Chapter Text
There’s a shout in the distance, the sound echoing loud in the woods, and in its direction a little boy can see the sky begin to darken. Smoke causes the clouds to turn black and the boy’s little lungs dread what lies ahead.
Ahead of him is another boy, much older and taller than him, waving him closer. “C’mon, Tommy, it’s okay to be scared, but we need to keep going.”
The boy knows what’s best and Tommy would follow him wherever.
Together they traverse the dense forest. There are branches sticking up in every direction, and if Tommy squints they kind of look like claws, with the way the branches have curved. Many of them are overgrown and thick, raised off the floor enough to force Tommy to heave himself over a few. The branches cut at his skin and get caught on his clothes.
“Be careful, Tommy, try not to trip.” The boy tells him as he reaches a hand out to steady him after Tommy nearly trips on a surface tree root.
“They look like snakes!” Tommy shouts up at the boy as he points out the many roots that snake around their feet.
The boy smiles softly at that and his eyes light up with a brilliant idea. “Then we shouldn’t let them touch us! They’ll bite if we touch them, so we have to be super careful, okay?”
Tommy stops walking as he takes in what the boy’s just told him. He looks down at his feet and gasps when he sees he’s stepping on a tree root snake, immediately stepping off of it to stomp on the flat ground next to it.
There’s a light breeze blowing through his hair, and Tommy has never felt safer.
He grabs the boy’s hand as he tells him they need to run from the snakes. Together they run from them, hand in hand, Tommy letting himself be led by the boy away from the danger.
Tommy looks up to admire the black sky and how the leaves sway and dance. It looks quite pretty, he thinks, and he wonders why they can’t just stay here. There’s no one around and they could eat the tree bark and bugs. It sounds nice.
The boy next to him has started running faster, and Tommy tries to keep up with him, but his short legs make it much harder. Just as Tommy goes to tell him to slow down, the boy slows as they reach the edge of the forest. Tommy cannot believe his eyes.
Where he once saw lush greens and browns and a forest still untouched he now sees oranges and reds and devastating destruction. Flames have engulfed the city in front of him and they burn high and bright. Tommy realizes he can’t breathe or see and he tugs at the boy’s shirt.
The area in front of them is barely visible. Even though it’s midday the sky is black as night and the still functioning lampposts have turned on, not that they’re needed as they barely shed any light against the dense smoke. Tommy can see burning debris lying all over the street. He flinches as a nearby building collapses, the sound of wood collapsing all too familiar in his ears.
The boy looks down at Tommy and he crouches, raising his voice ever so slightly, “Tommy, we’re going to run through the city, okay? You have to promise not to let go of my hand, because if you do I won’t be able to find you. You follow my voice, and my voice only, and you do as I say, okay?”
Tommy turns to look at the boy then glances back at the city. The time for jokes had passed and now it was time to listen carefully and do exactly as he was told. Not listening meant possibly dying and Tommy knew that well.
Tommy grabbed the boy’s hand and gripped it tight. Off into the distance he could hear the shattering of glass followed by a scream. Other than those occasional screams the only sounds the city produced was the crackling of flames and cracking wood.
The boy pulled Tommy forward past the leaves and bushes into the city. The boy gripped Tommy’s hand as he walked forward slowly. He was meant to run, but figured that wouldn’t be smart. His eyes scanned the area as best they could as he made his way forward. The smoke was thick and heavy and it burned his eyes and filled his lungs, leaving him gasping for breath. He could barely handle it. He knew Tommy wouldn’t last long, so he picked up his pace.
The boy held his hand out in front of him, waving it left and right, hoping he wouldn’t bump into anything.
Tommy looked down at his feet and through the burning and tears he could make out a road. Multiple times he nearly tripped over a random piece of wood.
Tommy pulled his shirt up to cover his nose as he squinted against the dense air. To his left and right were burning houses, many of them partially or completely gone.
He tried to ignore the distant screams that grew louder as he and the boy stepped into a new area.
The smoke was still thick, but it didn’t paint the sky as black nor did it make Tommy squint his eyes as much.
Tommy’s chest bumped into the boy’s back as he came to a stop. The boy was looking around, looking more focused than Tommy's ever seen him. His eyes wide and lips parted, he scanned the area, straining his ears to confirm whether what he’d just heard was what he thought it was.
There was a scream to their left, both their heads turning towards the sound, and there, stumbling and mumbling his way over to them, was a man missing his left hand. His clothes were covered in dirt and blood, as was his face.
“Help me―” he cried out to them, reaching towards them with his bloody stump.
Then there was a gunshot. It was one of the loudest sounds Tommy had ever heard. Tommy’s eyes grew wide when he heard it and he flinched, the sound leaving a distant ringing in his ears.
Tommy was pulled flush against the boy’s body, an arm over his chest, holding him there as they watched the man freeze then fall to the floor.
Tommy watched the man’s body twitch a few times before he stopped moving completely. Lying in the middle of the road, the man’s clothes were ripped and bloody and he just… he was just lying there.
Tommy’s breathing picked up and there was a light breeze blowing through his hair. He was vaguely aware that he was staring at the dead body but Tommy had never seen a dead body before. The boy had always shielded his eyes. Why wasn’t the boy shielding his eyes?
Someone shouted in his ear, but all Tommy could focus on was the man’s bleeding body and missing hand.
“―ommy! Tommy! Fucking run !” Tommy was roughly pulled away from the scene in front of him. The boy was yelling at him, telling him to fucking run.
Tommy came to his senses as he realized what was happening. Behind the dead man was a group of men dressed in black, making their way towards them or the man, Tommy wasn’t sure.
His feet began slapping the pavement as he quickened his pace to catch up to the boy.
They were running by the building behind them, towards where? Tommy didn’t know.
As if remembering Tommy existed, the boy turned around sharply and grabbed Tommy’s hand.
They took a sharp left, Tommy nearly slamming into a lamppost, and ran into a shop with boarded up windows and a broken glass door. The boy pushed him into the corner of the shop and told him to wait by the door as he quickly pulled out his bat and ran through the shop, opening doors and checking inside.
Tommy looked out the door, watching dust fly around and hearing angered shouts. He wrapped his arms around himself and tried not to think about the dead man, about how Tommy could see the man’s bones or how there was so much blood.
Tommy shut his eyes tight. His mind was racing, his heart beating so fast it hurt his chest. He kept them closed until the boy came back and wrapped him up in a hug. Tommy sniffled. At some point the dead man was no longer a stranger, instead looking a lot like the only person that had ever cared for and loved him.
A hand caressed his hair and held him tight against a chest, “I’m sorry, Tommy. I’m so sorry.”
-
The boy led them towards the back of the shop through a door labeled “manager.” The room was small, much of the remaining furniture crammed into the very back of the room, and the room smelled old and musty. There was a single light hanging from the ceiling and every so often it flickered and emitted a buzzing noise. The walls were painted a dirtying yellow.
Tommy walked into the middle of the room and continued to look around. There was a bookcase by the door that was surprisingly full of books and a few snowglobes, most of them cracked. To his left was a crookedly boarded up window. Light filtered in through the cracks, painting the room the ugliest shade of yellow Tommy had ever seen.
The door was shut and locked behind them, the boy pushing the bookcase so it was pressed against the door. It made a horrible screeching sound as it scraped the wood floor.
“We’re staying here tonight.” The boy dusted off his pants and moved for his backpack.
“But the fires are close,” Tommy frowned. “Won’t they burn the building?”
The boy pulled out two granola bars and held one out to Tommy. “No. The fires won’t go all night, and if they do we’ll leave.” He smiled assuredly at him.
Tommy sat down quietly and opened his granola bar. He took a small bite and glanced at the boy. He wasn’t that much older than him, the boy had told him this, but Tommy found that hard to believe.
The boy knew all the secrets and wonders of the world and somehow he had all the answers to Tommy’s questions. He was responsible too, making sure Tommy never starved or went thirsty, that he never went off and died or got hurt. He’d always hug him and tell him they’d be okay.
But looking at him now he didn’t look much older than Tommy. His hair was unkempt and his cheeks, though dirty, were rosy. During times when they’d get to rest he’d always get this look on his face, one that looked so sad , as if in the short time he wasn’t running from danger, his shoulders would suddenly grow heavy with the weight of the world, as if the fate of it was in his hands.
And, in a way, it was. They were all they had, and Tommy was only seven, he couldn’t take care of himself yet, so the boy did carry the weight of one world on his shoulders: Tommy’s.
Tommy frowned as he realized they were both kids. Two lonely kids who relied on each other and who had seen far too much too quickly.
“Sam,” Tommy began. “Why was that man shot? Are we next?”
Sam stopped chewing as he took in Tommy. His eyes were glassy and as wide as saucers and his hands shaky, his thumbs fiddling with each other. “Tommy, I need to tell you something.”
Tommy nodded, nervous.
Sam sighed. “There are bad people out there. Those people that shot that man, the-the ones in black? Bad people. The world it―it isn’t right, okay? Bad, bad things are happening outside this room and I―” he shakily exhaled, “I won’t always be able to protect you.”
At that Tommy shook his head.
“It’s true Tommy. They have guns and more people than you and me. We’re lucky they didn’t come after us, but maybe next time we won’t be. That’s why we have to leave SMP. The border is only a couple hundred miles away and we’ve made it this far. Tommy. Look at me,” Sam took a breath. “You’re going to see horrible things, like death and blood and fighting, but you cannot let it stop you from moving. If you stop moving you die .” Sam dropped his head onto his hands. “Maybe I shouldn’t have shielded you so much. It’s only going to get worse from here. Can you promise that you’re going to be brave and keep moving no matter what?”
Tommy didn’t even have to think about his answer; he’d do anything Sam said. “I promise.”
Sam nodded back at him and turned back to his granola bar.
Tommy shuffled towards the far left corner of the room, the one closest to the window, to peek through the cracks. The sun wasn’t as high in the sky anymore and it dimmed the city a bit. He watched a group of men approach the store across the street and smash the windows. Glass flew everywhere and they whooped at the newly destroyed windows.
Tommy turned to see if Sam would get up but he found him already watching him, looking not relaxed but not on guard. Tommy turned back to the window and saw the men climb in through the broken windows and start destroying the inside of the store. They knocked over shelves and smashed display cases, all while laughing and shouting.
They stayed in that store for what felt like hours but was probably 15 minutes, when they finally left it. One of the men turned to the door and opened a can of some spray. On it he wrote “OS” in bright red spray paint.
Tommy had seen those symbols on windows and doors and sometimes even on trees. Sam always walked a little faster when they’d pass one of them.
Tommy stared at the destruction for a while longer before he turned back to see Sam sitting with his back against the metal desk, his eyes closed. Tommy decided to stay in the corner and shut his eyes, hoping and praying that sleep would come and that for a few hours he wouldn’t have to worry about dying or losing Sam.
-
In the little yellow room lay two boys, far too aware of the dangers that wait for them across a thin wooden wall, who fall too easily to the exhaustion that lingers in their bodies, never able to be combatted.
Tommy didn’t sleep much that night, but it was okay because he was used to it. Sleeping meant not moving and not moving meant dying.