An hour has passed since the sun crossed the middle of the day.

That means it's past noon, which means our shift for the day is closing to an end.

The only thing that excites a boy my age in the life of a slave is when you finally know your shift is coming to an end.

Which means plenty of time to play and read, the perfect way to rewind from the pain and stress of paving roads all day.

When the soldiers declared our shift over, I heard a boy calling my name. "Aamon! Aamon I'm here!" I heard from a long distance.

It was a faint sound, like a whisper.

When I turned to look, a boy was running down the hills of sand and mud, clearly running towards me.

He was very slim, as thin as a toothpick, his brown hair was messy, he had mud all over his clothes and some on his face, he had bright green eyes, and freckles covering his face.

I know this boy.

That is Friedrich Keiss, my best friend.

Friedrich has been with me since we were five years old and he follows me around.

I enjoy his company. We would spend our free time walking around the village, playing catch or tag, or even finding enough scraps to call it a decent meal for dinner.

Oh, and by the way I forgot to introduce myself.

My name is Aamon Solevia, and I am from the kingdom of Soria.

A child born from a slave, I was raised by my mother who was my only family.

I never knew my father, but the thought of him peaks my curiosity.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

After Fred (I call him that) picked me up, we headed back to the village, right behind the others who were returning back home from a long day of work.

We both headed straight to the meadows right in front of the village. Fred and I loved hanging out there. We would spend hours playing catch and tag and all sorts of games with the other kids.

Today we played catch.

We threw a ball around, made from scratch paper and worn out aluminum foils, back and forth while the sun behind us slowly began to set.

We talked about a lot of things, until Fred brought out the possibility of escaping this life.

"What if we run away?" he said.

"That would be stupid, the kingdom is filled with soldiers ready to slice you into half " I said.

"And kids like us aren't an exception" I added.

"I'm tired of this life, Aamon" Fred spoke back.

"Yeah well, there's nothing we can do about it, the best we can do is accept our fates" I told him.

Fred looked at me, as if I were crazy.

"You can't be serious right now, aamon!" He shouted

"Let's go and leave this shitty kingdom! I can't stand it anymore thinking about how I'll live my life as a slave!" he added.

"If I keep this up, I probably won't get to live to see past age 30!" He added again.

"Are you crazy Fred? if we choose to leave this country the king will send his soldiers to kill us and even if we manage to evade them, the monster will probably finish us off!" I argued back.

Now the atmosphere of the meadow was tense.

Fred and I were arguing, something we rarely do.

I could see the anger and frustration on his face, and the way he held the ball so tightly it looked like it was going to burst.

I care about Fred. That's why I opposed the idea of escaping, even if we do evade the soldiers or the monsters we can't really guarantee safety and better livelihood somewhere else can we? I mean all the hardships would have been for nothing if it was so.

" Come on Aamon, please let's just leave" Fred said.

" You know we can't"

"I too, wish to leave, but in this world, that's impossible." I added.

"The strong will always win against the weak, that's the shitty reality" I told him.

Just then we were interrupted when my mother called out my name to come home.

The sun had set and the moon had risen. So of course we needed to go home, as I walked past Fred I patted him on the shoulders, apologizing for our little quarrel.

He accepted the apology and smiled.

"Your right Aamon, I think I'm not feeling well, I guess that's why I said those things" he said while wearing a fake smile.

"Go home brother." I replied.

And we parted ways.

When I came home to my mother's cooking, I could smell the ground rice soup before I entered our home.

It's basically this sticky soup made from leftover rice and fermented sand. It's not that good but it's supposed to be nutritious.

"I'm not really hungry" I jokingly told my mother.

"Ok then don't eat" my mother sarcastically replied.

"I'm kidding mom" we both laughed.

Mom isn't the type to take jokes but she knows I do them, so she replied sarcastically when I tried to lighten the mood with my jokes. It's something we both have that's only ours.

After dinner, I washed up and got ready for bed. After all, tomorrow is another day of labor.

As I laid down on my mattress I thought about the little argument Fred and I had.

What if we really did leave?

Would we live better lives?

Or would we live as slaves from other countries?

Or would we end up as a light snack for some monster out there in the wild? I don't know.

I lay down there as my eyes began to shut off, ready to sleep, Just then I remembered.

I had forgotten to read my new book I found, panicking. I quickly jumped off my bed towards my desk to pick up the book and read where I had previously left off.

I love reading. So much so that I can't go a day without reading.