the torpid air. He felt nauseous. He waved behind himself weakly.
"Here. This'- he coughed. 'This is my house."

This house? The one right next door? The heavy boy glanced at it, then back down at the scrap of a small boy.

He looked like a little fallen bird, he thought.
Observing him gravely as he struggled to breathe , sitting hunched and miserable at his feet.
His limbs were so thin.

They reminded him of the  delicate wing bones of the songbirds he had glimpsed in the forests around the temple where he had spent more than half of his young life.

He had once found a tiny skeleton of one. Laying behind a tall jar in a seldom used storage room.
It had weighed no more than a wisp of air, laying dry and fragile in his palm.
He was  surprised , looking more closely at him , to realize he was probably not too much younger than himself. Just a great deal smaller in size.

All three of the boys he had sent packing , had been far bigger than the one sitting before him.

He wondered what this small boy had done , to warrant such angry pursuit.

He frowned.

Perhaps he had done nothing at all.
He knew too well that there did not always need to be a reason,  for choosing to hurt someone.
The  frown became a scowl.