Chapter Text
The pit is nothing more than a wound in the earth.A narrow, ugly tear in the soil like the ground tried to swallow something and then changed its mind halfway through. You’re not sure why you walked toward it. There was no sound, no cry for help, no strange smell. Just a silent pull, a hunch, a hovering sense that something waited for you underneath the brittle ribs of the hillside. Your mind makes you follow odd impulses sometimes. You’ve wandered to stranger places for stranger reasons, out of an instinct that resembles gravity more than choice. But even then, this felt different.
Walking was a chore today. It usually is. A dull, rhythmic throb sat low in your pelvis, a heavy anchor that dragged at your hips with every step. It had been weeks since the procedure, weeks since the world tilted on its axis, but your body refused to forget. The cramping came and went like a tide, washing over you with a reminder of what was gone and what had been done to you. You wrapped your coat tighter, ignoring the sharp twinge in your abdomen as you stepped over a rotting log.
You peered in expecting a raccoon, or some washed-up animal carcass, or maybe nothing at all. Instead, you saw movement. Small at first, then unmistakably human-shaped.
A boy sat cross-legged in the dirt, turning a little gray stone between his fingers like it was precious.
Your first, sluggish thought was call someone. But your phone was dead in your pocket, and your home was a twenty-minute trudge back. Your second thought was the cold. It was October in the mountains, and the air had teeth. The wind bit at your cheeks, making your eyes water. This kid had to be freezing.
“Hey,” you called down, the word painfully small on your dry tongue.
He didn’t look up. He was tapping two small rocks together, click-click-click, with a rhythmic, patient focus. The sound was oddly loud in the vacuum of the woods.
“Hey, kid. Are you okay?”
Click-click-click.
A flicker of something, not quite irritation, but a spark in the stagnant pool of your apathy. You knelt at the edge, the wet ground immediately soaking through the knees of your bottoms. The shift in position made your insides protest, a sharp spike of pain shooting through your lower belly that made you wince, but you pushed it down.
“Can you hear me? How’d you get down there?”
This time, he paused. He didn’t raise his head, but his small shoulders went very still. Then, slowly, he tilted his face up.
His eyes were an impossible, luminous cobalt blue, like chips of a summer sky trapped in a well. looked about nine, maybe ten.
And when he spoke, the sound that came out of him was all wrong.
“…Hello.”
Deep and resonant, rolling out of a child’s throat without hesitation. No crack, no strain, no mismatch. Just a steady, adult tone wearing a little body like a costume. It startled you so sharply but you forced your face still. Shock is manageable. You've survived worse things than a child sounding like a man. You’ve survived your own body turning against you.
“Are you stuck?” Your knees bent before your brain decided to move; instinct, again, like something ancient tugging you toward small things that need help. It was a cruel irony, that pull. A phantom limb itching where something used to be.
He turned the rock over one more time, set it down with a deliberate care you didn’t expect, then stood in one smooth motion.
“No,” he said, “Not stuck.”
He did seem perfectly capable of climbing, yet he didn’t try. He just stared up at you… waiting, maybe, or examining you the way he had the rock: slow, quiet, uninterrupted.
“Well,” you said, reaching your arm in. “Do you… want help getting out?”
He blinked. Once. Twice. Almost mechanically. Then, “Yes.”
His hand slid into yours. Small, cold, shockingly cold, like touching the underside of a stone left in shade for a century. But he smiled as he took it.
You braced your feet and pulled.
The effort flared hot and bright in your pelvis, a sickening wave of cramps that nearly made you double over. You gritted your teeth, refusing to let go, refusing to drop him. I’ve got you, you thought, a fierce, sudden possessiveness seizing your chest. I won’t let you fall.
He climbed lightly, almost weightless. For a moment it felt like lifting smoke.
When he reached the top, his fingers lingered on yours before he pulled away.
“Thank you,” he said.
You sat back on your heels, exhaling shaky breaths, brushing dirt off your knees. He stood beside you, brushing none off his own, as if the concept of tidying himself didn’t occur to him. Or didn’t matter.
“Is someone… looking for you?”
A pause. The wind rattled the dry leaves of the oak trees above you, a skeletal sound.
He glanced at the horizon like he was checking for a memory he misplaced.
“No.”
The certainty of that made something in your chest tug painfully. No? So blunt. So final. Children usually lie when they’re lost or afraid. But he didn’t look afraid. He didn’t look anything. Just… present. Still as cold air.
You didn’t want to press him, You know too much about being pushed when you don’t want to speak. So you let silence spread between the two of you. Surprisingly, he didn’t fidget. Didn’t wander. He just stayed beside you, standing like a patient shadow.
The light was fading slowly, the sky sliding into that bruised-blue color that feels like the world exhaling. You looked at him again. He looked back like he was waiting for another question, or perhaps just waiting for time to pass.
“What’s your name?” you asked, your voice fragile even to your own ears. You worried it sounded mothering. The kind of questioning grown-ups do reflexively around kids, that gentle tone you can never avoid slipping into. It felt fraudulent coming from you. You shouldn’t feel protective of anyone. You can barely keep yourself upright most days.
“Abaddon.”
You stared. “Abba- what?”
He repeated it, slower, as if you were the child. “Abaddon.”
“That’s… an odd name,” you said, because what else do you say to a boy who introduces himself like a biblical calamity?
"Is it?"
"Yes."
"Oh."
You stood there like that. The forest hummed around you, wind threading through branches, carrying the smell of moss and dirt and something distant you couldn’t place... sulfur, maybe, or old burning wood.
“You talk funny,” you blurted before you could stop yourself.
“You do also,” he replied, with perfect seriousness.
A huff of breath escaped you. Almost a laugh, almost something else. Something loosening in the tight knot of your chest.
“How long were you down there?” you asked.
“A while.” He shrugged, a gesture that looked practiced but wrong on his small frame. “It was quiet.”
You understood that. God, did you understand that. Quiet can feel like safety when the world has been too loud in all the wrong ways. When your own body has been too loud with pain.
You talked. Longer than you planned, longer than made sense. About nothing and everything. About rocks and trees and why his clothes looked like they belonged in a museum.
At one point, a beetle crawled over his shoe. Most kids would stomp it or squeal. Abaddon just watched it traverse the leather buckle. He leaned down, picked it up by a leg, and held it to his eye level. The beetle thrashed.
“Careful,” you murmured, that instinct rising again, unbidden. “Put him down. He wants to go home.”
Abaddon looked at you, then at the beetle. He set it down gently. “Home,” he echoed, testing the word.
He gave short answers but listened with an intensity that made you feel noticed. Truly seen. Children do that sometimes, unintentionally... strip away the noise and look at you like you are a fact instead of a failure.
Eventually, the sun dipped low enough that the trees turned black around the edges, and a cold draft slid between you. It was likely around six. Later than you meant to stay. The ache in your body was turning from a hum to a throb, demanding rest.
“I should go,” you told him, bracing yourself on the log to stand up. A wave of dizziness hit you, but you pushed it down. “It’s getting dark. My house is, like… twenty minutes from here.”
He nodded immediately, almost politely, like he’d been expecting that answer the whole time. “Okay.”
He just stood there, hands at his sides, that blank stare like he wasn’t bothered at all.
You took a few steps up the slope, brushing past branches, the shadows stretching longer. Your shoes crunched on the dead leaves. But the silence behind you was too heavy. Something nagged at you... a hook in your gut. So you turned.
He was still standing there.
Exactly where you'd left him.
Not moving.
Not even looking around for a path out.
Just… waiting. Staring up at you with those strange cobalt-blue eyes that somehow weren’t strange at all.
“You’re… uh,” you called down. “You’re not going anywhere?”
He blinked once. “No.”
You frowned, stepping back down a few feet. “Do you… live around here?”
He shook his head.
“Okay, so, family? Someone coming to get you? Anyone know you’re out here?”
Another shake of the head.
Your stomach tightened a little, a nausea that had nothing to do with your physical pain. You don’t just leave a kid alone in the woods at dusk, no matter how surreal the situation. You climbed down a bit further, close enough to look him in the eyes again.
“Where were you even going before you fell in here?”
“I wasn’t,” he said simply.
“You weren’t… going anywhere?”
“No.”
“So you just… stay out here?”
He thought for a second. “Yes.”
That answer hit you weird. Heavy. Like dropping a stone in a quiet pond and watching the ripples disturb everything. It resonated with a part of you that felt homeless in your own skin. Was he a runaway? A homeless child? Or something simply... forgotten?
You rubbed your forehead, feeling the onset of a headache. “Okay, well, I can’t just leave you here if you don’t have anywhere to go. That’s, God, that’s so unsafe. You’ll freeze. Or get lost. Or-”
“I’m not afraid,” he said calmly, almost like he was comforting you.
“That’s not the point,” you muttered, frustration bubbling up. “You’re a kid. You need… someone. Something. A place.”
The cold was settling deeper now, biting through your thin jacket. You sighed, long and tired, the kind of sigh that presses against your ribs like a bruise. You looked at him... this strange, solemn, antique boy... and knew you were making a mistake. You were too broken to help anyone. You could barely wash your own dishes. You could barely sleep without nightmares!
But looking at him standing alone in the encroaching dark, you also knew you couldn't leave him.
“Look,” you said, hands half-raised in defeat, “I can’t take you home-home. I don’t have… space. Or food. Or… anything really figured out. But I can’t walk away from you either.”
He tilted his head, curious. Not hopeful. Just listening the same way he listened to you talk about rocks. Patient, quiet, steady.
“So,” you said, swallowing the lump in your throat, “maybe… maybe you can walk with me. Just for now. We’ll figure something out when we get there. At least you won’t be alone out here.”
He just stepped forward, slow and deliberate. You reached for his hand exactly like you had earlier, like he’d been waiting for the invitation but didn’t want to ask for it.
His palm was small and warm in yours this time, or maybe your hands had just gotten colder.
His palm was small and warm in yours.
“All right,” he said softly, the baritone voice rumbling gently in the twilight. “I will go with you.”
It was stupid. It was stupid to bring him home. You knew that. The whole twenty-minute walk, your brain gnawed at the decision like a starving rat worrying bone. Every step was anxiety fizzing under your skin. You kept glancing at him, trying to make sense of him.
Your home appeared like it always does: small, single-story, barely standing upright with its peeling paint and porch light that flickers like a dying star. A place built by someone with hope and lived in by someone who misplaced it.
When you fumbled the key into the lock, he leaned sideways, taking in the structure like it offended him on a molecular level.
“This is it?” he asked.
His tone wasn’t hateful, just… disappointed. Like he’d been expecting a palace and received a broom closet.
“Yeah,” you sighed, the door finally giving way with a screech of rusty hinges. You leaned against the frame for a second, letting the throbbing in your lower stomach settle. “Sorry it’s not Versailles.”
“It looks like a hut,” he added, neutrally. “Like the ones the plague victims were put in.”
“Right.” You rubbed your forehead, too exhausted to unpack the morbidity of that statement. “Well, sorry I don’t live in a castle or… whatever. It’s dry. It’s warm. Get in.”
He blinked, unimpressed, but stepped onto the threshold. “In my true dwelling, the halls were wide enough to stack bodies ten high without touching the ceiling.”
You froze mid-step, turning slowly like you'd heard something in a foreign language you weren't sure you translated right. “…Okay. Sure. Cool. Very normal thing to say.”
He wasn’t being intentionally cruel. That was the worst part, the sincerity in his voice. Like he was simply providing a factual observation, the same way someone else might say “your house is blue” or “you have a mailbox.”
He didn’t smile. He simply stepped inside with the self-possessed air of someone entering a domain far beneath him.
Inside, the place felt even smaller with him in it. That was new. Children usually shrink spaces... they fill them with life, with noise. But he made the air tighter, heavier, like drawing curtains on a cloudy afternoon.
Immediately, your brain spiraled:
I need to call someone.
Not the police, God, no, but maybe social services? A hotline? Someone who handles abandoned kids?
But then the idea of a government official walking into your home, seeing you, your ribs, your hollowed face, your cabinets of nothing, your inability to care for yourself let alone him, made your stomach twist. They’d take one look and decide you needed removing.
And anyway… he wasn’t scared.
He wasn’t lost...?
He wasn’t even confused.
He was just… present. Watching. Studying.
You swallowed, skin prickling with guilt so sudden it felt like fever. You should give him your room, right? He’s tiny. Probably exhausted. God knows when he last slept on something soft. Or showered.
And, God, that thought hit you wrong, ugly in your chest, when was the last time he showered?
Something like shame crawled up the back of your neck.
You’re an asshole!, you scolded yourself silently. A monster. Judging a lost kid for smelling like leaves and old air. Jesus. No wonder you’re alone.
You cleared your throat. “You, uh… hungry?”
He stared at you. Not blinking. Not nodding. Just staring.
“That means yes or no,” you said gently, pointing toward the couch. “Sit.”
He sat immediately, but in a stiff, unnatural way, back straight, hands on knees, like he expected to be inspected. It made something ache in you.
The cabinets opened with a groan, revealing exactly what yoy expected: practically nothing. A few cans yoy couldn’t remember buying, a stale bag of flour, vitamins you never take, medication, and… cereal. A colorful box of Froot Loops you must’ve bought during one of your pathetic bursts of “maybe I’ll eat something.” You touched the box. It crinkled like shame.
You held it up. “You want this?”
“What is it?” he asked.
“Uh. Food?”
He blinked again, unhelpfully.
“It’s cereal,” you clarified. “Sweet. Colorful. Probably poisoning me slowly with artificial dyes.”
He tilted his head like a dog hearing a new sound. “I have not consumed that.”
There was no sarcasm in his voice. No humor. Just a flat truth, offered like a stone in your palm.
“Okay,” you said, pouring some into a chipped bowl. “Then you can try it.”
When you handed him the bowl, he looked down into the bowl like it contained the secrets of the universe.
Then he picked up a single loop, examined it, placed it on his tongue, and his entire face changed.
Just… subtly. A soft widening of the eyes, a flicker of astonishment, a small inhale like he’d discovered sunlight.
He took another. And another. And within thirty seconds he was devouring the bowl like he’d discovered the concept of joy for the first time.
You leaned against the counter, watching him, feeling something unfamiliar rise in your chest, something warm and tired and maybe even fond. Maybe he really didn’t know what cereal was. Maybe he’d been living under a rock. Maybe he’d been Amish. Maybe he’d been-
“Your dwelling is very small,” he said suddenly, mouth full of cereal.
“Wow. Thank you,” you deadpanned.
He glanced at you, swallowed loudly, and added, “It is smaller than the cell the priest used.”
Your eyebrows pulled together slowly. “The… what now?”
“The priest,” he repeated, as if this were everyday conversation. “When he tried to bind me.”
You stared.
He stared back, calm, unfazed, crunching loops of artificially flavored neon death.
“…Bind you?” you echoed carefully. “Like… what does that mean?”
“It means exactly what it sounds like,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Right,” you muttered. “Sure. Okay. Binding. Cells. Priests. Okay.”
You should’ve laughed. Made some joke about overactive imaginations and dramatic playground stories. But instead you just… watched him.
The lamp cast a soft, amber light across his face, and something tightened in your chest. An uncomfortable twist that felt a little like guilt and a little like tenderness and a little like danger, do not attach. He looked so small sitting on your couch, bowl in hand, legs dangling. Small and earnest and weirdly poised, like he’d been dropped into the wrong century and was trying very hard not to give himself away.
God help you, this kid is adorable.
But cute or not, he wasn’t yours. You weren't equipped for this. You couldn’t even keep your plants alive. You couldn’t offer him anything but cereal and an air mattress and the vague promise you wouldn’t let him freeze outside tonight.
He’d be gone soon.
Either you'd call someone, or he’d get bored, or he’d remember where he belonged. Kids always had somewhere to go, even when they insisted they didn’t.
He lifted the bowl to scrape up the last of the Froot Loops, breaking the moment.
“You eat this every day?” he asked, as though trying to piece together the culture of an alien species.
“Not… every day,” you said. “But, like, often enough that my dentist is concerned.”
He blinked slowly. “Dentist?”
“Oh, Jesus,” you muttered, rubbing your face. “Right. Basic modern life. Okay. A dentist is someone who fixes your teeth.”
“My teeth do not require fixing,” he said confidently.
“You sure about that?”
“Yes.”
“Cool. Great.”
He set the bowl down neatly on the coffee table, adjusting it until it was exactly centered on one of the cracked tiles.
He hovered his hands for a second. Fingers twitching, recalibrating, then nudged the bowl another millimeter left. Then another right. Then he stepped back with the posture of someone who had just completed a task of immense cosmic importance.
You watched him, trying not to smile, trying not to think too hard about how quietly strange he was.
He looked at the bowl one last time. Satisfied. Utterly, profoundly satisfied.
He turned back toward you, posture back to what seemed to be normal for him, hands folded neatly in front of him like he was awaiting judgment.
“Is it acceptable?” he asked.
“What, the bowl placement?”
“Yes.”
“Uh, yeah.” you cleared your throat. “Very centered.”
He nodded, clearly taking the compliment in stride. “Order is preferable.”
“Good to know.”
Your brain started tallying stupid, practical things without asking permission: when was the last time he bathed, when was the last time anybody fed him cereal that wasn’t suspiciously soggy, what would Child Services do if you called, did you have the energy to be an adult who made phone calls and got judged. The list marched like soldiers, efficient and accusatory. You hated that about your mind. How it could go clinical at a single glance, convert warm to numbers, reduce responsibility to logistics and then leave you to feel like a fraud for feeling anything at all.
He didn't smell bad, exactly, but it was strong, and your brain kept spiraling: I should make him bathe, right? That’s what responsible people do? Ask the child to shower? Great idea, sure. Fantastic.
Then immediately: no.
No way. You would rather wash sheets every night for the next year than try to negotiate soap and running water with a kid who still didn’t understand cereal. Not a battle you were starting at 7 PM on a weekday.
You swallowed, the back of your throat tight. What were you doing? Letting a random kid into your house, one who fell into a pit, talked about priests and bindings? You weren't equipped for this. You weren't equipped for anything. Your heart was already going too fast, your skin prickling. You pressed your thumb into the side of your palm, feeling the sharp bite of nail on skin. Just to ground yourself. Just to feel something steady.
He watched, silent. Thank god he didn’t comment. At least he didn’t do that weird soul-reading thing.
“Right,” you muttered, clearing your throat. “So. Uh. The room. I should show you where you’ll sleep.”
He blinked once, slow. “You will not sleep there?”
“No,” you said quickly, maybe too quickly. “You take it. I’ll stay out here on the couch.”
He stared at you a little longer than was comfortable.
He rose from the couch without a sound. Not even the faint thud of kid-feet. Just… moved. Effortless. Weirdly smooth. You told yourself that was probably trauma. Or upbringing. Or those weird period shoes.
You led him down the hallway, the floor creaking under your steps and not his. Your room door was already cracked open, the small space beyond dimly lit from the kitchen lamp bleeding down the hall. Sheets scrunched, blankets tangled, a pile of laundry in one corner that you kicked subtly behind the dresser.
“Sorry,” you muttered. “It’s not much. But the mattress is decent, and the heater works half the time, so… yeah.”
He moved past you, stepping inside like he was entering a cathedral... silent, alert, but not impressed. Just taking it in. His gaze slid across the shelves, the chipped desk, the scratched wooden floor. He stopped near the bed, fingertips brushing the edge of the quilt like he was testing its reality.
“This is where I will be?” he asked.
“Yeah. If that’s okay.”
“It is acceptable.”
God, he talked like a displaced nobleman sometimes. A tiny, dirt-smudged aristocrat who’d forgotten the purpose of adjectives.
“Good,” you said. “Um. If you need anything, just… tell me. Water, food... whatever.”
He stared at the bed again, then said very quietly, “I do not sleep.”
You blinked. “You… don’t? Like, at all?”
“No.”
“How long has that been going on?”
He gave that tiny shrug he did when something was so obvious he couldn’t believe you didn’t already know. “A very long time."
“So… insomnia?”
He shrugs.
“It means you can’t sleep.”
He nodded. “Yes. I cannot.”
“How long?” you asked again, softer now.
He considered. “One hundred years. Perhaps more.”
You stared at him, brain stalling.
...
“Well,” you exhaled slowly, “that’s… yeah. Okay. Big imagination. That’s fine. No pressure to sleep. You can just… lie down. Or sit. Or rest. Rest is good.”
He nodded like he was indulging you, not the other way around.
Your fingers were already digging crescent-moons into your arm. Small, mindless scratches you only noticed when the sting hit. Once again, you forced yoursekf to stop, letting your hand drop to your side.
“I’ll be on the couch,” you reminded him. “If you need anything, I’m right there. Just… knock. Or call my name. Or, I don’t know, throw a pillow at the door.”
“I will not disturb you,” he said.
“You can. If you need something.”
Again that tiny, reluctant nod.
“Okay. I’ll, uh… I’ll let you settle.”
You backed out of the room, heart ticking weirdly too fast, and pulled the door gently until it sat slightly ajar. Enough for him to feel safe, enough for you to hear if he got scared. Because he was a kid. Even if he insisted he wasn’t.
Back in the living room, the air felt too thin. You ran a hand through your hair, paced once, twice, three times, then flopped onto the couch and pulled the blanket around your shoulders. Your chest pinched again. Worry, guilt, uncertainty, all tangled into one unwelcome knot.
Tomorrow you'd figure out what to do.