I was given a chance.. He gave me the choice to be left behind or come with him and experience life "first hand." I was going nowhere... So I gave it a shot. He said "Grow up kid, yeh got a lot to learn." I tried to understand what that meant, for the life of me I did.

He took me under his wing, so to speak, and we left. Looking back now, I should have never even responded to this fuck.. But at the time, it felt so right. I left everything behind, although there wasn't even much to leave behind. I was a runt, just some kid who lived practically on his own in the alleyways... Begging by day and trying to find edible trash at night.

He has this charisma though, that I greatly admire. It's almost as if he can't be touched... nor hurt... nor scarred.. It's crazy. He'd always just brush off everything.. After a while he sort of felt like a big brother to me.

A lot of the times though, his ideas to me seemed really rash and I thought that he didn't put much thought into them.. But every time his risks always paid off. Luck comes natural to this guy and he banks on it... That's for sure.

"Aheeeemm.." I wake up slowly to the sound of him 'aheming'.

"eh.. Wha?" I reply.

Our current setting is that of a back alley. I've perched myself up on top of a closed dumpster, and he right beneath my feet sitting against it. There ain't much around, cept for a fire he got started in a barrel in front of us..

I like the flames.. They give me a sense of security...

"EY!"

"What??"

"Good, yer awake..."

The alleyway we're in.. It doesn't feel right. It never has. He sensed it too, 'cause I talked to him about it..

"...I felt something." He said in a sort of somber tone.

"What are you talking about" ..Felt something? What's this about?

Lately though.. We haven't gotten along quite as great. Lately, the ideas he's come up with seem extremely off... or wrong to me.. And I let him know that.. but he don't like anyone disagreeing with him too often..

He picked up his bottle of thrown-out wine and looks at how much is left inside.. "Ah.. It ain't a thing.. Say since yer up, want to talk a bit?" I sensed a more distanced tone this time.

"..Ok, sure..." I replied, not quite sure of where this was going to take us..

"Ey, you've been a real friend to me all this time.. An I want you to know that I thank you for that." Weird, he seems serious.. for once. "Tomorrow though.. I was thinkin' you get on out."

What? "What are you talking about?"

"I can't have you 'round here no more son. I know I said you been a good friend, but lately you've been a nuisance.. An I don't want you followin' me no more."

".....I don't feel safe here." I said.. I could sense something other than a distanced friend.. Something more scary.

"Well good" he said "tomorrow you can be on yer way. I know this seems like it's just comin' out of nowhere, but I can't have no little kid following me around anymore.. It's gettin' too hard to take care of ya.. I said I'd show ya life first hand, and this is part of it.. yeh get on with it an don't look back.."

In the longest time, sadness starts to swell up inside of me.. I don't know what to do... I'm miles and miles away from my 'home'.. following only the words and advice of this stranger who I felt was a big brother to me, only for him to abandon me.. Just like my family did...

All of a sudden fright appears inside of me.. I don't know what from though.. I look at him and it's got him in a freeze also...

In mere seconds my life goes from shattered to saved as everything I've even realized and had known disappears.. As if in thin air.. And then out of this eternal void of nothingness I see a figure...

It's silent.. Seconds pass..

I can hear it breathing.. it then whispers quietly in a raspy voice "..You're safe now child."

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Yep, I wrote a small story behind the picture.. Sorry if it's terrible and it makes you hate the picture even more. Lol. I wouldn't blame you.. I just wrote what I thought would be a good idea all in one sitting... :) Happy early Halloween and stuff!