Lost Early

Chapter 1: Will

Credit for the cover goes to @LegendOverAll.

    .Lost Early. Chapter 1: Will 

Will, a single word but yet it suggests a strong force or an action not yet taken. 

That was what he was called. Yes, William was the name but Will was his calling card. He had often thought of all the implications that single syllable carried but he never thought it a suiting name for himself. After all he had spent nearly all of his life with no real will of his own. He thought of that night. The night that followed him still. The night he started to live instead of just letting life happen. The night he would do anything to change. 

***

He ran panting and without direction. He felt the splash of cold water up his legs and stopped. He had ran through a muddy puddle from the recent rain. He felt the shake of his chest as he took in a breath. To Will it seemed like the first he had taken in his life. In a way that was true his life was his now. His breath his own to take and his moves his own to make. It all was slowly sinking in, he had defied his father. Whether that was his actual intention or not it didn't matter, for defiance would be all his father would see it as. Never had he looked at things this way. There were options. It was a new concept to him. He was a child kept in the dark but now he was thrown into so much light it blinded him. 

Finally he looked down at the catalyst of this all. She was barely a presence in anything and certainly she had never really lived, just like Will. Yet, the impact of her life was like a shock wave that rang into everyone who saw the tiny creature. 

Now she lay spread across his arms nothing but a body. Both were smeared with her blood and her hair dangled wildly with the edges close to dipping in the puddle. His breathes still shook him but nary whisper a had escaped her lips. The doll lay still. 

After focusing on her he turned his attention back to his surroundings. This time he made it past the puddles and dirt and cobble of the ground, looking up and around. It was still and quiet enough to make out the scurry of some small animal (most likely a rodent). He even heard the drip of a single drop traveling from the edge of the roof to his left all the way down past the floors of the building before exploding as it met with the packed earth. 

Only a small amount of moon light, filtering between the endless maze of houses and shops, split through the darkness. It was late, though, perhaps not so late as for every window to be unlit but yet they were. They seemed to mock him saying that all had seen his coming and had snuffed their lights and crept to the recesses of their homes. So as to not draw him there. 

He knew he would be hard pressed to find a single door that would open to let him in. A boy carrying the body of a girl who could be carrying some sickness herself. Still he could not go back, not tonight at least, and she needed attention from someone who could do more than himself. 

He made his way out of the puddle and walked on no longer running because he did not want to move her around too roughly. Since he couldn't tell how much it hurt her. Will could tell, however, that this part of town he had blindly entered was not the kindest. He walked past cutways narrower than his own and darker than black. They seemed to show flickers of shadows moving across but he could not be sure and definitely did not want to investigate. 

Eventually, Will felt the air change to a bit less stale and still. He even imagined a breeze winding its way through to him. He walked on following this cool breeze that seemed like hope in such a dreary place. He even felt that just maybe the houses weren't as tight. Soon he knew that had to be true because he could tell that more moonlight had made its way down to him.