Reaching for the Stars

Chapter 14: A Cup of Tea

(Revised 24/09/21)

Warning: This chapter contains child abuse, violence, and blood. You can skip this if you're triggered by such things. It doesn't give anything to the plot, but it does give an insight into Tom's past and the reason he acts the way he does.

It's rather short, sorry.

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It always ended like this. Something hit the floor and crashed. Raised voices echoed through the thin wall. Tom held his ears down, trying to mute the sounds. He didn't even have the chance to tend to the cuts in his hand.

The moonlight shone through the window in the small room he called his bedroom. It was an attic, littered with crates and boxes with the occasional spiderwebs. He had cleaned the room last week; seemed like he would need to do it again soon. It was almost useless, but he did it to make himself feel more at home.

Ignoring the voices down below, he stood up and walked towards the closet with cheeks wet from tears. He didn't know how long he'd been crying. Opening the closet, he picked up the band-aid. He licked the cuts to clean them from blood and applied the band-aids, mindful of his fur. It wasn't much, he knew, but it always got him through.

He stared at the moon, wondering about the world beyond the window. What was it like? Did they eat the same stuff as he did? Would they treat him the way everyone did here?

-

"Tch, why art thou still alive today?"

Tom's ear turned to the source of the voice. His stepfather said to him from the front room, a cigarette between his fingers. The grey wolf just took a glance at him but didn't answer. Answering would do no good.

He stepped down the stairs from the attic. The stairs themselves were rotting; he had to be careful lest he fall and stumble down. He quickly made his way into the kitchen, looking for anything he could eat. He couldn't eat last night. It had been raining heavily so he couldn't scavenge for anything to eat.

He passed by the door to his stepmother's room and heard some moans. He raised his brows, a bit confused. It was still morning; his stepmother shouldn't have any clients until evening.

There was nothing to be eaten in the kitchen. The utensils his parents used to eat were on the washtable, along with a cracked plate. Great, they lost one again today. He turned the tap on and drank. He wanted to ask his stepfather where was breakfast but decided not to in fear of getting a punch.

The small wolf pushed the back door open. It made a creaking sound, so at least his stepfather would know that he left for the day.

The neighbourhood was still as miserable as ever. He heard some babies crying, people screaming and moaning at the same time. The smell of rubbish and alcohol was in the air. Below him was a small stream of black water, its foul smell making him jump over it.

Rain was great, but what came after was not.

His stomach rumbled as he navigated through the maze of unpleasantness. There was nothing he could use to mask the voices and smells, so he had learnt to just ignore them. The way to the final rubbish place was not really that far, anyway. He didn't understand why people called it a landfill; it doesn't fill the land and FRP made much more sense for him. It was a place where rubbish was for the final time, simple as that.

He hoped he could find something he could eat for breakfast. Hopefully, he could also find something more that he could use as entertainment.

"Hey, arsehole! Nice tail thou has there!"