Chapter Text
Worn leather shoes splashed against wet cobblestone, rain droplets turning into pellets that seemed to come down harder with every step the runaway took. Blinking away rain that speared his face and clung to his hair and skin like God himself had condemned his choice and was trying to deter him, the one eyed boy made his way through unfamiliar territory. Passing closed shops and blocks of residences that lined the streets, and even the occasional passing carriage which never failed to splash him as it trimmed the water from the curb directly into him. Despite the streetlights guiding his path, it felt as though he was running into pitch black darkness, disoriented and with no sense of direction. It was by stroke of luck alone that he had an almost entirely straight route to follow to reach his destination.
Even with all the adrenaline rushing through his small body, the boy could not keep this pace forever. His legs ached, and his struggling short breaths turned into pained wheezing. The rain and cold night air did not help any, and he very soon turned from running to limping along whilst propping his body against the wet brick wall of the nearest building. "At this rate... it'll take me all night" Thoughts escaped into audible words, not that anyone was around to hear them, and they'd form between exasperated gasps for air. Deciding it was best to take a steady pace the rest of the way, he took a moment to collect himself before continuing. After all, it's not like he could possibly get any more wet or cold than he already was, what was the hurry? Even walking, he knew he'd come far enough that he'd make it before morning.
Forgetting for a moment that we was drenched and freezing, the runaway found that this midnight stroll was actually quite peaceful and oddly enough felt as though he could truly breathe for once. Quite incidentally, it was a stroll in this unfavorable weather that made it so he could not actually breathe quite so well, but the sentiment was still there. Things would be looking up soon anyway. As though on queue, his calming thoughts were quickly ripped away as his attention was drawn to the ear piercing sound of shattering glass. Just a few meters in front of him, in fact, on the same road he walked did he witness two boys smashing the pane glass window of a general goods shop. Shards of glass spilled out across the street as the two teens, street kids from what he could make out in the dim light, grabbed what they could and made a beeline for the alleyway just around the corner. Bizarre, he thought, this seemed like a nicer neighborhood than somewhere like the east end. Regrettably he only had word of mouth to go on, unaccustomed to the realities of this sprawling city.
The still night air was ripped apart by the shrieking of a whistle, and the boy turned to see the silhouette of a policeman emerging from the fog. It was only now that he realized how this scene must look, and this line of thinking was reaffirmed when the policeman fixed his gaze on the boy. "You there! Stop this instant!" The man shouted, reaching for his billy club on his waist side as he rushed forward. The boy turned to run only to notice two more policemen running up the road toward them, no doubt already locked onto their target. Certainly if they were to catch him things would not end well, and mustering what strength he had, the boy took off down the alley he'd seen the real culprits escape to. Whoever those boys were that caused this whole mess, they were long gone, and left an innocent boy to run from the officers who seemed very intent on using those clubs of theirs to beat the boy's bones into a fine powder.
"He went this way!" Shouted one of the officer's from the street. The sound of thudding boots against the stone echoed down the alley, and the runaway boy sped further along as fast as his short aching legs could carry him. Given that the policemen would have to follow him down the alley one at a time as the passage narrowed between shops, he felt somewhat confident he could away. That confidence was so short lived it might as well not have existed at all, it vanished the moment the alley opened up into an intersecting alley between rows of buildings. On one end of the passage, the boy quickly spotted several officers who had maneuvered around the other side of the building to try to flank him. The opposite end of the alley appeared to be fenced off, that left one direction for the very scared and tired boy to go; up. Wooden crates of produce laid up against a wall, and quite conveniently created the elevation necessary to reach the roof of one of the shops. Taking no time to weigh his options, he seized his opportunity and forced himself to climb, kicking the boxes over as he struggled to pull himself onto the slanted uneven rooftop. From below, he could hear the officer's scrambling and shouting over each other as they tried to figure out a way to get to him.
Loose shingles broke free under the boy's frantic climbing as he pulled himself up to the top. Behind him, he could hear some of the officer's climbing onto the building as well. Go figure, full grown adults won't have quite the same difficulty that he had. Seeing that at least two of the officers were coming up the street down below, he realized that his only option was to make his way across the roof till he could get across the fence. The police could climb much faster than he could, so mustering all his courage, and trying not to pass out as his asthma left him wheezing, he balanced himself on the narrow center of the roof and walked slowly but steadily. Hands reached for his legs, but the man who'd gone for the catch missed and his sudden shift in weight caused the shingles under his feet to give way and left him trying to find something to grab as he slid down the slope. Another officer tried to follow the boy but couldn't seem to even stand himself up, and he could hear the policemen cuss as they tried to come up with a new plan to catch their target.
Step after careful steady step, the boy crossed the roof and amazingly leaving the officer's behind temporarily. Nearly past the fence, the boy realized he didn't exactly have a safe way to get down from the roof. No doubt the best course of action would be to lower himself down and drop while hanging from the edge of the roof. Before he could even put his safety prioritizing plan into effect, he felt the segment of roofing beneath his feet crack and crumble, he quickly lost his balance and began tumbling down the roof. Sliding and rolling down the slope, the boy fell from the roof, letting out a fearful scream as he tumbled and clipping his leg on the edge of the fence before he slammed into the ground. Wet, injured, and out of breath, the runaway gasped and wheezed, tears streaming down his face as the pain of the impact coursed through his body. His first attempt to stand ended in failure, just now realizing his leg had a large bloody gash running straight down it.
The alley from this point stretched for the next several blocks, with several paths leading out to both ends of the street, easy for anyone who wasn't in the boy's current state to escape down. Unfortunately there was no way he'd make it that far before the officer's caught up to him. Seeing no other options, a quick glance of his surroundings gave him a cunning idea, in his own mind a light bulb appeared over his head as he worked out his plan. It took every ounce of strength he possessed just to force himself to his feet, supporting himself with the wall as he moved forward with a stinging pain in his leg shooting up his body with every step. The boy made his way to a parked wagon filled with rotting lumber that had been left out in the rain and grabbed a long piece, using it as a walking stick as he made his way over to a manhole cover. Obviously he had no real hope of being able to move the heavy slab of metal, but he was hoping against hope that the police in London were as daft as the newsprint so loved to claim about them. He jammed the lumber against the edge of the manhole cover over and over until it budged just an inch or two and dropped the stick next to it, almost immediately losing his balance without his support and dropping to his knees in pain. Through the rain he could hear the officers further down the alley, likely hoping to catch him as he made his escape. Instead, the boy crawled his way over to a stack of bins and refuse, and crawled into the pile of trash. Covering himself as best he could, he laid silence as heavy footsteps rushed down the alley towards where the police had last seen him.
"Look there! He's escaped into the tunnel!" One officer took the bait without question and hailed his comrades. "No bleedin' way! He couldn't have moved that hole cover on his own." Another replied. Though he couldn't see, with his whole body being buried under wretched garbage, he could hear them shuffling around and eventually the sound of the metal grate being lifted and slid across the ground. "He must've used that for leverage, see? Who knows how far he could've gotten by now." So far his plan was working, but he was afraid the officers might hear the booming thunder of his racing heart as it all but burst out of his chest like a cannon. "I'm not going down there just to hunt down a street rat and five pound worth of bread. I wouldn't go down there if he stole a bloody blue diamond." Clearly the shining beacon of justice, these policemen. "Forget it, finish patrolling the alley and let's move on." With any luck, the officer's didn't notice the pile of garbage emitting the most powerful sigh of relief to ever escape a mortal's lips. It seemed the police would stick around for a little while longer, so the boy closed his eyes and tried to calm himself down.
The sound of shuffling feet nearby made the boy's eye shoot open, had the police come back already? Braving a peek, he cautiously moved a bit of refuse out of the way ever so slightly and was shocked to see sunlight had begun pouring into the alleyway, and the shuffling feet belonged to a shop worker unloading boxes. "Blast!" He thought to himself. "I fell asleep! In the garbage no less..." The runaway came tumbling out of the refuse pile, not paying any mind to the startled sounds of the man as he pushed himself up on trembling legs. "Blimey! Damn stinkin' gutter rat! Beat it!" The man, who obviously took great offense to a boy sleeping in the trash, or at least scaring him with his sudden emergence, threw a small stone at the boy who took off hobbling down the alley way as fast as he could with an injured leg. A thought occurred to him as he came out of the alley and back onto the street he'd meant to be following, he wondered to himself just how exactly he expected things to go when he got to the circus. He might've been a hard sell before, he surmised, but in the state he was currently in he couldn't help but wonder if he should expect anything else than to be turned away at the gate. But his mind was already settled, after all he'd come this far, and turning back was not an option. Servicemen who'd gone awol wouldn't face the same severity of punishment as the boy would for walking out on his masters as he'd done.
Every step hurt, and the streets seemed like they stretched for hundreds of kilometers as he trudged along, but when the top of that gigantic blue and white tent came into view it felt as though he'd triumphed in overcoming an impossible feat. In reality he'd just gone for a walk in a nice part of London on a rainy night to go to the circus, but what mattered was getting away from where he had been and finding somewhere new, it didn't really matter where, but he'd do anything to get there. The rest of the walk to the circus was uneventful and almost painfully dull after experiencing the previous night's events, save for a few sideways glances from those who turned their noses up at street kids as a hobby but that was really no bother. The runaway boy found his mark, and approached the same metal gate he'd left out of the prior evening. His shaking hands steadied themselves against the cold metal and slowly began to push... until the chain snagged. Of course. "Drat. I hadn't considered the gate being locked." The boy sighed and leaned against the gate. This was a minor set back of course, but the annoyance it brought him could not be understated. How exactly did running away to join the circus work, he wondered to himself? There was no door upon which to knock, he'd have to find a way in himself.