Two years prior to our story, a young boy, barley 19 hurries through the night, clutching his backpack tightly in slight anxiety as he makes his way home. Every sound makes him jump and his pace quickens with every passing alleyway the depths of which are cloaked in darkness. His curly hair is tied up in a bun on top of his head and he shivers as the cold breeze whispers along his neck, his fear making it sound as such. He wraps his coat around his body tighter, hunkering his head down to tuck his chin into the scratchy collar and sighs, the trapped breath warming his face.
That's when he notices, out of the corner of his eye, the man following along at a distance. His face hidden by a hood, his gaze fixed on the boy ahead. His mind screams in panic as he tries not to turn around and look, to pay attention to his own footsteps, to not run. He notices all the shops along the road are closed except for one, a few hundred feet ahead, too far.
He quickly tries to open his phone, beginning to hyperventilate once he realizes it won't turn on, the battery having been drained hours before. He tries to quicken his pace again but stumbles, the toe of his boot catching in the pavement and he falls, his ankle making a sickening crunching sound as he goes. He hits the ground, the breath being knocked from him in one sharp exhale and he lays there trying to will away the pain, to catch his breath.
The footsteps draw closer and he closes his eyes, in too much pain to stand.
As soon as the hand clamps down on the back of his coat his adrenaline wins out and he rolls over and kicks his attacker as hard as he could, shouting in pain as his bad ankle makes contact. His feet are shoved aside and he scoots backwards, scuffing out the back of his expensive coat as he does so, the ripping sound making him upset for a fraction of a second because of the effort, the hard work and sweat that went into purchasing the coat, but it quickly gets whisked away as his attacker advances. He rolls over and tries to crawl but he's pulled back my his hair and then a fist makes contact, then another and another. His body is battered and bones are broken as he's hit over and over again, desperate to escape.
Then he lets out a strangled, heart wrenching scream as something sharp is thrust roughly into his stomach and twisted, the tissue there ripping and blood flowing like a poison river as the boy clutches his belly desperately, his hands shaking.
People spill out onto the streets as the man tries to run off. He's tackled to the ground as a couple of women run up the the bleeding barely conscious boy.
He's whispering frantically, his face a mess of blood cuts, dirt caking him from head to toe, looking so vulnerable, so utterly broken as the sound of sirens begin in the distance, drawing nearer, but he's too weak.
Letting his mind drift from his body, from the pain, from all the people and commotion around him, the tension leaves his body and his eyes close.
