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Stone stumbled into his bedroom, nearly falling from the force of the shove but managing to keep his balance.
The door slammed shut behind him and he heard the lock click into place. He still wondered why it was built that way, who made a bedroom lock from the outside but not the inside?
He crumpled into his bed face first, hands going to dig underneath his mattress and pull out his hidden pack of cigarettes. He didn’t need to think about the action, it was second nature, muscle memory.
For a long moment, he simply lay there, cigarettes sat on the bed next to him. He could hardly conjure the energy to move, much less grab his lighter, smoke, and hide the evidence. He looked longingly at the pack for what had to be half an hour before he found it in himself to move.
Stretching his stiff limbs, he went through the familiar motions of smoking in his room after a bad day, which was most. He pulled him lighter from his pocket, he never hid it like he did the cigarettes themselves. His parents had never noticed, even when it was obvious in his pocket, but if they did he figured it couldn’t be too hard to excuse having a zippo on him, not in a town like ramshackle.
He grabbed a cigarette and threw the pack on the bed next to him. Getting close enough to the open window that the smoke could escape, but not close enough that someone outside would see him smoking. He lit the cigarette and brought it to his mouth.
It had been a bad day even by Stone’s standards. One of the worst for awhile. He wasn’t sure what had set them off, but whatever it was it had been bad. Bad enough that they had gone after Arville too, he had heard her door slamming shut behind her when he got home from school. At least hers locked from the inside.
They rarely took their anger out on their precious daughter, the brilliant future scientist that was his older sister. Highest marks in the school every year she was there, and by the look of it she would be continuing the streak in university. Teachers praised her every move, she had more friends in every class than Stone had had in his life, his parents loved her more than anything. Far more than him at least.
He was intelligent, sure, but not where it mattered. Stone was clever, a schemer. Tre once joked he had the intelligence of a supervillian, but that wasn’t what his parents wanted. They wanted him to be good at math, science, the things Arville excelled at. He wasn’t bad at them, not in the slightest. He was near the top of most of his class, but if he wasn’t as great as his sister he wasn’t anything.
(Tre was the only one who recognized his intelligence. He considered Stone to be an intellectual rival of sorts, the only one in the class who could match him. Tre was the closest thing he had to a friend, which certainly said something considering they hated each other.)
To his parents, he was nothing but a dumb kid with no future. Someone to take their anger out on while their firstborn could go on to do great things.
He was never smart enough, never friendly enough, never strong enough. Never good enough, never anything.
He was nothing to them.
They had been nothing to him since he was 4.
He realized his cigarette was finished, smoked to the filter.
He pulled out his makeshift ashtray from it’s hiding place, leaving what remained of the cigarette on it to dispose of safely once his parents were asleep.
He didn’t feel any better, if anything he felt worse.
He reached for another.
The pack disappeared quickly.
The moon rose in the distance as the last bits of light disappeared and he still felt no better. He went for another but realized he was out. He felt nothing.
So it was one of those nights.
He grabbed the empty pack of cigarettes, made sure his small stolen pocketknife and zippo were in his jacket pockets, and climbed out onto the windowsill, making sure to grab the ashtray on his way out.
It was a familiar climb out of the window and into the tree growing up beside it, perfect for climbing down the 2 stories to the garden. He often snuck out once his parents were asleep.
He disposed of the cigarette butts and empty pack once he was far enough from the house, tucking the small ashtray into his jacket. Shoving his hands into his pockets he kept walking, getting further and further from the ‘respectable’ parts of town.
In a town like ramshackle, it wasn’t hard for a 15 year old to get their hands on a pack of cigarettes.
Stone smoked as he walked through town, putting off returning home.
He turned onto a side street, hardly paying attention to where he was walking. There, passed in the mouth of an alley, was an old man, clearly homeless. Patchy grey hair a matted mess, old clothes stained with muck.
A scrap, as most would say.
The man wasn’t what made him pause though. It was what was next to him.
Glass bottles layed scattered on the ground next to him, most clearly empty, but one final bottle was stood next to the man. It was an opaque green colour and by the look of it, unopened. He felt his eyes widen for a moment before a smirk split his face.
He needed something stronger than cigarettes, what better than alcohol? He had never drank before, but drunk out of his mind sounded like exactly the state he wanted to be in.
Stealing the bottle was an easy task, the man had drank himself half to death.
He ran from the alley, bottle in hand. Half smoked cigarette forgotten on the ground.
Minutes later, he was sat on the roof of an old building with the bottle in his hands. He didn’t feel bad for stealing.
The black and green label was too scratched and dirty to read, but he wasn’t sure he cared what exactly it was so long as it got him drunk. He popped it open and breathed in the distinct smell, so unlike the expensive wine his parents kept around the house. He had almost managed to steal a bottle once, but his parents were far too protective of their collection.
He held it up, toasting to nobody but himself and the moon above before throwing his head back and filling his mouth.
It tasted about how he expected and burned as it ran down his throat. He cringed at the shock of it, but pushed through and swallowed as much as he could before he had to breath.
The effect came hard and fast, Stone loved it.
The moon was high in the sky by the time he finished the bottle. He could hardly remember why he was drinking in the first place, a comforting fog overtaking his every thought, making every movement fuzzy. He threw the empty bottle behind him and flopped backwards limply. Tracing the blurry, dizzying stars with a shaky finger. He didn’t remember being able to see so many stars in ramshackle before, he didn’t question it.
He fell asleep at some point, a small smile on his face.
When he woke up the sun was already halfway to the center of the sky.
He got home at noon, and the punishment he received for sneaking out was worth it. They hadn’t noticed the cigarettes in his jacket or the way his hands still shook slightly in his pockets.
After that night, he found himself leaving in the night more and more, chasing desperately after anything that could return him to that feeling. He didn’t care what it was so long as it blurred the harsh lines of the world and washed every negative thought from his head.
He began coming back exhausted as the sun rose nearly every morning, usually empty handed and unsatisfied. Only a handful of times did he manage to get his hands on anything, scraps were perhaps even more protective or their alcohol than the rich were.
The second time he got himself a bottle, he decided to try something from a book he read once. He drank until it was just about empty before stuffing a piece of cloth from a nearby dumpster into the bottle and lighting it up with his zippo. Throwing it into the middle of an empty street and watching it blow.
It was a beautiful thing, and running before the cops showed up was a high in of itself. He loved the way the sparks scattered, the red-oranges of the flames, the sound of the explosion, the smell of it. He could feel the smile on his face the entire time.
He missed more and more school, but he was sure nobody noticed, or that anybody who did didn’t care. He couldn’t remember the last time he spoke to Tre, but it wasn’t like he cared, Tre was his rival, his enemy, not his friend. The boy probably hadn’t even noticed his absence, unlike Stone he had other people to talk to.
He was 16 when he was kicked out.
He never did find out why they did it that night.
It was actually a good day for Stone. He hadn’t gone out the night before, so he wasn’t as tired as usual, he actually went to school. When he arrived in his science class, he was handed back a test, one of many he was sure he was failing with how much school he missed. He looked down at the page with an exhausted sigh but his eyes widened in shock when he found a 93% circled in pen at the top of the page. Highest mark in the class the teacher informed him when she saw his expression. He quickly forced it back to his normal tired, neutral look.
He knew better than to try and show his parents, but he could still be proud of himself quietly, he told himself. He walked home that afternoon with the test tucked neatly into his bag and a small, hardly there smile on his face.
He took a detour, as he sometimes did, and went to sit at the park for awhile. He didn’t feel like going home quite yet, he wanted to revel in the feeling for at least a bit.
He pulled his book from his bag, one of the hundreds in his parents library that they never touched. Some fantasy book, Stone had picked it up for the great fire-breathing dragon on the cover, he had discovered quite the love of fire, explosions.
The book was interesting enough to keep his attention for several hours, it was nearing sunset when he put the bookmark back in and began walking home. He savored the feeling of the dying sunlight on his pale skin, the light breeze ruffling his dark hair (he needed to cut it again soon, it was beginning to cover one of his eyes the bangs were getting so long).
Taking a deep breath, he gave up his feelings of happiness and entered the large house.
Usually, his parents were far to busy to pay him any mind when he got home. If they were angry with him, they would track him down later. Often they weren’t even in the house when he arrived home, but he was quite late.
“Stone.” A firm, nasaly voice said from the staircase. He looked up from his shoes to see his family, all 3 of them, stood side by side. Staring down at him with matching looks of disdain across all of their faces. He couldn’t remember the last time the 4 of them had been together in a room. He always ate alone, if he ate at all.
It was his mother who had spoken, her eyes were hard, he could see nothing but hatred in their green depths. Why? He asked himself so many times, in that moment and later, and he never came up with an answer.
“You’re leaving.” His father finally spoke up after what felt like hours to Stone, but was probably barely a second.
“I’m what?” He managed to say past his shock, his voice small, hardly audible.
“You’re turning around and walking back out that door, and you are not coming back.” His mother piped back up, her face did not change. None of them did.
He didn’t know what to say, what to do, but when he saw the small, evil smirk flash across his sisters face, he turned and did exactly what she said.
He left, walked the 20 paces to the road, and turned away from the house.
Of course, he wasn’t stupid, he didn’t just go, he walked for about a minute before turning back. It was stupidly easy to climb up into his window, he always left it unlocked. He dressed himself in a black turtleneck and his long, thin grey coat. Black boots and pale grey pants that were worn enough he could run comfortably in them.
On his bed, he saw the very end of a black string sticking out from beneath his pillow.
He hadn’t worn it in so long.
He couldn’t leave it.
He walked slowly towards it, almost hesitantly, grabbing the thin leather cord and pulling out the necklace hidden beneath his pillow. As it always did, the small gold circle hung from the string.
It was his grandmothers, she had been the only one who cared much for him. She didn’t have much, not like his ever greedy parents, the necklace she always wore was the only thing of worth she owned. It had gone to Stone, she didn’t tell anybody and neither did he, sometimes he still heard his mother complaining about it. ‘That old bitch couldn’t even keep track of one little necklace, do you even know how much that was worth? I can’t believe we didn’t get it, the only reason I kept her around,’ he had heard her say once.
He wasn’t sure what made the necklace valuable, to him it just looked like a shiny, golden circle. Sure, if it was solid gold it was definitely worth something, but it was so small, it couldn’t be much, not enough to make his mother so upset. She already had so much, a little bit of gold was nothing to her.
He hung it reverently around his own neck, tucking the pendant beneath his sweater.
Quickly, he stuffed his pockets and bag. Zippo, knife, cigarettes, extra clothes, one or two small, light trinkets. He didn’t have much despite the wealth of his family, his room was basically empty in moments.
Stone climbed back out the window and didn’t look back.
He lasted… maybe 2 weeks? Probably less, he lost track, but he was pretty sure he had been out for at least a week before everything really went wrong.
It was late, late enough that he was tucked into a corner in some alley (he really needed to work on that, not the most comfortable), trying to sleep for the first time in a couple days.
Just as he was on the brink of sleep, a man appeared at the mouth of his alley.
“This is mine,” the man said in a deep voice. Stone struggled to his feet, looking the man in the eyes.
He was thinking of a response. What was smarter? Fight for his spot or leave peacefully, but the man must have taken his hesitation as refusal.
The man charged him, Stone, tired as he was, barely escaped being squished to a pulp against the brick wall behind him. He dodged a second time when the man came again, but it was somehow even closer. Stone would not be able to dodge a third attack, and the man was not giving up anytime soon.
He fumbled at his jacket pockets, trying to find anything useful. He came out with nothing but his knife, which he was remembering quickly he didn’t know how to use, and his zippo. He saw a bottle sitting near one of the alleys dumpsters, he must have been too tired to notice. In a crazy, probably stupid, gamble, he ran for it.
He was rewarded when the bottle wasn’t completely empty, maybe half an inch of liquid swished around the bottom of it when he shook it. He regretted the momentary joy when his distraction allowed the large man to shove him, hard. He fell against the wall and swore he felt blood dripping down his hair, but his scattered mind couldn’t quite tell. Concussion possible, he noted to himself to check later if he survived.
His arms moved on muscle memory and instinct, shoving a strip of cloth into the bottle, he always carried a couple. He stood just in time to move clumsily out of the way of another attack, bringing out his zippo and lighting the cloth.
The man was standing at the dead end of the alley, Stone at the entrance. He saw the mans eyes widen momentarily in fear before he threw the Molotov.
The explosion was magnificent, one of Stone’s best. Beautiful and destructive in equal measure, perfection on Earth.
He regretted it quickly when the smoke cleared.
What he assumed was the mans body was revealed, as well as the remnants of his backpack.
He hadn’t thought his actions through, and now he was suffering for it. He had killed someone, taken a life, and in the process he had lost most of his supplies.
Karma was fast and ruthless.
He found he didn’t give a shit about the man he killed, couldn’t care less, and that perhaps scared him more than anything.
He heard sirens in the distance and ran for it, forgetting his destroyed backpack and his own pain until he was hidden in another alley across town and the cops were nowhere near him. Then it really hit him, the fact that he was on the streets. Somehow, he hadn’t fully processed it until that moment.
He was a scrap, and he had no clue what he was doing.
He had killed a man and was more worried about his lost backpack.
He had no extra clothes, no food, water.
At least his head felt better? The blood had stopped flowing, though it had congealed uncomfortably in his hair. He almost laughed.
Stone checked through his pockets quickly, he had half a pack of cigarettes, his Zippo which was probably nearly empty, his stupid, useless knife. Everything else was gone.
The tears came slowly, but once they started he couldn’t stop himself.
Slow falling tears quickly became whole-body sobs, and as if in response to his sorrow it began raining. Heavy, large drops that soaked through his clothes in a matter of seconds and drowned out the noise of the city. At least it washed out the blood. He didn’t stop crying, couldn’t. He couldn’t tell what was tears and what was rain.
When the tears stopped, he felt no better, he had simply ran out of tears to cry. Heaving sobs still wracked his thin frame. He was sure he looked horrible, tear tracks running down his face and soaking wet sitting in a dirty alley as it poured around him.
He tucked himself further into the corner as he continued to cry, barely taking in enough air to stay conscious.
Time meant nothing to him, but he assumed it had been at least an hour since the rain started when he heard a noise outside of the alley.
He didn’t pay it any mind, hardly even noticed. But then the noise came again, louder, and he realized it was voices.
“C’mon Skipp! That lady is definitely going to notice we took her necklace, did you see how tightly she held her purse?”
“Like it was her baby! I can’t believe you got anything off her!”
“You can thank the rain for that one Skipp, and my incredible skills of course!”
They were coming closer. Stone knew he should move, hide, anything, especially if his last encounter with a scrap was anything to go by. He couldn’t though, couldn’t force himself to do anything except continue to sob. He curled into a ball, face hidden between his knees.
The voices, which had continued to talk as they got closer, came to an abrupt stop.
“Vinnie, did you hear that?”
They were even closer, probably not 5 steps from the alley he was hiding in. He covered his mouth with his hand, forcing himself into silence. There was nothing but the pounding roar of the rain.
“It sounded like crying,”
“Look, in the corner!”
There were footsteps, getting closer. Stone looked up and met the eyes of two scraps. They looked young, his age.
“It’s a kid!”
“Not one I’ve seen before, and look at those clothes, think he’s new?”
Stone gave the two of them his best death glare. The blond boy looked obnoxiously happy, though he seemed concerned at the moment, he had that sort of look. The girl looked like she had rabies. They both looked like they could and would stab someone. He needed them to think he was dangerous too, think he knew how to fight.
He must not have done very well, because the short boy came closer. It was probably the fact that he was sitting in an alley, sopping wet, thin as a twig and with tear tracks running down his face. He probably looked pathetic.
“Hi, I’m Skipp!” The boy announced happily, kneeling down less than a meter from his curled form.
The girl stayed back, more wary of him than the smiling blond in front of him.
How else could he scare them off? His hand shuffled around in his pocket, landing once again on his knife, the one he couldn’t use.
In a moment of bravery he didn’t know he possessed, he stood. Pulling out his knife and trying to use his height to his advantage. He held it in front of him, trying to disguise the fact that he had no clue what he was doing behind an angry face.
The girl, Vinnie probably, pulled out a wooden knife from a pocket he hadn’t seen. He stared at in in confusion before she flicked it to the side and the wooden cover flew off, revealing the shining edge of a metal dagger. Her smile was vicious.
He felt his expression fall, knife lowering as he stumbled backwards a step.
The girl laughed, “yeah, definitely a new scrap.”
“Just leave me alone!” He yelled, “I won’t bother you, just leave.” He thought he could feel his traitorous eyes water again, but with the pounding rain it was hard to tell.
The two of them shared a look he couldn’t decipher, they were close, had probably been on the streets together for years.
Skipp walked over again, holding out that same hand.
“What’s you’re name?” He asked, vice unbearable soft. Stone looked in his eyes and saw nothing but a kindness, a want to help. He looked away.
“Stone,” he said finally. He didn’t take the hand.
“Look, we don’t meet a lot of people our age on the streets, and you clearly don’t know what you’re doing.” Vinnie said as she stepped forward. “Want to come back with us? Our tent is at least mostly waterproof, and I wouldn’t mind having another set of hands around, even if you’ll need some teaching.”
Skipp stepped back as Vinnie repeated his previous actions, stretching out a hand towards him and looking him firmly in the eyes.
He considered it for a moment, but in the end he knew it was his best, his only, shot at making it on the streets.
Stone took her hand and met her unwavering gaze.
“Thank you,” he said, hardly audible.
Vinnie smiled widely, and he saw Skipp’s face light up similarly behind her.
He couldn’t see it, but he was pretty sure there was a small smile on his own face as well.