Nothing in This World Can Be Endured Forever

The next morning, Bill was outside with a shovel two hours before the school bus would arrive. His fingers burned as he cleared the driveway and walk in front of the house. His breaths were shallow and painful, becoming visible in the cold air. His small frame shook with exertion and chills. He’d been smart enough to grab his t-shirt and slip it on over his turtle neck in an attempt for more warmth, but that didn’t help as soon as his socks and pants became frozen with the snow.

The world was still dark and silent in the early hour. The only thing the boy could hear was the soft sound of snow falling, the shovel scrapping against the icy pavement and the thump of each unloading.

When he got to the end of their sidewalk, he straightened out, stretching his sore back. The pre-teen turned to walk back, but was startled when Jörg was in front of him, his arms crossed sternly high over his chest because of his heavy winter jacket with a look that made Bill’s heart-rate increase and his head to bow obediently.

“Keep going.”

His voice boomed in the dark silence and caused Bill to flinch with the sudden loud order. He stood and watched as Bill continued on down the block, huffing with exertion and sniffling from the cold. Satisfied that the pre-teen was doing his job, the older man turned to go back to the warm house.

Bill glared at the snow, his arms and back protesting with each load moved aside. He panted when he straightened at the end of the block. He stretched and rubbed at his running nose with his sleeve. As he looked back towards the house, he realized he was all alone out in the darkness of the morning. He stood in shock for a moment. He could just… run. He could hide in the playground not to far from here, like he did in the summer when it got bad. And Jörg wouldn’t even know.

He could be free.

He let the idea sink in while dark silence surrounded him. It was sort of peaceful, standing in the dark street under the burnt out street lamp and look back at the house he was trapped in and be able to just… walk away, as if it hadn’t happened at all.

Bill turned, taking a step into the snow around the corner. He looked over his shoulder, expecting alarms to go off and Jörg to instantly to by his side.

But nothing happened.

He took another step, placing both frozen feet in the deep snow. Another step forward and another and his heart swelled. His body shook more from the adrenaline rushing through his veins at what he was doing more than the temperature. His footsteps became faster and more confident the further he got away from the house until he was running, arms pumping and legs taking long strides.

His breath came out in puffs of clouds as he struggled through the snow covered walk. The boy didn’t look back, didn’t look anywhere but ahead of him as he continued towards the playground, his mind racing with where he could hide once he got there.

But as he thought about the safety, he fell to his knees, his right foot sinking into a snow mound and his ankle twisting painfully. Bill cried out from the pain. His hands were beyond numb and pain shot through his arms as he struggled to pull his foot free.

The blond pre-teen looked up, brushing his hair out of his face roughly. He could see the jungle gym from here. He renewed his fight with the snow and yanked his foot free, leaving his shoe behind in the hole. He grabbed it out and took off towards the playground with a limp, trying to ignore how cold his foot was and how painful his ankle suddenly had become.

Bill stumbled onto the snowy playground and hurried to the jungle gym. The sky was considerably lighter and served to help Bill see the rungs of the metal ladder by the high rise bridge. He hurried up the cold play structure, maneuvering his small body through the obstacles until he was crawling through the large plastic tunnel. The boy settled himself in one of the areas that connected the different tunnels. It was the highest point of the jungle gym and completely enclosed in the same orange plastic of the tunnels except for a spot of clear plastic that had air holes in it.

Bill sat across from the little window that faced the way he’d come from. He carefully put his shoe back on after getting the snow out of it and curled into a ball, shaking with a cough. His arms were pulled into his shirt, his cold fingers tucked into his armpits in an attempt to be warmer. The boy’s ankle throbbed in unison with his head and his breathing. He closed his eyes and focused on keeping his breaths quiet and his hearing on any unnatural noise that would pose a threat to where he was hidden.

Back at the house, Jörg had come back out with the intentions of yelling at the boy to get his lazy ass moving if he wanted to make it to next week. What he found instead of the pre-teen diligently shoveling the walk made his blood run cold for a split second, then hot as anger took over. The blue shovel lay abandoned at the end of the sidewalk by the road.

To hell if he could leave the boy alone for a mere five minutes without the ungrateful fucker running off on him.

Jörg gritted his teeth, turned on his heal and forced his way back into the house loudly, anger fueling his actions.

Jörg fumed his way through the house, slamming doors and grumbling under his breath about that goddamned boy. All he was was trouble, always fucking up when he knew better.

"Jörg?" Kathleen questioned timidly from the edge of their bed as her husband stormed into their closet.

"What!?" the elder man snapped.

"What-" she broke off as he turned to her with wild anger in his eyes.

"The boy-" There was no need for Jörg to continue. He turned back to the dresser, pulling out his clothes.

"Where?"

Rounding on his wife, he shouted with fire in his eyes, "I don’t know. He was shoveling and then the fucker was gone!"

Bill fell asleep. He knew this because when he woke up from another vicious cough attack, he was in a tunnel now, still shivering, but warmer than outside. He could hear the wind blowing through the tree lining the Northern edge of the playground and hitting the side of the tunnel.

The boy pulled his head back into his shirt, breathing heavily after another cough. His head was pounding and his body was tense and uncomfortable in his soaked clothes.

Sniffling, the blonde jumped when he heard a shrill scream and a giggle echoing throughout the tunnel. The noises got louder and Bill could now hear heavy foot falls on the jungle gym that corresponded with the giggles. He slowly pulled himself out of his warm ball and began crawling through the tunnel, heading to the enclosed slide that emptied toward the trees. He couldn’t hide in the tunnel’s any more while kids were playing, he’d learned that long ago when Jörg had come looking for him and the kids easily betrayed where he’d been hiding.

Quickly, Bill slid down the cold slide, using his feet to stop himself before he reached the end. Crouching down, he peaked out, looked both ways then darted out of the slide. He ran from the playground, the wind cutting into his exposed body, climbed over the chain link fence with practiced skill and ducked underneath the branches. The bite was considerably less with the protection, but Bill shivered even more, hacking on another round of coughs as he heaved for breath.

Bill soon found himself abandoning his hideout underneath the trees. He felt as if he was being watched. The feeling unsettled him and made him panicky and if not just a bit paranoid. Jörg would be looking for him about now, he assumed.

Peering out from the low branches, Bill quickly dashed from the tree line into the open field, quickly making his way around the snowy baseball diamond to the home teams’ dugout shelter. Descending into the dugout, Bill crouched down in the corner, curling back into a ball and letting out a series of heavy coughs as he regained his breath.

Just as he got comfortable and used to the chill again, he stopped breathing as he heard crunching footfalls in the snow, getting louder every second that passed. Bill was paralyzed with fear, unable to move or breathe from the terror that gripped him. Then, like a flip of a page, air suddenly filled his lungs with a gasp, his head snapped toward the field to see a tall man hurrying across the baseball diamond toward the dugout where he was hidden….

… Fallowing the footprints in the snow.

Scrambling out of the dugout, Bill took off across the field as fast as he could, ignoring the pain that shot up his leg with each footfall. Blindly running, his breath came out in puffs of white clouds that became smaller as he ran.

The boy blinked hard, trying to fight off the tightness being created in his chest. A ragged cry left his throat as his began to close in on itself in his panic. Gasping frantically as his mind raced, Bill forced his legs and arms to keep pumping, to keep propelling him further away from his pursuer because he knew his life depended on it.

Bill dared to look back at Jörg, only to see the distance between them shrinking. Tears sprang from his eyes and chilled quickly on his dirty cheeks as he felt himself slowing, exhausted and struggling for air that didn’t exist.

Mouth agape, Bill’s eyes closed as he stumbled over his feet and hit the snowy ground as the panic increased in his chest. He hadn’t had this happen outside of there since before….

Jörg’s voice was suddenly clear through the haze of the attack wracking Bill’s body. The boy didn’t understand what was being said; just that it was loud and sent tingles of terror through his body that was doubled when he couldn’t gasp any longer. His mouth opened and closed with no luck.

Throwing his head back, Bill’s chest convulsed, his lungs screaming out for air. Jörg was over him the next instant, his hand clasping around his throat and holding tight as he hovered over the boy. Jörg watched as Bill’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and his eyes slipped closed.

Satisfaction filled the man’s chest, a smirk graced his face and he spat, “You fuckin’ piece of shit. You will pay.”

Bill came around with a gasp and the feeling of his stomach dropping out of his body and a strange weightlessness. It seemed as if he was suspended in time for a long moment. His eyes closed, he assessed himself, trying to feel out his surroundings with his other senses before…

His small body was jarred to Earth forcefully. Pain shot down his back as he connected with the edge of something before he tumbled over himself, his hands shooting out to stop himself. His right arm slammed into a solid object, square and about as big as he came to a sudden halt, dazed, confused and sprawled out.

Blinking slowly, Bill found himself at the bottom of the basement stairs as Jörg came crashing down after him. Crying out, Bill scrambled to his feet, stumbling away as his limbs went numb and his heart nearly fell through his stomach.