Chapter 2

I woke up from the same dream and looked around the broken-down building and sighed.

The same old scene. I realised that the crimson red sun was burning through the windows. That meant I woke up early despite staying up past midnight. I decided to wake up the rest of the sleeping bodies.

"An early riser as always ain't ya James" I heard Mark commenting me after I woke him up along with Jack and Robert.

Mark is a tall man, about 10cm taller than everybody else on the farm. He had muscular arms and always wore a long-sleeved, blue shirt along with deep brown trousers. His skin is tanned due to the tremendous amount of work he does. His hair is never tidy - just like most people in this world - however, his hair the worse I have ever seen: it looked like he decided to shed the skin of a porcupine and used it as an ugly wig.

Jack was the complete opposite, he was a small man with a spiky moustache. The guy was probably the only person who still cared about how well he looked at this age. He swaps between two sets of clothing about once a week: a red T-shirt with white stripes and a pair of black shorts or a deep yellow shirt and a light blue pair of trousers. He does the least work out of all us due to his small size, I honestly don't know where he got the money to buy clothes from.

Robert is a more normal man like me. That is if he didn't have his overwhelming pessimistic mind. The man had a plain brown T-shirt and dark blue trousers, I don't think I had ever seen him wear anything else. He had a constant sad expression on his face and nobody has ever seen him smile before. The man had messy jungle-like hair along with a slight tan.

The four of us headed out to the main house to have our lunch. Nobody had expected food with taste any better than a one-star hotel. As we had already known, we have received a hard, cold slice of bread each along with a small bottle of water.

With disgust, we ate our breakfast.

Even most other farms aren't this horrible, it's probably because we were rejected from other workplaces that made the boss hire us. Not because we were sad men who couldn't get a job and hired us with pity, however, he probably hired us because we wouldn't want to lose any of the money he gave us. In the end, the boss was still a cold-hearted monster.

We all knew what the boss was going to say before he said it.

"OK lads, now that you have got food to fill you up, how about ya all do some to remove all that fat you've just stored?" He joked, the man would do anything to fill his stomach first before any of us do, not one of us fell for that old trick.

Still, we had no choice but to follow the orders.

We were men who have nowhere better to go.

As soon as we finished our food, work started. It lasted for a little over two hours, it was horribly boring and overly time-consuming for the money he is willing to pay us, but then again, what else could we do, at least we are getting paid.

In the farm, the person I was closest to is none other than the overly optimistic man named Mark, however, not too close. No human at this time allows anyone to get too close.

Every day is the same as today, we wake up, we eat, work and so on. We never get a good break, not even during sleep. Day after day, the same cycle. That is until it happened.

"Everyone! Come, quick!" We heard the stable boy call one day after lunch.

"Whatsup kid?" I asked, completely unmotivated.

"The big guy was crushed by the shed!" He answered back urgently.

I instantly jumped off my seat and dashed towards the place the boy told me: the shed. We always suggested that the place is certainly going to collapse in on itself one day, but I didn't expect it to break whilst Mark was inside.

When I reached the scene, everybody else was already there.

I quickly checked his breath and felt nothing.

"He's moved on..." I told them.

We all stood there looking at the corpse of our friend for a long minute or two.

However, during that long second, I realised a fatal mistake we made.

At the corner of the shed, there was a bullet hole. It was completely fresh and was never there before.

The only person who had a rifle in the area was the boss himself.

I stared at the boss in disbelief, I knew the boss is insane when it comes to earning and keeping money. Whatever Mark did to create an opportunity for the boss to murder him, could only be one thing: stealing from the boss.

The answer seems completely unreasonable, why would Mark want to do that. Perhaps he wanted to run, to dash away into the moonlight never to be seen again.

What could I do about this? Nothing. What do I need to do? Nothing. What do I want to do? Run.

We all worked through the rest of the day, conflicted with thoughts. Whilst others were mourning for the death of Mark, I was planning how to run.

My job didn't matter anymore, if I can live for another few days, I would rather run instead of living and working for a killer.

Hours passed without anyone noticing it and before we knew, it was already time for bed.

I bet that nobody would be able to sleep tonight, so I decided to wait until everyone else has gone to bed before I entered the bunkhouse.

"E-e-excuse me, sir," I heard a worried face behind me.

I instantly turned around and to my surprise, it was the stable boy.

"What do ya want?" I asked him.

"Y-y-you've seen the h-hole too, haven't you?" The boy asked me.

The kid looked worried, I wondered what hole he meant.

"Which hole?" I asked him.

"A-a-at the shed, you were looking at it a-after I noticed it!" He answered back.

I stared in disbelief, the boy seems to have noticed the bullet hole. That could mean two things: either he was working with the boss or he found it just like I had. I decided to interrogate him.

"I noticed the damn hole alright, whatcha want?" I asked suspiciously.

"W-were you the one who killed h-him?"

"Of course not, are you accusing me of it? I don't even have a rifle!"

"I-I-I know, d-do you know who d-d-did it?"

"Well, there is only one god damned person on the farm who owns a rifle and that's the boss!"

"You mean the boss k-killed him?"

"All I'll say is that that's a possibility, but I'm not takin' any chances, I'm leaving!"

"Th-then take me with you!"

I looked back in disbelief, the kid who seemed to always be scared of me is asking to leave with me of all people. I guess this is what witnessing a murder can do to one's mind.

"Are you sure?"

"Y-yeah."

"Then hurry up, take as much as we can hold, I'm not staying here for another day! You have an hour, otherwise, I'm leaving without you!"

Looking back, I remember those words: in a world with hate, sadness and fear, where every human being holds fear in their hearts against another; where earning and keeping above a dollar was almost impossible. Is achieving the dream or even making a friend possible. Is it better for me to attempt at the dream alone or would that be virtually impossible?

I guess if that friend is a naive little kid, it wouldn't be much of a problem. Having a companion isn't all that bad. I looked around the originally calm place. I was about to leave, without my pay as well, however, I guess I prefer being poor than being murdered by a psychopath.

"I don't have a-anything to take, s-sir."

My thoughts were disturbed by the boy. Now that I think about it...

"What's your actual name?" I asked the kid, it would be weird naming him the stable boy when there is no stable within a mile of his presence.

"M-my name?" He said shakingly, am I really that scary? "I've never been c-called anything except 'kid' and 'boy'."

"Well then, kid, I'll just call you that then."

Having someone to talk to, it really is nice. Even if it was a kid who, for some reason, is always afraid of me.

"Well, we're leaving then, no way I'm staying in this hell, if you decide to return, do whatcha want, I won't come after you," I told him calmly.

"Yes, s-sir," He answered back.

Me and a kid who just so happens to see the same evidence as me, what a weird combination.

That didn't really matter, it's time to leave the devil's nest.