“Kid, I thought we had a deal!” shouted the man grabbing his collar. Maxwell stared in front of him at the closed door of the manor. His chest rose and fell rapidly. His heart beat loudly in his ears like drums. If he didn’t stop soon, it felt as if he would expel all the oxygen in his body.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, everything was supposed to be solved. His face was downcast. His singular eye was unblinking. The image of the door closing in his face while his mother refused to meet his gaze repeatedly played in his mind. He thought he had been lucky when only one of his eyes had been so gruesomely plucked out, yet now… Maybe it would have been better if he had been unable to see the sight of his parents forsaking him. Who am I kidding, he thought, they aren’t your parents, they never were, they were Ignard’s and even then that didn’t mean much in the end. They were willing to cast him aside too.

“Hey kid, Are you even listening to me!” shouted the man. His thin straw-colored hair was matted by the rain. “You’ve set us back a day on our travels.”

The man growled in frustration. He half-carried half dragged Maxwell back to the light of the cart.

“How did it go?” asked the woman excitedly.

“He’s not theirs,” said the man bluntly.

“What!” she exclaimed.

Maxwell crawled into the back of the cart and curled into the fetal position. He was in a state of utter shock. What did he have left to give? He’d experienced heartbreak before. Once a long time ago he had been to a funeral. It was his mothers. He had been unable to contain those tears. He didn’t want to see it at first. He never wanted to see her lifeless corpse.

“You’ll regret this when you’re older.” they had said. “You should see her off one last time.”

Whatever was in that box was not his mother. Sure it had the nose of his mother and the lips of his mother. It had the mole on its neck that was identical to hers. It had the birthmark by her ear that looked like an OK symbol. But that was not his mother. There was something gone, she wasn’t there. She was kind and loving. Sure she had her faults but everybody did. My dad said she’d gotten a heart attack but the truth was that She had overdosed in the bathtub. Now that I think about it, this day reminds me of that one. It was a normal day, for his 11 year old self. I was excited to go to school, I remember having pancakes for breakfast. Even now I remember how good they tasted. Her pancakes were truly the best. She had kissed me goodbye as she normally did. She tried giving me a hug too but I squirmed out of her grasp. What I would do to go back in time to that moment… What I would do to hug her again.

The farmer paced outside the cart by the horses. “What are we supposed to do now!” shouted the woman. “We barely have enough money as is. By the time we make it there there might not even be any places!”

The man raised his arms in frustration. “It’s not like I knew this would happen, we were supposed to be rewarded!”

“Those dumb Vanderbilts didn’t recognise him, he duped us,” he complained.

“What are we supposed to do now!” wailed the woman.”He’s just dead weight, we have nothing to show for this.”

The man lowered his voice. “All hope isn’t lost yet.”

“Maybe he doesn’t belong to the Vanderbilts but look at him, look at his clothes. He’s clearly from a wealthy family. He’s got to have something on him.”

“We can’t do that, he’s already half dead.”

“Exactly,” said the man. “He’s an easy catch. We’re doing him a favour if you think about it, why should both of us have to be dealt a bad hand. While he only has one of them imagine what his eye will sell for! It could feed us for months.”

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Maxwell was too absorbed in his anguish to notice his surroundings. I was pulled out of school during English class. The principal had come personally to get me. She called out my name in front of everyone and I awkwardly walked to her. I distinctly remember my cheeks burning in embarrassment and the wide eyes of my classmates as they ogled and whispered about me. Before then I never particularly cared about it but at that moment I hated their stares.

She was only 36. My Dad was never the same afterwards. He sought to escape his pain through drinking and becoming absorbed in his work. Grief filled his entire heart not leaving room for anything or anyone else, not even me. When he was offered a remote job he took it. I was moved from everyone and everything that I had known. Why can’t I have it? He gritted his teeth. Why can’t I have the one thing I really desire? He clutched his heart. It hurts, it hurts so bad. The intense pain was a new sensation. Why does this always happen to me? Am I just some god's plaything, haven’t I suffered enough? It was as if new agony kept on blossoming inside him, like some creative display of hell.

Strong fingers wrapped around his neck.The many hours working in the fields had gifted the man with an iron grip.

“Aaargh!” groaned Maxwell. He scratched weakly at the vice like appendages. When will this nightmare end! He couldn't get out of his grasp. His legs banged against the floor helplessly in his struggle. Foam was building at the corners of his mouth.

“This’ll be over quickly,” said the man through his teeth. “I’ll snap your neck like I’ve done to the chickens at our farm.”

Maxwell internally screamed. This has gotta be some cruel joke, just let me die already! Pressure was building up in his face. It was so intense he started crying tears of blood.

The woman held a hand above her eyes. “George, he's suffering,” she complained.

A bloody tear rolled down his cheek and landed on the man’s wrist. He flinched.

“What did you do to me you damned child.”He cursed loudly, his grip loosening slightly at the same time. Maxwell kicked as hard as he could into the man’s side. His grip loosened slightly more and somehow he was able to break free.

“He’s getting away!” The man while clutching his wrist where his blood had landed.

The man lunged at him, nearly grabbing his neck once more. His fingers caught on the chain around his neck. The pendant he had worn came free and dropped to the floor.

Maxwell didn’t even notice and with strength he shouldn’t have had Maxwell darted past the woman and crawled on his hands and feet outside over the edge of the cart. He landed hard but the pain within him was greater than the pain outside. He scrambled to his feet and fled. He wasn’t stumbling or crawling; he sprinted with every ounce of strength.

I’m running yet again, just like this entire time. I was running from my past, my family and my friends. I thought I could start over, I thought I could have a new family, a new life. I ran away from my responsibility, my fear, my guilt.

Horse footsteps grew louder behind him.

“Where did that kid go! “Shouted the man.

Oh god, they’re chasing me. Maxwell ran sideways abruptly off the road. The ground turned to thick grass that tangled around his feet. It was pitch black bare for the single torch of the cart behind him. The only sound was the tall grass raking against his legs, his raspy, laboured breathing and his feet thudding against the ground. The ground gave way under him. He was in freefall. He felt a drop in his stomach as his organs slammed into his abdominal cavity. His feet kicked air for a second and he was falling. He slammed into the side of the rocky surface and rolled down. He tumbled and fell down. Flashes of white and grey sparked in his vision with every crash. He didn’t know what was up or down, left or right. The pain had evolved into merely sensations, it was almost as if he was seeing the pain being inflicted onto something else. He was watching his body fall and crash into the side. His suffering, his agony, it would all end with him. It would burn in a tiny funeral pyre with the tiny flame of life within him. But even that was rapidly fading.

He landed in a wet pile. Should the Impact have hurt? It felt like nothing to him.burning, blistering heat he had once felt around his Insignia was gone, all that remained was an emptiness. The similar entity called numbness crept up and under his skin like tiny critters. It was freezing. He had never been that cold in his life. It racked his senses like a mallet. Is this death’s icy grip? he wondered amidst the despair.

Over the course of less than half a day, he had wished for death, he had wished for life. He had gone from the greatest highs to the lowest of lows. Oh well, everything I was, everything I felt- it’s all gone now. all that remains is an empty hole of hopelessness, but not even that matters as I am unfeeling of all sensations except one. I feel myself become slow, unmoving and lifeless. All that’s left is cold.