When I found you crying by the lake

Neil

It was morning when Neil woke. His fire had gone out and most of its warmth had fled already, but at least it looked as though it had stopped snowing. Neil stepped outside and looked around the forest. The snow lay several inches thick, covering the world like a sparkling white blanket.

"It's so beautiful", he gasped, spinning around to take it all in.

(He was unaware that just an hour later, another boy would be saying the very same words, but with an entirely different feeling in his heart.)

Neil smiled as he remembered how he had anticipated the first snowfall. He'd told Todd about it, who had looked so blissfully happy in that moment, calm and relaxed. Neil's smile grew softer as he thought about his friend. He couldn't wait to see Todd, tell him about what he'd done and what he was going to do.

But Todd would be in class now, probably worried sick, but also unreacheable. Neil had to wait for a bit.

His sports bag slung over his shoulder, he set off to Welton and snuck around the building into the shed where he knew they kept some of the firewood. It wasn't exaclty stealing when he was most likely still enrolled here and his parents had payed unglodly sums of money to this place for years, he reassured himself. Besides, he needed so little compared to all the teachers who wanted the fire in their office roaring all day.

Neil filled the bag with as much wood as it would carry, then he headed back to the cave. On his way back, he passed the lake - there was no point in using another path, after all, because this was his favourite one and no one would recognise him from that far away anyways. 

But he wasn't the only one out and about. 

There was a group of boys walking towards the lake, and Neil ducked into the shadow of the forest to avoid being seen. He was curious about what they were doing out of class, though, so he stayed and watched. 

One boy was walking slightly separate from the others, and suddenly, they stopped. The boy without a hood turned and looked around, until suddenly - 

Mystery boy's shoulders hitched, and then he suddenly fell to his knees in the snow, convulsing and apparently retching. His friends rushed to his side, circling and holding him. 

Neil had a very, very bad feeling about this. 

As subtly as possible, he crept a little closer, trying to spy on the scene and make sense of it. Slowly, voices began to drift over to him, but he couldn't quite make out what they were saying - he only had a vague impression that they were familiar, and that they were all quite upset. Mystery boy appeared to be crying. 

The vague dread in Neil's stomach morphed into genuine fear. 

He gave up his cover and started running towards them. 

Suddely, mystery boy broke away from the others. 

"Todd!" 

Oh no. 

"Leave him be!" 

That was Charlie - he sounded like he'd been crying, why had he been crying? 

Mystery boy - Todd - was running, stumbling, falling, scrambling towards the lake, and he was very obviously not in his right mind. Neil, panicking now, sped up - 

"NEIL!!!" 

Oh crap. Crap crap crap crap crap. 

Neil overtook his friends, but he payed them no attention, even as they called out in confusion - Todd was almost at the lake - Neil reached the docks in just the moment Todd arrived at the edge. For a moment, he hovered, indecisive, then he began to crouch down -