Chapter Text
It was a particularly chilly December morning in London. Icy cold wind was making all the early-morning commuters huddle as far down into their coats as possible, pulling their collars as far over their throats and ears as they would go, desperately trying their best to preserve as much body heat as possible. This scene wasn’t particularly unusual for this time of year either; there were days where it felt like your nose or your fingers would just freeze and break off with the smallest touch if you weren’t fast enough to warm them back up. Some days were more bearable with a cold breeze that would be enough to warrant a jacket to be comfortable outside but you were in no danger of freezing in any way without it. Today was somewhat in the middle of both of those types of days; it couldn't exactly be called freezing when you were out and about, but if you got caught in the wind you would get a nasty surprise if you didn't have a warm jacket on.
It was this same cold wind that shocked Claire into wakefulness from where she had been slumbering the night before, huddled tightly into her ratty old sheet, under the cover of one of the many trees growing in Hyde Park, where she currently lived. When people are asked to describe what home is to them, a picture of a family in front of a warm fireplace might come to mind for some people, the perfect picture of a mother and father in the dining room with their children, whilst for other individuals home would be a small apartment where they’re glad to return to every night exhausted after a full days’ work. There are a lot of different definitions of what makes a house a home, but for Claire, a permanent, warm building to call home didn’t exist. Hyde Park is the only place that she has ever called home in her fifteen years of life; it is the only place she can remember living in. This is where she woke up in the morning, this is where she met with her best friend Ben every day to go look for some left over food or to look around to try find some jobs around town people were willing to pay for to hopefully get enough money between them for a warm meal to share together that night. Hyde Park is also where she will return to sleep every single night.
Claire got up and gathered her few meagre belongings scattered around her, all of which were all quickly and efficiently packed into her backpack. Her sheet that she used at night to try to avoid freezing was folded neatly before being put at the bottom while her slightly too small jacket that she was quickly growing out of tied around her small waist. Her small water bottle was tucked neatly in a side pocket where it was always handy, just in case she found an accessible place where she could get clean drinking water for free. She had saved up slowly over a few days, through small jobs here and there, to be able to afford a good quality bottle but it had been worth it in the end so that she wouldn’t have to keep going back and forth every time she wanted a drink of water, and slung everything over her shoulder in one practiced move.
Since it was still relatively early, a time in between night and day where the sky didn't appear black anymore but neither was is light enough yet to call is dawn, Claire capitalized on the fact that not too many people would be using the public restrooms yet. Since they were located at the far side of the park, they were also shrouded in shadows at this time of day and Claire usually used this to her advantage. She walked as fast as she could to where she knew the most deserted bathroom to be knowing that she had a limited time frame before the sun came up, and snuck in after making sure no one was inside the building.
She started washing away the layer of grime that had naturally built up on her skin over the last couple of days when unfortunately she hadn’t managed to sneak into the bathrooms early enough to be able to wash herself in the public basin without someone seeing her and complaining. As she meticulously washed dirt from under her nails and from her face, she finally started feeling more like herself again; unfortunately sometimes she felt more like a skittish animal than a human being, lurking in the shadows, trying her best to go unseen by people, and being able to feel clean once in a while made a huge difference with her confidence. Every few minutes, Claire looked back towards the door fully expecting to see Ben looking for her by this time.
Ben was usually up and ready to tackle the day head on by the time the sun starts peeking over the horizon. He isn't the type of person to laze about once the sun was up, so his energetic self not making an appearance by this time was, as of yet, unprecedented. It was usually Ben that was waking Claire up at the crack of dawn, ready to get the day started so that by the time people were up and about, rushing through the streets, they would already have eaten and refilled their water bottles so that they were ready at the side of the park or surrounding roads, eager to take any jobs being thrown their way for a few coins; sometimes those jobs were time consuming but relatively easy, like taking dogs on walks or washing shop windows for people that were familiar with the two friends, while other times they were lugging heavy luggage around to where it needed to be. Whatever the work was, they always worked as a team, never leaving the other to work alone.
Now that Claire felt clean, she was quite curious about what might be keeping Ben so occupied that he didn't come look for her, so Claire decided to go out and look for him instead. The logical place to start was where she knew he was sleeping lately, which was on a small bench close to the Princess Diana memorial. Ben liked sleeping on benches instead of the ground as it helped keep the freezing cold from the ground beneath from creeping into his bones whereas unlike Ben, Claire much preferred sleeping the night through without police constantly waking her and having to move over and over again and because of this, she usually ended up hidden under a bush or some trees. When she got to Ben’s last known sleeping spot, she couldn’t find hide or hair of him; he usually stuck to rotating different benches in the same area as it helped them to locate each other easily the next day.
Claire looked around the park and spotted Miss McCann sitting on a nearby bench dressed in as many colours as the rainbow. Miss McCann was an elderly lady which had found herself homeless in mysterious circumstances; no matter how many times everyone asked her what had happened for her to be in this situation, her only reply was ‘everything happens for a reason’. She was quite eccentric as a person but at the same time very sweet and charming. On her head she currently wore a large purple scarf, twisted multiple times around her head keeping all of her hair confined tightly in place, while she also wore a long dress made of patchwork of many mismatched fabrics sown together. She must have sown this dress herself then from the scraps of torn clothing she was always looking for and collecting from the dumpsters around the park.
“Miss McCann!” Claire shouted, “Have you seen Ben at all this morning? I can’t find him anywhere!”
“Not this morning dear, no.” replied Miss McCann softly, “I did see him last night with a nice young fellow though. He was giving him some food, oh it smelled lovely. I could smell it all the way from over here! No doubt Ben needs as much food as he can get, what with all the running around you two do together! I could count his ribs through his shirt lately, he’s so thin!”
“Give me a shout when you see him, will you Miss McCann? I’m worried about him. It’s not like him to wonder off by himself without saying anything first.”
“Will do, dear. Will do.”
With this last statement, Claire walked off. Miss McCann was a lovely lady for sure but once she started talking, it was quite hard to get her to stop; this could be the result of too many days and nights that Miss McCann spent in her own company with no one to talk to, but right now Claire’s first priority was to try to find where Ben might have wondered off to this morning.
The day was getting progressively brighter but not particularly any warmer. Maybe Ben had found somewhere else to sleep last night? Did he find somewhere warmer, maybe somewhere out of the way of the wind; some kind of shelter? It was possible but usually he would always ask Claire to join him in that case.
“We don’t want you to freeze now do we?” he’d always say jokingly, so Claire couldn’t really imagine him abandoning her in such a manner. Where could he be then?
Claire started meticulously searching anywhere she could think of where he could have gone. The streets were empty, the bathroom held no signs of him-only a few disgruntled glares thrown her way when she snuck her head in to check and their spot near the shop windows where they sometimes worked was also empty. This wasn’t normal, they never left the park alone; they were both young and knew of the dangers they faced every single day they lived alone out here. The only way to survive here was to stick together like white on rice. That way, no one can sneak up on you, no one can come up behind you unnoticed. There is always someone looking out for you, someone always covering your back, and you were looking out for them too. Survival was the hardest team work known to man.
Slowly, Claire started dragging her feet back to the tree that she had claimed as her home during her stay here. Maybe Ben was looking for her too; and surely if he was, the first place he’s going to look in was the place she’s been sleeping in lately, just like she did when she went looking for him.
With her head bent against the roaring wind, she kept trying to look around her as best as she could. Claire was almost at her destination when a small flash of blue cloth, discoloured through too many years of use, caught her attention from the corner of her eye. The cloth was thrown haphazardly behind a tree, half hidden in the thick shrubbery growing around the area. What was that? She slowly approached the object and the closer she got to it, the clearer it got. The small inconspicuous blue cloth turned out to be Ben’s backpack! She finally found a hint of where he was…but why was it here, so far away from where he usually sleeps?
‘I’ll just ask him when he comes back.’ Claire thought. ‘We never go exploring alone, it’s too dangerous. If his bag is here, he’ll come back shortly.’
As the day slowly grew darker and darker, Ben still didn’t come back. Claire felt her anxiety growing even stronger. In the morning, Ben not showing up was unusual, but abandoning his bag all day long like this was unheard of, especially when all of his things are still inside of the backpack. Rifling through the bag, Claire discovered that every single item that Ben owned, from the small cloth that he used to wash when he had the chance, his sheet that he used at night and even including his half drained water bottle, were all still in the bag. The first rule of not having much to live off of was to keep whatever you do have very close to you, guarded and cherished. Ben never left his bag lying around and now it’s been thrown away for the whole day like it was useless.
Ben is the closest thing to family that Claire has, she can’t even imagine losing him too. Trying to muddle through life homeless was already a nightmare; trying to do it alone was absolutely unimaginable. With this thought in mind, Claire decided to have just one last look around the park while the sun was still out providing her with ample light to see with.
After confirming one last time that Ben isn’t in the park, Claire started walking back towards the three where she found the backpack earlier on in the day. It was getting too dark for her to continue looking tonight. She could barely see her hand in front of her face, so tired from the long day of searching and dizzy from lack of food.
‘I’ll continue looking for him tomorrow. And the day after that if need be.’ This was her last thought before she fell into a dreamless slumber.
The sun had barely breached the horizon when Claire jerked awake anxiously looking around her, hoping to see that her friend had returned. Unfortunately, all she found was her own thorn backpack that she’d used last night instead of a pillow, along with Ben’s backpack clutched tightly in her hand.
Ben hadn’t returned during the night. By now it had been over twenty-four hours since Claire had managed to find anything she could eat and she was hungry. She got up, hearing her joints pop and crack after a night spent on the floor, and brushed off the dirt that had gotten stuck to her clothes throughout the night, quietly walking towards an ally where she and Ben usually started their hunt for the leftover food people threw away the previous night.
People were so wasteful sometimes. They didn’t appreciate all the luxury that they had. Instead of taking any extra food they may have home with them to eat it another time, they just throw it away in the first dumpster they spot, confident in the knowledge that they will have more food the next time they were hungry.
‘I ought to be thanking the people that dump the food really, or we would all go hungry otherwise.’ thought Claire.
Cautiously she entered the darkened ally, looking around to see if she might have any competition with any stray animals for the scraps of food she might find, but she didn’t see anything looking back at her. Claire ran the last few steps towards the closest dumpster in front of her, but the moment that she got close enough and saw what was there, she froze in place feeling like her blood had suddenly turned to ice. Forgetting she was even hungry in the first place, Claire couldn’t move, couldn’t look away no matter how much she wished to. Her muscles wouldn’t work and neither would her voice.
She must still be asleep, having a dream, no, having a nightmare, because lying unmoving behind this dumpster was Ben, looking back at her with his unseeing, glazed eyes as still as ever.
Dead.