Chapter Text
Robbie is running as fast as he can, as quick as he can. He hears the faeries whisper to him, even now, whispering warnings of the people after him. The tiny boy tries to pretend he’s a fairytale hero, that he’s invincible, but his heart is pounding hard and even little boys have finite stamina. He climbs up a tree, hiding in the underbrush.
Soon after, he sees them. The nuns. And the woman who tried to kill him last night. She had held the windowsill and tried to snap it over his head, but he saw her shadow and let go just in time. And now since those early hours, they’d been after him. Because to her, he wasn’t supposed to be alive. After all, he was a bad kid, a ‘devil child’, an ‘antichrist.’ Or so the mean nuns said.
He hated to leave, to leave Dolores and Lisa and Sister Lorraine and Doc Lydia behind… but this woman wanted him dead. She says as such at the bottom of the tree, commanding her cronies to split up. She might wear a habit like nuns do, but Robbie thinks she must have horns underneath.
Robbie doesn’t know long he’s up there, holding his breath, waiting for her to leave. His blinks get longer, because he’s so tired. In between one blink, the sun starts to rise, and the Faeries rustle him fully up.
‘You have to keep moving, blessed one.’ The little blue wisps whisper. ‘You nearly met your death, but you are not safe yet.’
Robbie climbs down, where the nun is no longer, and runs. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but he has to get away from the asylum, away from all of it. Because he doesn’t want to die, and maybe he’s selfish.
‘Or maybe you’re just a being with a soul,’ scoffs a Fae, and nudges him in a different direction. Robbie goes willingly, letting himself be guided by the Fae and the trees.
After what might be hours of running, he goes down a hill, and Robbie comes upon a clearing, with plants and flowers growing in neat rows. There’s a tiny little house with a red roof and a barn with animals that make peaceful sounds. An easel sits out in the open, abandoned.
‘This. This is safe.’ He and the Fae think together. And that’s when Robbie collapsed in exhaustion.
The last thing he hears is someone scream. The last thing he thinks is that at least it’s not Dolores.