Quoted By:
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dad gone for a while. dont like it.
mom getting sader. angry. drinks big bottles calls it spirits?
bert --- said my Dad is gone, dead or soon.
When I asked questions bout him. Mom got really mad. Scary mad. Bottle mad.
told me to stop talking. smashed bottle.
idont like writing
--
The fresh air of late autumn does wonders to calm your quickening heart. You're tempted to skip right to the end, where Olin's last words would be most pertinent to your situation. This is deeply, deeply personal.
<span class="mu-i">No. Augustine gives me his journal to read his words, to know him; she trusts me. I won't squander that.</span>
Days start getting skipped more and more as you continue reading; your judgment alone is the only thing you can rely on to establish a coherent timeline. A handful of months, perhaps, since he started pointing out warmer weather here and there.
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Writing here is supposed to make me feel better? I tihnk superior like I do it, no real use for me.
kinda hurt my hand.
Dad's gone, been gone for a while but now gone gone. was ill a long while, mom said he left yesterday. I get it i get it.
Dad work gone, he showe me how to do (work?) woods. made Desk, chair. my bed.
he helped me lots, made with me statue of Batrion. Greatest of Paladins.
I want to be a hero.
--
This excerpt gives you pause. <span class="mu-i">He lost his dad so young...</span>
Woodworker, carpenter perhaps? A son following his father's trade is normal for most lowborn boys, but with this tragedy, his life was irreversibly changed.
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others talk bout me too often now. idont wanna hear it
i dunno new day again but i dunno. Dont like writing
fough bert again. blood this time. Supiriror got angry whatver.
--
The following lines follow this depressing pattern. He starts leaving blank spaces, then macabre drawings of stickmen fighting start showing up for a couple of pages.
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Mom got real angry again.
--
He wrote that single statement in the middle of an otherwise blank page; the following one seems damaged, warped by humidity. Your heart pumps dreadful blood into your body as you carefully turn the now suddenly fragile page.
--
mom hit me.
on me face, my back
I hit bert often, got hit but this hurt lots
my blood. my nose blood? cheek? it was the bottle. she Drin and drink with dad gone.
Home is scary dont like it no more but. Mom is hurt. hear her cry.
idont like it, dad gone, mom got evil bottles.
others are mean. Supirior cant know. dont wanna.
im not hurt
no point to writing.
--
''Oh.'' The short sigh escapes you as you turn away from Olin's words. You imagine a small fist under an unsteady hand, a bruise already forming at the cheekbone of the docile boy who appeared to you yesterday. The one who gave pieces of his soul to soothe Usha's starving agony.
