Underdog - RO&CM

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No news this year could have been worse than finding out that his mother had passed away, until he had come to pondering his soon to be updated living arrangements. The state had to put him with someone of legal relations, and the closest being was his father. At least, the man he'd be forced to refer to as his father. The strongest reason the hate towards his father was so discerning was due to the direct neglect that Ricky continuously received from his said father. From the names that were spat at him, the taunts that were thrown his way; there wasn't one invalid reason sitting in Rick's book as to why he despised his father. Which is why upon the arrival of the news about the grand living situations, hearing that he was to permanently be residing with his father had crushed his heart and all that remained of it's remnants.

The moment they arrived at the apartment they'd been moving into, Rick let out an exhausted sigh. Due to the moving, he'd been packing an awful lot of the belongings of the house into these weak boxes and shoving it into the car. His father owned a little car, so there wasn't much room for everything. The crappy part was how Rick was responsible for managing the belongings and their trip to the new apartment building. While his delightful father remained on the couch, to relax beside the television with a beer every hour or so. The only time his father would leave that stupid couch was to retrive another beer, piss out a beer or scold Rick for his manners of carrying the belongings. Which easily made this process one of the most dreaded and exhausting things he'd done since facing his mother at her own funeral.

The funeral was tough on Rick, he was forced to keep most of his emotions undermask. Normally, he'd walked around the little town with a grim and morose expression anyways. Now at least he felt a right to having such a depressing stare. No one had ever believed it when he'd been diagnosed with depression, most refused to abide by the standards that the illness applied. His father for sure didn't care whatsoever. Yet while his mother was alive had applied that he'd simply had no reason to be so dull. That there was so much in this world to keep a smile on for, she would claim. Now that he no longer roamed beside her in the kitchen, or helped her toss his laundry to be cleaned, he didn't see much other reason to keep a fake smile around. The entire time he remembered just wishing to hold her hand, and cry. He favored her so, considering she'd been so gentle with him and always so caring towards his needs and desires. She didn't spoil him, but certainly made him so happy to just be home.  People from all over town, anyone who'd known her from the little shop she ran had been in a drag. She had the most polite way with words, and never turned down a task. There couldn't have been one flaw to the woman, except how terribly she would over work herself.

Losing her had sincerely been a huge blow, and his father disappointingly had been acting as though they'd lost a good piece of furniture contrast to the heartbreak that spawned of a devastating loss of a beautiful person. It distressed Rick, it put him in a bit of rage to look his father in the eyes and not find a glimpse of sadness.

Upon finally entering the apartment though, he'd made a b-line to his new room. The one with the large and ominous stain in the rug, and he claimed that one by chucking his poster bin into the room. He was a stunningly observant kid and preferred to have a decent grasp on his surroundings, so he checked the entire room out first. There laid cracks in the sheetrock walls, and dents too. Not to mention a huge scrape and a few nail marks in the walls, too. By exploring in the corners and closets, he'd come across this small dust coated wooden box. next to it a skeleton key. Right above this scene, he found a hole in the wall. A hole that looked as though it was supposed to be there.

Making his way over to the hole, he sat down on the carpet beside it. Before peering into the hole, he retrieved his little wooden ruler from his go bag. On the trip over here, he'd kept his most commonly desired and used items in a little drawstring bag. His was from way back when he used to be on a little soccer team. So he reached inside and pulled out his ruler. For some reason, he wanted to measure the hole. The ruler was a plain and simple wooden one  and he used it more for school than he did for random tasks like this. The ruler had a thick piece of metal embedded in the wood for graphing and straight lines. The numbers were physically engraved into the ruler, each tick and each number with a dark black charcoal colored ink.