Ever Fall [✔️ 2016]

Chapter 2

Timothy never liked the doctor.

He dressed too bright and smelled strange, and he'd poke and prod at his body without so much as an "excuse me." The older man always seemed so stern and serious and never smiled, which led Timothy to believe that he disliked his father and him.

Plus he was negative.

Timothy didn't like that either.

He would always use bad phrases like, "in his weakened state," or "with how things are looking." The latter wouldn't necessarily be bad, but something negative about him always followed and so he learned to hate those words.

The doctor wasn't nice, but he wasn't mean at the same time. He was just... cold, and that kind of chilly personality rubbed off on Timothy to the point that he eventually just stopped talking to the man. He'd only reply with a "yes sir" or "no sir."

Even now, the boy's annoyance with the man was at a peak. He was stuck in bed for another day.

The sky was covered with clouds, but they weren't rainclouds. It held out the sun's warmth and let the dampened forest settle and soak in the aftermath of the showers from the day before.

It wasn't fair.

Every time the rain came, he was sequestered away from it all in his safe, warm little room. He couldn't go outside and feel the chilled mist in the air or smell the moist leaf litter softly decaying under its layer of fallen pine needles.

He wanted to experience that, and not just from an open window. He wanted to run through the forest, feel the breeze tugging at his clothes, feel the dew and gathered raindrops fall onto his face.

He didn't want his enveloping blankets or soft pillow. He didn't want to be stuck in the house for one more moment.

"The weather still looks bleak," the cursed doctor had said quietly to his father earlier in the morning. "Best he stay indoors for another day than risk Pneumonia or worse."

Timothy wasn't sure what "new-moan-ya" was, but he sure wasn't intimidated by it. Whatever kind of creature it was, he was sure he could scare it off with a stick or rock if it proved a threat. Just let it try and "risk" him.

The door to his room closed with a quiet click, jolting the boy from his train of thought. That must have been the second time his father had checked on him which meant it'd be another four hours until he checked in on him again.

Timothy couldn't take it in the stuffy old room anymore. He was fed up and sick of it. He could see the forest outside his window and narrowed his eyes in a glare at his distant friends.

Before, he'd enjoyed having the window where he could look out of it while laying down, but now it was a curse, taunting and teasing him like offering chocolate to a canine. It was cruel.

But what was to stop him from escaping this prison? It wasn't like there were bars of iron across his window to bar him from the world. He could easily just flip the safety latch, slide the window open, and slip outside. Just a quick walk would bring him back much before his father checked in on him again.

What his father didn't know wouldn't hurt him, surely. Perhaps he'd find the "mew-mon-ma" creature and show the man that he was a big boy and could take care of himself. It was probably a big fluffy ball of fur that was just misunderstood, like mice were.

People seemed to hate them, including his father, but he saw no issue with the cute little rodents sharing a wall with him. They were just trying to stay dry and safe. Could he blame them for that? No, of course not, but then Timothy caught himself drifting again and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, standing and moving to his dresser to change quickly and make his way over to the window.

A small surge of giddy elation swept through his heart as the window rose upwards. He was disobeying his father and could get into a lot of trouble. It was scary, the thoughts of what could happen.

But at the same time, it felt so... exciting. Should something bad really feel so good?

He felt like a ninja, sneaking out of the enemy's stronghold with the vital information they had first entered to retrieve.

To help keep it as authentic as possible, Timothy grabbed a pen from his small desk of a table before finally slipping outside.

Inside this pen... lay the secret of the universe: dragons were real. The great unicorn king, Armus, had sent him to the castle of Sir Berny, the evil knowledge hoarder, to find proof of this and here it was- a written account and dragon scale all stowed safely inside this pen to keep it safe.

Who would suspect a pen, or much less, a boy to be a ninja? It was the perfect cover and so he took off, crouched slightly in his slow run to try and remain as quiet as possible as he snuck into the treeline and disappeared into the woods.