(1852)
~^*~^*~^*~^*~^*~^*~^*~^*~^*~^*~^*~^*~^*
The sun beat down on the valley. It wasn't too hot or too cold. It was always calm and peaceful.
The birds chirped in the trees, the sound of the river as it gurgled through the narrow woodlands all around him, the distant sound of the waterfall a couple hundred miles away as it fell more that 50 feet down.
Hiram always enjoyed these types of days. He could be alone and not have to worry about his mother.
The two of them lived in a small log cabin in the mountains. Their front yard looked out over the valley and their back yard was a huge balcony overlooking the waterfall that he could hear from where he was now.
There wasn't a town for miles but that only meant they had a curtain amount of electricity. But the two of them never had to pay any rent because they were off the map.
Hi always tried to google their house on google earth, but his results came back empty. It was like it didn't exist. There was no address on the house so of course it wasn't real.
Hiram was walking down the path towards a small outlook called Puffin Point. He nor his mother had ever figured out why someone had named it that yet.
Hiram soon came to the cliff that overlooked the valley around the river. He looked up at the bright blue sky. There were no clouds which bared no shade around him.
He took off his small bag around his shoulder and grabbed some peach calypso that he had. His mother rarely went out for groceries as they were so far from a city; a long trip for them to make. But when she did, she bought food in bulk.
She was out for a grocery run right now. He never went with her because they would take a long time to get home and he didn't like going out in the car. Hiram loved nature better anyways.
Just then there was a small noise from behind him and he twirled around to see a foot sticking out from the bush a little bit away from him. He carefully walked over to the bush and slowly moved it to one side to see a boy about his age if not a year or two older.
He had blond hair and a hansom face.He opened his eyes and looked up. He had emerald green eyes that seemed to sparkle in the sun.
"Who are you?" Asked the blond in front of him. "Me? What about you? There isn't another house for miles." He looked back down. "Well, I ran away from home. My parents are in the middle of having a divorce and I couldn't take it anymore." He replied and stood up and walked to a tree and faced him, leaning his back on the trunk. "My name's Ben. You?" He said as he held out his hand.
Hi grabbed it and shook. "Hiram or Hi, whichever works best." He replied as Ben smiled. "Nice to meet you." Hi stepped back and the blond spoke up again. "Anyways, what are you doing here?"
Hiram cocked his head to the side. "I live up there with my mom." He replied. "We are off the map so we don't have to pay for rent. We set up a ton of solar panels to get the electricity, but we don't have any heat, but we manage." Hiram told him.
"I don't want to go back. Don't send me back. Please." Ben looked desperate. "Oh, ok. I'll talk to my mom when she gets home." "Yes. Thank you so much." He jumped up. "But, where is your parents if you don't mind me asking?"
Hi looked over into the gorge. "My dad left us and I just have my mom. She went for the monthly grocery run. You are welcome to walk back to the house but she won't be back until 1 in the morning. It's summer luckily so I don't have school to go to so we can stay awake tonight if you want." Hiram looked at his watch. 12:30.
