Porcelain Skin || Cake

Chapter One

The cold morning air nipped at Calum's face, as he made his way back home from the shops. Michael had eaten practically everything in the apartment, so he had to go buy more food for them both.

When Calum exhaled he could see the cloud of breath spiral up into the air then disappear. He had always like the cold weather. The boy felt it refreshed his lungs, but he also found it pretty when branches of tress had a layer of frost glimmering in the sunlight.

His vans crunched with every step he took on the pavement, indenting his small footprints into the layers of frost. Different sizes of feet could be made out, animal prints and human prints. Calum liked to step on the bigger sizes of indented footprints in the frost, trying to keep the smooth frost as perfect as he could. 

The bag of food kept on hitting his leg with every step he took, making a noise in the undisturbed neighbourhood. Calum liked it when the neighbourhood was quiet, usually there was a lot of fighting or some sort of ruckus.

Not many children came out to play on the streets like Calum did when he was young. He couldn't tell if it was because of video games or the fact the place was just too dangerous for little kids like that to hang around.

He decided it was the latter, as he had just turned the corner to the apartment blocks and saw a crowd of people gathering in a circle. Now Calum knew better than to join them and see what was going on, so he passed the group into the apartment building.

"Hello." Calum greeted the woman and her kids outside her apartment, only to receive a grunt in response. He didn't make much of it, nobody was very social with anyone they didn't know personally. They stayed in their little social groups, all those social groups Calum and Michael weren't apart of.

But they didn't mind, they had each other and that's all that matter. Calum put his bag of food on the ground next to the door, rummaging about in his jacket pocket for his keys. He mentally cheered once he had grabbed his keys, you should see how messy his jacket pockets are. 

He had little bits of paper with people's numbers on them that he'd never call, sweetie wrappers that he was just too lazy to put in the bin and just random scrunched receipts. Calum unlocked the door with his hand picking up the bag of food entering the apartment. 

"Michael?" He called out shutting the door behind him, slamming it by accident. He got no response as he walked into the large living-room seeing that his room-mate wasn't home. The boy sighed to himself, he never knew where Michael was these days. 

Placing his keys on the coffee table, he made his way into their small kitchen, placing the bag of food on the small circular glass table they had. Calum unloaded the food onto the table, then took the plastic bag and placed it in a container they kept them in. He wasn't going to pay five pence for a plastic back again, nope. 

After he'd put everything in their rightful place he finally took his big jacket off that practically swallowed him up and hung it up on his hook. He unwound his scarf from around his neck putting in the hall cupboard where they kept scarves, umbrellas and shoes. 

Calum kicked off his now wet vans and placed them on the shoe rack. Remind him to buy winter boots, even though it's not winter yet. He stretched hearing his back let out a satisfying crack as he entered his bedroom.

When Calum went in his room he was met by a sudden blast of wind. He flinched at the cold automatically wrapping his arms around himself as his eyes watered from the sudden gust of wind.

The boy was freaking out as he saw his window open, his bed sheets flying about the room, his picture frames and posters fallen onto the floor moving about. He quickly ran to his window, jumping over broken pieces of glass from his pictures frames and slammed his window shut.