Perseverance
You live in a place that isn't safe or is neutral to metas, what memories do you have of that place? good or bad
Opening credits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmhIUwUzcNE
I don't wanna wake up. No...
Rand awoke like a shift of scarlet curtain, sitting up in bed with a sigh. He glanced beside him where the girl had been sleeping the night before. Probably gone, he thought, feeling the bed for warmth. Or, perhaps her leaving woke him. Nobody stayed in his life for long.
He left the bed, such as it was, a dirty mattress on the floor, blankets hastily arranged upon its surface. Stomped his boots on. He looked up at a hole in the wall near the ceiling, the sun filtering in through a mass of fog. A bird flew past, dousing him in shadow for an instant. He looked around the room and found the pizza box where it had been left the night before. It was damn chilly in the house, which served to refrigerate the leftovers. He grabbed two pieces and paced the floor until he was done eating.
He was on the run. There was no way around it. The orphanage where he had spent the past few years was too strict and too close to the skirmishes that kept happening in town. He just wanted to get away. Become a rock star like he had been practically born to do. He was a meta with a rock CD for an item. What else could he be? But the orphanage had possessed his guitar. It was too loud, they said. But he knew where it was hidden and had taken it with him when he broke out. So he played that when he had nothing else to do.
Soon he would leave. He didn't know where to go. His parents were killed here in a drive-by on the wrong house. It figured. He watched it happen. One moment they were sitting down at dinner, the next they peeked out the window and died. A mass of humanity lay there on the floor, leaking red fluids down the seams in the wood.
Rand never went near a window again. He avoided them. He closed every window. He hated the outside.
Why hadn't he died too?
Enough of that. He had to leave. The guitar had a case. He strapped it to his back and slipped out the back door. He was torn between riding a bus to the city, or Sanctuary... maybe they'd give him a job so he could save up, and have pocket change for things like bus fare. Yeah, that's what he'd do.
Parents always caution against hitchhiking. It's dangerous. You could be picked up by a killer. Or in his parents' case, "A meta hater could discover you." Rand eyed the driver suspiciously before approaching the car.
"Where you headed?" the driver asked.
"Sanctuary." Rand had to tell him that much, right?
The driver seemed to think it over. "I can take you part way."
"Okay." The kid opened the door to the back seat and set the guitar there on the floor. Then he sat up front next to the driver.
They sat in silence at first. But people often find a way to chat. It's in their nature to want to know more about the person they spend time with.
"Where are you going?"
"Aldas."
Oh. No.
"What were you doing in Khares?"
"It's my hometown." It was where the orphanage was, anyway. Rand was originally from Criel. And before that...
"Khares. I'm sorry."
Rand and the driver both snorted.
"I was just passing through. You must have been through a lot. Your whole demeanor..."
This guy had no idea. "It's a tough town. I just wanted to get out."
The silence in the car was drawn out long enough that the boy began to think that the conversation was ended. Rand cleared his throat. "Aldas is fine."
"Mhm."
The miles drained away, as did the light. Then, the city came into view, visible as thousands of individual points of light. But they never got close. "Um. Isn't that Aldas?"
"It is."
Rand was nursing a cold ball in the pit of his stomach. "Where are you taking me."
"You said you wanted to go to Sanctuary, right?"
"Y-y right--"
"You're a meta, right?" The driver's voice was strained.
Oh s**t. s**t. s**t. "R-r--"
"Cos there's no other REASON for you to go there. You're a meta!"
The driver obviously had a problem with this. Wherever they were going Rand did not want to go. He fiddled with the seatbelt.
"Hey, stay put." The driver growled, dividing his attention between the boy and the road. A hard smack upside the head dazed Rand for a few moments after his temple hit the passenger's side window.
But Rand got the seatbelt undone and spun around, boots on the seat. Then he rammed the soles of his boots into the side of the man's head. "I'm getting out."
"Like hell you are!" The man tried to get at the boy and subdue him further. He pulled over and reached for him. He tried to pin the boy's legs down and physically sit on them. Rand kicked out as hard as he could before the man could subdue him. The man put up a valiant fight but in the end Rand's big feet won out. He scrambled out from under the man's bulk and out of the car, ran several feet, then skidded to a halt. He came back for the guitar, he had to. Then he ran for the trees.
He spent the next few days keeping Aldas on the right side of him, the trees all around him, and the sea to the left. Eventually he made it to Sanctuary. It was hard to miss from here. It was haloed in a ring of rainbow and sunbeams. Eventually he would meet someone who would get a kick out of knowing that this place looked like that, once. Rand took a deep breath and ran the rest of the way.
Okay, he got winded and stopped partway.
"So your name is Randell Foster? What about your parents?"
"Dead."
"Guardian?"
"No comment."
"Then how did you get here?"
"Um... who are you again?"
"I apologize for all the questions, here is your room."
He never did find out the name of his escort. But at least he and his guitar had a home, now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekOkOF1GNqA
Ending Credits.
