At first glance, William was just your average twenty-two year graduate old living in the big city. He had a job like everyone else, a place to call home, and a family to keep him company, or at least that’s what he liked to tell his coworkers and friends. But upon further scrutiny, things began to appear odd. His face appeared just a bit malnourished underneath his neat blond hair as if he hadn’t eaten three square meals in months, and his eyes sported heavy dark circles that betrayed how poorly he slept.

He slept poorly on most nights because the place he called home was really just a shipping container discarded in a seedy alleyway, his bed was a broken spring mattress that hurt to lay on, and what remained of his family sat in two small urns on his thrifted wooden countertop, next to the scavenged bunsen burner that he used as a sad “stove” to heat up oatmeal.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

It’s not that William was trying to lie to everyone about his situation–explaining and stressing out took energy, and energy meant burning precious calories that he didn’t really want to burn unnecessarily.

Yes, he was ashamed, but less