"Are you sure you'll be back tomorrow?" he asked, clutching his cell phone as he hurried down a long alley, "You don't sound so good."

"Nah, I'll be fine," his best friend Taylor reassured him, sounding like Amy Winehouse on a particularly rough day.

"All right, up to you. Catch you later."

"Sure." With that, they hung up.

Normally they would be together at this time, walking home side by side, but since Taylor had to break the iron rule, he had to stay home today. Seriously, idiots shouldn't be able to catch colds. It was unfortunate because they were so close to graduating middle school, now he had to bring him the materials or he would be at a loss for the next class.

A light breeze moved the tips of his unruly chestnut hair and tickled his ears. It was unusually breezy that day compared to the rest of the week. Perhaps it was a bad omen. It was cloudy as well, not as sunny as the day before.

With a sigh, he ran around a corner, just a few feet from the open street. He walked this way to school and back every day, and nothing had ever happened.

But as he watched a few cars drive by in the distance, he felt a hand from behind cover his mouth. It was sudden, unannounced, and the slight whoosh of the air current rushing through the tall concrete buildings had made him unable to perceive any footsteps behind him.

He felt someone drag him away as a strong arm wrapped around his waist and lifted him a few inches off the ground. The initial shock had turned to full-blown panic, his heart beating out of his chest and the hand on his face made him think he was being suffocated as well.

Though his nose was free, his lungs were frozen with fear, he couldn't breathe, his muscles tensed and his hand clawed at whatever he could grab from the figure behind him.

He couldn't tell if it was seconds or hours, but when his world finally stopped shaking, he was met with a pain that pierced his back as he landed with a loud thud on the lid of a dumpster.

Tears rolled down his soft cheeks and a sniffle was heard as the ripple effect of the shock forced him to catch his breath after knocking the air out of him first.

There was a hand gripping his face, covering his mouth again after the shift in position, holding it up to the unknown man's face. "Shut up," it whispered in an angry voice, commanding and low.

Ezra, who didn't even know what was happening to him, could barely make out the two words, but he could feel his breath hitting his face, smelled the malty aroma of beer and something else he couldn't put his finger on.

The hand on his face was a bit rough, but also sweaty. Those were the sensations that burned into his consciousness, along with the shape of a large blade's sharp tip - a bowie knife that came closer and closer to his left eye as the man spoke.

He wanted to close his eyes, but the fear of what would happen if he didn't watch made him too afraid to even blink. Terrified of screaming, even though the man had let go of his face as he shoved his head down onto the metal container, he still tried to push himself free.

The eyes looking back at him weren't normal. There was an eerie darkness in them that he couldn't place, but the terror it made him feel numbed his spine. He became rigid again as the man began to undo his pants, pulling them off. It was cold, the metal beneath him freezing his skin to the touch, and when even kicking the man didn't work, he tried to pull himself away.

Scratching his fingertips on a cobblestone wall until they bled, his fingernails broke off, yet he couldn't feel the pain. For there was a searing pain that overwhelmed everything, though the feelings of shame and confusion were almost as bad.

He finally squeezed his eyes shut, remembering his voice, as a scream ripped from his throat until it ached. The man, maybe he had seen him before. Was it on a street corner? Or at the coffee shop near his school?

His mind was hazy, he couldn't even tell that he had stopped crying for help when a burning sensation hit his throat. He hadn't felt it right away, but suddenly he couldn't breathe in or out, something had clogged his windpipe.

He coughed and blood spilled from his lips, he tasted iron on his tongue, felt the sticky warm liquid running down his cheeks and chin, even wetting his ears. But his collar was already soaked, he could feel it. It was unreal, like a bad dream.

The fear, which had overtaken him until now, felt so detached from him as his limbs grew heavy and tired. He couldn't remember ever closing his eyes, however, the cloudy sky he had just remembered was darkening fast.

There was a sense of coldness within him that went down to his very bones. When he eventually opened his eyes, he was lying on the grass in the dark, the fog preventing him from seeing further than his hands could reach.

The woods welcomed him as their own, seemingly asking him a favor - one he could not understand. He could still taste the blood, but his neck was without a scratch.

"Hello?" he called out, shaking with fear he had barely forgotten, unaware of the eyes watching him from afar.

It was the moment when Rasalhague was said to have shone brighter than ever before.