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"Fine you can go to the park, but come back home before the streetlights turn on alright?" He says, trying to impersonate a woman.
"Okay!" Sero says.
"Why don't you just bring your friends to the house?" Sero frowns at the air.
"They said they don't want to." In truth, there was no "they". No one would play with him because they don't exist. He doesn't have parents or friends. His town is vacant.
"Okay." He sighs. "Don't forget your jacket." He holds it in his hands and he drops it and runs away from it and then runs up to to it to pick it up again.
"Thank you." He smiles his toothless, cartoonish smile.
"Alright, go on and play." He nods to nothing and the runs out of the door. He slams the door and winces at the loud noise. He yells back sorry to the object and goes on his merry way.
He puts on his small hoodie and zips it up, leaving the skull bandana hanging loosely around his small neck.
On his way he sees a few stray cats. He's always wondered where the stray dogs were as it was really rare to see one, for some reason.
He makes it to the park and smiles. He usually always sees it empty, so he is quit sad to see it like that. Usually there was a little kids everywhere on this playground, but they vanished along with the rest of his town.
He goes to the playground tower and smiles widely. He slips the skull bandana mask over his head and takes his hoodie off. He ties the hoodie to a poll, putting it as high as he can. He takes the hair tie off of his wrist and ties his hair back into a small ponytail.
He runs up to the wheel and starts to spin it counter clockwise, saying stereotypical thing that the pirates in books would say. He likes playing pirates by himself and he imagines playing with others would be a lot of fun.
It's mostly just him talking to himself, saying things like,
"CAPTAIN, THERE'S A BIG WAVE COMING THIS WAY!"
"Man, overboard!"
"GASP! A COFFER!"
"HIT THE DECK!"
"Walk the plank, you bilge rat!"
"Look at all the loot we have!"
"He got a bounty over his head, ya hear."
He usually likes to play a scene where the ship sinks and everyone in his head are panicking. He called his fictional ship, Trapper. He named it after his old cat who passed away when he was four years old.
He sometimes plays superheros. He came up with a hero name for himself and he's quite happy with it. It's Cellophane. It's named after a hero he read about in a comic book.
His pirate name is Gonner.
Some hours pass and after getting a treasure and impressing the captain (in his head of course). He puts his jacket back on and puts the skull bandana back around his neck. He walks to the swingset and gets on the swing in the middle. He starts humming something while contemplating if he should go home yet as the the streetlights aren't on yet.
Of course he has no reason too other than he hates being outside during the nighttime. No one's been around for a long time. The earliest memory of someone was two other kids. One of them had black hair, much like his and the other had golden hair, and they were all playing, until their parents dragged them away from each other and he never saw either of them again.
His mom and dad both went missing. He's been waiting for them for months, maybe years, but he's been waiting them to come back.
He's looked through every house, on every floor, on every building, in every school, and nothing. They just left him.
One night his dad was right next to him, helping him wrap presents with nothing but tape. It was his mom's birthday, according to his dad, and he was helping him wrap a present for her. But the next night the present remained untouched and the little food they had was also untouched. His family was just gone.
He doesn't know when the world became a void that swallows up people, but he doesn't care anymore. All he wants is his friends to come home and his parents, too. He just doesn't want to keep waiting by himself anymore. He's sick of it. He's only 8, but he feels older. Much older than a kid his age should feel.
He swings back and forth waiting for the streetlights to flicker on, telling him to go inside. He's all out of games to play. He-
"Are you done playing pirates, Gonner?" He stiffens at the sudden voice and he looks around him seeing no one. He hears a soft giggle and out of shock he jumps of the swing, like literally, jumps of the swing and he goes flying.
He lands on the cement scraping his knee. His left arm hurts more than anything. He looks down at it so see a red liquid dripping down his elbow. The skin around it turning yellow. He lets out a yelp and a tear slips out, but he doesn't much more than that.
Instinctually, he rubs his arm, smearing the little bit of blood, as if rubbing it will rub of the pain away. More tears make its way down his face. He lets out a quiet sob as the bruise around the cut starts to hurt more.
After he stops crying and gets accustomed to the pain, he looks around to see if there's someone there. 'Maybe it was just my imagination.' He thinks to himself. He agrees with his head and starts walking home, regardless if the street lights aren't on yet.
"Hey, wait! I'm sorry! I-I didn't want you to get hurt. Hold on! Wait, Gonner! Let me help you!" He gasps, turns around, and trips on his foot, falling on the grass.
He snaps his head up to see a girl in front of him. His eyes widen at the sight. She seems to be shorter than him and she had fluffy pink hair with a headband with yellow horns. She has long black and white socks on with black and white converse. He hoodie has blue sleeves and the rest is black. He hoodie seems to be much bigger as it fits like a dress and she has a big backpack on.
"Are you okay? I didn't want to scare you." Sero tries to open his mouth, but nothing comes out, just a small sniffle. "Here let me see- Oh no! Your pants. The legs got torn up. Let me help you, hold on."
He doesn't say anything. He just stares at her with wide eyes because in his head, if he blinks she'll disappear and he'll never see her again. He gets up hurriedly out of shock and tries to back away more, only to fall back again on his elbows. More tears start to roll down, but they're not out of pain.
"I'm so sorry. Please let me help you. I have some superhero and princess band-aids, but I don't have any of those things that sting you. My mama said that those clean any scratch." She replies. "I think I have grown up band aids if you want those instead."
He's just staring at her, not uttering a word. "Oh! I also have some water. Are you thirsty, Gonner?" He shakes his head no, not taking his eyes off her.
She walks up to him slowly and as she does he backs away a bit more, but stops as he sees her hand reached out to him. She smiles at him and he shakily raises his non-injured arm up to grab it. "Man, you're heavey. What do you eat?" She says as she helps him up to his feet. "Come on. The bathroom is over there, right?"
He nods and she pulls him along, careful not to run. They get inside the bathroom and the door shuts behind them. There's a light outside that gives them enough light to see.
"So superhero bandaids or princess bandaids?" Sero shrugs, really not knowing what to say. "Well the, I'll choose for you. Oh! I know a cool princess! She turned into a frog because she kissed the prince who was also a frog." He nods. "Hey, do you talk or are you just shy?"
"Name?" Is all he manages to say.
"So you can talk! Well, I'm Mina Ashido! Your name is Gonner, right?" He shakes his head no. "But on the playground you kept saying Gonner was your name. So what is it then."
"Hanta Sero."
"How old are you?"
"8"
"Me, too!" She opens her backpack and starts to go through it and the stops. "AWW! I lost them!" She pouts. "Nevermind! I have bandages!" She takes out a small roll of it and smiles widely at him. "Sorry, I don't have the princess or the superhero bandaids. They would've looked so cool."
"It's- It's okay." He says in a whisper.
"So, where's your family?"
"Gone."
"Gone?"
"I don't know where they are." He says.
"Hold still." She says as she tightly wraps the bandages around his arm. He yelps as his eyes start to water. "Sorry, sorry."
"Thank you." He says in a tired voice. He stretches his arms up and yawns.
"Are you sleepy?"
"Yes."
"Why don't you go home?"
"I don't know where that is either."
"Okay..." He lays down on the floor and closes his eyes. He's actually tired for once. He's calm and happy for once. He's okay.
"Hey! You can't sleep here you'll get sick."
"Yeah..."
Ashido sighs. "I'm really sorry, okay? We're friends now, right?"
"Yes... Okay..."
She pats Sero on the back and then a few minutes after Sero falls asleep, a voice breaks the silence. "PINKY!!"
'Oh no!' She thinks.
...
Sero wakes up in a warm bed the next morning and as soon as he realizes that he bolts up right. He's in a house. He looks everywhere for Ashido, hoping that wasn't a dream. Hoping that she was real and that he's not alone anymore. "Ashido?"
He looks everywhere until his eyes land on a man sitting at the foot of his bed. The man has brown spikey hair and glasses on his face. He smiles at Sero and waves. "Where's Ashido?" He asks already missing his only friend.
"Oh, little Ms.Ashido asked me to give you this when you wake up, so here, kid." He takes it and it's a drawing of what he's guessing is ashido next to him and a few others. with big letters that spell, See ya!
He grins as tears roll down his face. He hugs the piece of paper so happy that he's no longer alone. He's the happiest he's ever been, actually.
The man rubs his back, smiling at him.
He's okay.
He's happy again.