Chapter Three

Tristan

He had stayed against the washroom wall all night. He dared not move in case something else moved with him. He watched as the break of dawn fell upon the church and a thin ray of sunlight slanted across the room. Slowly, its angle changed until the room was filled with a glorious golden glow, and Tristan could feel the vibrations in the floorboards as children awoke from their twisted dreams. Blood had dried on his lip, his forehead and the back of his head thumped slightly in pain. He groaned as he heaved himself from his awkward position and let himself out of the washroom to join the others in their march to the dining hall.

Tristan had not yet been inside the dining hall, but it was just as he had imagined it. Cold. Draughty. Very draughty. Like the thick stone walls didn’t even exist. Bare footed boys shivered as their ragged feet slapped against the icy flagstone. There were lengthy, dark wooden tables with one long bench for the boys to sit on. High pointed ceiling with each wall covered with arched windows, each intricately decorated with religious pictures, saints and morals. The father’s table rested atop a raised deck above the boys. Although their table and chairs were no better.

Being there only nine boys meant that they could easily spread out across the room, Tristan got to see the groups into which the boys split. There were the youngest, three of them. They sat together, giggling and playing with their food, making forts out of their sticky porridge. Two boys sat on their own in the corner, they were quiet, they read books while they ate and only spoke to each other in Latin. The other three were the eldest boys. That Daniel from the day before was one of them. They sat and chatted about their daily lives, about the people in the village, about their jobs and their futures. Only Tristan remained. He could sense an air about the place. A strange, weak smell of fear. Weak, but there. As he looked closer he noticed the bloodshot eyes of boys with restless sleep. The fathers were the same. Some shook, barely able to hold their cutlery. They looked round at him as he came in, all of them.

A bittersweet silence fell. It coated everything, left a thick glaze over their faces. Their eyes bored into him. As if they saw something, saw something wicked yet intoxicating within him. His mind became heavy. It filled with dense sludge, his head started to tingle and blackness sprinkled in his eyes. They rolled back into his head and he fell slowly, helplessly to the solid floor beneath him.

Author's Note

t'isn't finned yet :)