Escape.

""Not on your life!" Langdon sat bolt upright, eyes flying open, "Attento!" one of the creatures yelled, steadying him. His badge read Dr Jacobus. He looked remarkably human. Langdon stammered, "I...thought...""Easy, Mr Langdon. You're in a hospital."”      - Angels and Demons by Dan Brown

 L iam ran into the Ashdown forest, behind the house, that he had grown to know so well from playing pretend amongst the trees when Anthony was out and Liam, home alone. Liam paused. ‘The woods are too close’ he thought to himself looking back at the distance he had run. ‘Ah well, he wouldn’t come looking for me here anyway, too much effort.’ He added and carried on running deeper and deeper into the heart of the forest. Liam didn’t stop until he came to a clearing near the middle of the forest. He knew his was to the treeless circle like the back of his hand. The clearing was surrounded by numerous tall, green leafy trees and bushes. He wasn’t sure what type of tree they were though.
In the centre was a hollow tree trunk, the wood had started to crack from years of weathering and small animals, such as birds and squirrels, pecking or scratching the bark. Liam went to the end of the tree, bent down and picked up a cardboard box hidden inside the log – the one from his room – however the box no longer carried clothes.
At the bottom of the box sat a big tub of chocolate spread, a jar of jam and a packet of custard creams – taken from Anthony’s kitchen. On top of these was an old scruffy A4 notebook and an old pen was pushed into the silver spiral binding, and his own toothbrush. All of which he had taken from his father without him knowing, which had been easy as Anthony always went to the pub in the evening. Liam had been planning to run away for some time, only he hasn’t found the guts to do so – until Anthony crushed his hopes.
He undid the folded in flaps and took out the paper and a blue biro. He sighed, leant against the log and started to draw. He drew a woman with long hair and a blue dress, a man with blue trousers and blue moustache and finally a girl with blue pigtails and a checked blue skirt. He held the lined paper at arm’s length and smiled.“You are my new family. You...” he pointed at the lady “are called Carol. You...” he poked the man with his small right index finger “are called Tony and you are called Poppy” he said poking the third biro figure.
Liam held the paper to his chest for a brief moment before ripping the muddy paper into three equal thirds, each person on their own third. He put the notepad, biro, ‘Carol’ and ‘Poppy’ back into the damp bottomed box.“Come on Tony, let’s go play football.” he said to the flimsy, thin paper as he stuffed in into his back pocket of his holey, dirty jeans.
He found a fallen pine cone under one of the many trees and started kicking the cone around. Liam sighed. He was bored with playing football alone. The leaves of the bushes rustled, Liam found himself on his toes ready to run if he needed to. He felt the wind blow against his face and relaxed, his sandy shoulder length greasy hair had been waving around in the wind, he now looked as if he had a scruffy bird’s nest on the top of his head. He went and got ‘Carol’ and ‘Poppy’ out of the box and sat cross-legged and placed the three paper drawings in front of him. He sat there until his stomach rumbled and the sky darkened. He went to the box, got the chocolate spread, unscrewed the lid and dug his filthy fingers in. 

The next morning Liam woke up with stiff joints, clothes damp from the night’s dew and to bird song. Liam sat against the empty log and listened to the swallows singing to the low warming sun. He decided that he should move further away from the house, after all, the wood was too close to his father and he was probably fuming.
He picked up the box and carried it as far away from the woods as he could before he grew tired. He soon could see the trees clearing and exposing a few grassy fields with various farm animals in – cows, horses, and sheep. He quickly ducked amongst the flowerbed of a white farm house as the farmers pretty blonde wife stopped singing to herself, turned round and placed an apple pie on the wooden windowsill of the kitchen. She turned her back to clean a spoon; Liam took a swipe of pie with his index finger. He flicked the hot pie, as best as he could, onto a red rose which wilted with the weight of it. He licked the rest off.
He walked close to the brickwork keeping hidden. As he crept under a window he could hear Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake waltz – his mother played it for him when he was a little boy – trickling out the window. He took a peek in to the room where the beautiful music came from. He stifled a laugh as an elderly couple were dancing like ballet dancers slowly turning to stone– the dance itself kept his gaze glued to the dancers, almost spellbound, the elderly stiff-jointed couple were a funny sight for a person of any age. The woman was wearing a floor length purple skirt which she fastened just under her ribs, a white blouse; tucked in of course, and some old ballet pumps, maybe belonging to her years ago. The man was wearing black suit trousers and a white shirt –no jacket or tie.
The woman laughed as they fell over each other’s feet and flicked her grey hair out of her eyes. The man looked sheepish and embarrassed; he ran a hand over his balding head.  Liam could have watched them dancing in front of the log fireplace for hours and wishing he was part of that happy dancing family.
He had been brought out of his dream world by a couple of horny teenagers giggling and snapping twigs as they ran hand in hand to one of the old hay barns. He unwantingly carried on into the big wide world alone. 

He passed farms, churches, schools and an endless number of fields. He didn’t stop until he nearly dropped the battered box. He found a place to rest under a wise old oak tree in a park. Across a path was a stream of fresh water trickling down from the grassy, over grown, tree ridden hills in the distance. He sat and watched the calming water for a couple of hours.  “Oi! Sleeping beauty, wake up!” a scruffy dark haired looking boy shouted. He chucked a stone at sleeping Liam. Liam woke up startled.
“Huh?”
“Whatcha doin’?” The boy asked offering Liam his left hand. Liam took the hand accepting the help up.
“I was sleeping. What are you doing?”
“Walkin’. I saw you an’ I thought you was dead.” The boy said wiping his tanned hand on his overly big clothes.
“I’m not dead” Liam stated.
“If you was, I can see the dead” the boy said grinning.
“What’s your name?”
“Liam.”
“Yuki.” The boy shook Liam’s pale hand.
“That yours?” he said tilting his head towards the pile of soggy cardboard. Liam cursed and ran to where the box used to be. He lifted a piece up between his index finger and thumb.
“Ugh.” 
“Ooh, you got food!” Yuki’s eyes widened with hunger.
“Yeah, want some?”
“Yea!” Liam’s new friend pounced on the jar of raspberry jam.
“So, what are you doing out here all alone?” Liam asked
“Got kicked out. You?” he said with a handful of raspberry jam in his mouth.
“Ran away.” Yuki’s jaw dropped; jam dripped down his chin and onto his dirty black t-shirt.
“You ran away?” Liam nodded
“Why?” Liam sat down on a tree stump and started his story.
“I was in a circus and I was made to do flips and tricks and shit like that. Liam went on telling exciting stories of his ‘circus days’ for hours, he had Yuki hooked on his every word.By the end of the night, Liam had created a whole new life for himself.  By the end of the night, Liam had created a whole new life for himself. Yuki knew Liam as a circus runaway who talked to birds, was a spy and stole jewellery with his older brother, Thomas, using complex cords, black outfits and black shoe polish. Yuki was blown away by Liam’s make-believe life and secretly jealous of all the exciting things he had done already. But Thomas had conveniently immigrated to Bulgaria. But in reality Liam had run away because of his father who worked him to the bone doing jobs that Anthony should be doing, he didn’t even have an older brother to steal jewellery with.

Liam woke up first; he stretched, went and relieved himself behind a huge oak tree well away from mumbling Yuki.
As Liam was walking back, watching his footing to avoid squishing a snail, he saw Yuki roll over in his sleep, hit his head on the rock that had been threatening to hurt him all night and laughed. Liam ran over to Yuki as he grumbled and sat up holding his forehead. Blood seeped from under his dirty chocolate brown hair and down his grubby face.
“Eww, gross!” Liam complained as he flicked a broken snail from his foot. Yuki grimaced. “Ew ew ew! It’s between my toes!” he squealed hopping briskly to the river over the hill. Yuki had forgotten about the pain in his head and was laughing at Liam and the snail incident.
Liam came back with a cleaner right foot and his wet tee-shirt.
“Here, you might wanna mop up the blood.” He handed Yuki his tee-shirt.
“Thanks” Yuki moved his fringe “Liam, will you do it for me?” He found it hard to clean what he couldn’t see.
“Sure.” Liam bent down, took the dark, heavy shirt and brushed it against Yuki’s cut gently taking the drying blood as he lifted it. He shivered as a gust of wind made orange and yellow leaves dance on the road not far from where the two boys had slept.
“Cold?”
“No, it was the wind. There ya go.” He wrung the tee shirt out and left it on a branch in the sun to dry. Yuki’s hair was so gritty and unwashed his fringe stuck in the position he was holding it out the way. Liam laughed at him and suggested he should wash his hair. Yuki ignored him, pushed him down a grassy hill and laughed as he landed in a spiky bush.
“Ow ow ow!” he pulled a gorse thorn from his hair, chucked it to the floor and ran at Yuki. The boys pushed, shoved and chased until they ran out of energy and were lying on thier backs on the long grass looking up at the clouds.
They were pretty far away from Liam’s drying blue tee shirt and the soggy box containing the jam and spread when they realised they were feeling hungry. Liam had forgotten about his drawn family now he had Yuki to talk and play with.The two boys became close friends; they told each other almost everything – except their real lives.

Yuki hadn’t completely lied, he did get kicked out, but it was for serious drug use, not because his parents had got pissed off with keeping him out jail for various heavy duty crimes like he said. He had been in and out of hospital as a result of the drug use, his 14 year old body was rejecting the habit and it caused problems, his parents forced him into rehab.Only to kick him out when they found out he hadn’t kicked the habit. He’d been a complete wreck, self harming, doing anything for a fix, it was crazy.

“Yo, Liam. Wake up.” Yuki said desperately in a hushed voice. Liam stirred in his sleep, moaned at Yuki for 10 more minutes and rolled over. “We don’t have 10 minutes, get up now!” He said in a louder whisper.“What do you want!?” Liam asked slightly too loud.“There’s someone over here!” a distant shout came through the trees, the shout was followed by twigs snapping and leaves rustling. Liam caught sight of policemen being pulled closer to them by big German Shepard sniffer dogs, his heart skipped a beat as he saw his father behind them complaining of all the mud getting on his new boots. Liam’s annoyed expression changed to panic and worry.“Come on, let’s go!” The boys ran between trees, in zigzag paths, and through water in an attempt to confuse the dogs. They ran for a lengthy amount of time until they were sure they had lost the police. “Oh... my... God…that was .. some...chase!" Yuki said gasping for breath and leaning on a pile of bricks in a run down area near to where Yuki used to hang around with his ‘friends’. Most of the buildings were now boarded up and crumbling to nothing.
"Yeah..."Liam agreed. A cat  strolled past. It was black with a white patch under it's chin. Yuki gasped and grinned; Liam was a little confused but ignored him and bent down to tie his grubby aglet missing shoe lace which had come untied as they ran.
Yuki had walked quietly over to the shiney coated cat, bent down and had started making noises to try and coax the cat to go to him.
"Come here, Beans, I'm not gunna hurt you." The cat smelt his outstreched fingers then rubbed her head into his palm. Yuki giggled as the cat purred.
"Beans?" Liam asked raising an eyebrow in disbelieve of the silly name.
"Yeah, she used to eat baked beans when my brother left a few of them on his plate or when he pushed them on the floor for her. She had wind like wouldn't believe!" Liam chuckled at Yuki and his cat. Yuki shouted after Beans as she ran into one of the crumbling buildings through a hole in one of the boards covering a downstairs window in what was once a dentist after being frightened by a loud noise.
“Oh man, I might not see her again” Yuki sighed
“Of course you will” Liam said trying to sound optimistic even though he knew that she wouldn’t come back. Yuki shrugged, un-crouched his near six foot lanky frame so he was back to towering above Liam and his five foot too-thin frame.“Come on” Liam said walking away from the pile of bricks which he was leant on. Yuki sighed, took a last look at the hole where Beans ran, turned around and reluctantly followed Liam from his crumbling childhood and into the Oak forest that towered above them.