Next morning Hansel woke up to find every window of his bedroom closed, dark curtains drawn over all of them. Waking up in the morning on his own had turned into an endeavour most arduous; usually he would need the racket of an alarm to perform this feat, or his tolerance for coldness should have been surpassed. He got up from the floor and glanced towards the bed on his left, which was empty but still held every appearance of having been slept on. The digital clock on the table across the room showed the time to be 6:18. Felix must have left already-he usually disappeared between five and six in the morning.

Hansel wondered about the windows. Unless he had begun sleepwalking without his knowledge Felix had to be the one who had shut them all. But why would he do that? Did he not care about breathing fresh air anymore? Hansel approached one of the windows and peeled the curtains back tentatively, looking out for any booby traps, but there seemed to be nothing suspicious about the set up. A grey-black sky and a shadowed world greeted him on the other side, the sun not risen yet. A very normal sight for a normal morning.

Once he realised there was nothing amiss Hansel turned away from the window. He padded towards his bed-now Felix's-then sized it up as if it were a bait on a hook. His heartbeat sped up inside his chest. He was cold, and Felix was gone, and he hadn't slept in a bed for so long.

He crawled into the bed, putting his head on the pillow with the relief of a man putting down a mountainous weight after travelling with it across deserts and oceans. He pulled the blanket over himself, dragging it up until it covered his face. A strong minty scent washed over him, threaded with a milder smell of burning wood, and somehow, he found the smell to be comforting. He felt oddly safe, snuggled up under the blankets like that, like there was a benevolent spirit watching over him, keeping him from harm.

It was a strange thought to have...

Maybe he had missed his bed too much...

If Felix found him out he'd be dead...

He was so sleepy...

Then Hansel closed his eyes and fell into a dreamless sleep.

It was eight when he woke up again. The sun was up, the birds were chirping beyond the closed windows and he was late for school. Hansel scrambled out of his bed and hurried through his morning routines, brushing his teeth, skipping through the shower and scarfing down a piece of roll from last night, all at record speed. Then he returned to his bedroom to pick out a shirt to wear for the day. But when he tried to open his wardrobe, he found its doors jammed shut. Hansel did not have the time to take a gentle approach towards solving this new problem. He braced a foot against one of the doors and closed his hands over the handle of the other. Then he tugged hard.

The door opened with a light popping sound, rendering Hansel off balance. He stumbled back a few steps before he found his footing again. Then he peered inside the wardrobe and let out a small yelp.

Felix was asleep inside the wardrobe, knees curled against his chest in a makeshift nest he had made out of Hansel's clothes. He blinked one eye open at the sound Hansel made, annoyed at the disturbance, then became aware of the stream of sunlight falling all over him through the window Hansel had uncurtained earlier. He thrust out an arm and pulled the door of the wardrobe shut again. Fast.

Seeing Felix in plain daylight came as a shock to Hansel. He found himself paralysed on his spot. How did Felix manage to stay back? Didn't shadows like him have to disappear when the sun came out? He glanced around and took in the closed windows and the drawn curtains, and thought he understood. Felix must have done it all as a precaution against the sunlight. Even ensconcing himself inside Hansel's wardrobe must have been a part of the effort.

But Hansel couldn't shake the feeling that there was something Felix wasn't letting him know, that he wasn't quite like the other shadows of the night. He did not follow the same rules as them. There was method to his violence, an intelligence behind everything he did. It might have been because he was a human's shadow, but he seemed older, more cunning, more dangerous than the rest. There seemed to be more to him that what met the eye.

Now that Hansel knew Felix was inside the wardrobe, he didn't want to open it again. He decided to hunt for a clean shirt elsewhere. However, he had only taken a single step away from where he stood when the door of the wardrobe opened a crack and Felix's sluggish drawl trickled out from inside.

"You have to fix the TV today. I've been asking you to do it for so long. My patience is thinning."

Hansel blinked. Had Felix gone so far, risking even the sun just to ask him this? Hansel tried to look inside the wardrobe through the split between the doors, but the only thing he could see was darkness. "I don't know how to fix a TV."

"Then get it fixed by someone who knows how to."

"I don't know any such person," said Hansel. "And I don't have any desire to get it fixed either."

"So are you refusing?"

"I don't have the time to do it," said Hansel honestly. Because he needed that time to sleep.

"I see," said Felix. The crack between the doors widened and Felix slipped out one eye through the gap to give Hansel a hard stare, as if demonstrating his last statement. "So you do not consider it a priority to accede to the needs of your master. Have I been too lenient as of late? Could that explain this change? Don't think I didn't notice you sleeping in the bed today, and don't think I'll spare you for it." He squinted his eye against the faint morning light, the skin around it creasing with the strain. "You piteous boy. Heed my words when I say I will make you regret that you ever disobeyed me even in the smallest of ways. Because I do not condone even the smallest of transgressions. I will make you hate this day."

Then just like that, he slammed the door of the wardrobe shut.

All was quiet for a while. Then slowly, cautiously, Hansel eased the door open again. But the wardrobe was empty, save for a jumble of plastic hangers and wrinkled clothes. Felix had already vanished.

*****************

If the world was a giant jigsaw puzzle, Hansel was like the loose piece at its very edge, a piece that nobody paid much attention to, which barely contributed to the bigger picture­­; a small, bland, dispensable fadeout. But once he had been something else, something better, the piece at the dead centre, bright and important like the sun, until he had been poked out from his place and flipped on his face, letting others see only the blank side of him. Now he was just a piece that existed, serving no real purpose-or so he believed.

However, this wasn't a one-sided thing. It wasn't just the world that thought Hansel did not matter; Hansel thought the world did not matter either. Life had lost its charm on him a long time ago-he was unresponsive to it. He was a thing removed, a thing that moved apart from the rest of the world, like a line that ran parallel to everything else, never intersecting with anything until infinity.

He did not care what happened around him, because chances where, he did not know it had happened at all. He was like the cursed prince who was locked away in a terrible fortress, unaware of what lay beyond the walls, and it was all too possible that the sky might disappear one day and he wouldn't even notice.

But that day at school something changed. Life barged forth and kicked down the door to his miserable fortress so he could reacquaint with the world.

The moment he stepped into his classroom that day, Hansel was struck by a sudden, sinister awareness. He sensed it before he saw it, an acute wave of hostility buffeting him out of nowhere, hitting him like a wall of smoke. He looked up and realised what was wrong: he was no longer invisible.

Immediately after he had walked in through the door, everyone in class, everyone, stopped doing whatever they were doing to turn in their seats and pin him under an avalanche of unfriendly stares. Hansel stopped in his tracks in alarm. What was going on?

Warily, he resumed walking, feeling deeply self-conscious about the way two dozen pairs of eyeballs were turned his way, tracking his every step. The others were whispering urgently to one another, hushed words travelling across the room like the wind. They had not let up their stern gazes on him, watching him with expressions of disgust, disbelief and judgment, as if they believed he had done something...wrong.

Hansel's shoe scraped against the floor. His eyes sought out Julian at the back of the room, and the moment their gazes locked, Hansel's heart sank.

The way Julian was looking at him...He couldn't have...

Confirmation came not long after, and Hansel felt his world come crashing down around him.

"Did you say Hansel Schwein is a bully?" asked a girl to her neighbour in a loud whisper.

"The rumour is real. He bullied one of his classmates until she threw herself down from a rooftop."

A stone dropped into Hansel's stomach. His entire being froze up. Halfway between the doorway and his desk Hansel's legs stopped moving, stranding him in a sea of revulsion and condemnation.

"I couldn't believe it at first."

"Me neither. He was such a quiet kid."

"Quiet kids are scary. You never know what's going on inside their heads."

"But Hansel Schwein? Hansel Schwein?"

"I know. I couldn't believe the rumour at first either. So I looked up newspapers from three years ago. He really did bully a girl to her death."

"So it's true."

"He ganged up on her with his friends."

"That's awful."

"But you could never tell by just looking at him. He looks so guileless."

"Appearances can be deceiving, I've learnt that now."

"He fooled as all."

"I can't believe I've been attending classes with a murderer."

"He's a murderer-"

"A murderer-"

Murderer

The appellation rang in Hansel's ears like a fatal incantation, drowning out everything else, washing over him, pulling him under.

Murderer. Murderer. Murderer.

His breath caught.

They know. They all know what I did.

Hansel felt like he had been set aflame, that he was in the midst of a raging wildfire. His skin was burning-his arms, his face, the back of his neck; but his hands were frozen numb, his fingers curled stiff. Something was rising inside him-a ripping panic-and something else was falling.

It was done. The truth was out. And these people around him, people he had never even talked to, save for a few, they were sitting right there and dissecting this truth, playing with it as if it were a roll of film, tilting it this way and that in the light to see what new picture it would reveal, what lurid detail, what fresh scandal. He was a criminal on trial and they were the judges, the prosecutors, and soon, they would also be executioners. They had studied his misdeeds, discussed it at length, and passed their verdict: guilty, as he already knew he was.

He was once more reminded that everyone he knew, everyone who knew his story, despised him. His friends had abandoned him. His parents did not care where he was or what he was doing. His own shadow wished to destroy him. There was nobody on his side, not even himself, and he had never felt so lonely in his life before.

He was truly, utterly, harrowingly alone.

The eyes of his classmates who watched him were far scarier than any shadow he had ever encountered at night. A shudder wracked through him, imperceptible to the rest. He had not the courage to stay, to face the aftermath of this reveal. He turned and fled.

However, he did not make it far before someone cut off his path, sticking out a leg to trip him. Hansel did not know the boy's name, but knew they went to the same class. The boy had appeared outside the door so suddenly Hansel couldn't slow himself down in time. His shins knocked against the boy's outstretched leg and he went sprawling to the corridor outside, knees and elbows bent at wrong angles, falling without grace.

Did the others laugh? Hansel did not know. He could hear nothing over the roar in his head. He sculled himself to his feet and kept running, shoes skidding on the scuffed floor, smooth and shiny like the surface of wishing coins. The buzz in his ears had not ended. His mind was fuzzy like a glitching broadcast on television. There was only one thing he wanted, one thing he desired: get far, far away from here, far away from truth.

He did not slow down when he reached the stairs, or when he slipped on it and missed two steps, he did not pause when he had burst out into the front yard, crushing grass beneath his scampering feet. He kept running until he had crossed the yard, zoomed through the groaning metal gates sagging from their hinges at the front of the school and made it to the grim street outside.

A bus had materialised at one end of the rusty road. Hansel hailed it and stumbled on board, sweating and gasping, then flopped into a seat by the window halfway down.

The motion of the bus was lulling, but the sights through the window was not. The city landscape seemed to be sporting a more dishevelled appearance than he had ever seen it wear before, but these parts of the city were unfamiliar territory to him, he only saw them during his nighttime errands or excursions, rarely having a cause to travel this way in daylight. He leant his head against the dirty glass pane of the window. Beyond it, Heart flew by, in dreary, forbidding shapes and hues. Inside him the hollowness expanded, his sense of loneliness doubling. Of course, looking at broken cities was not the right way to go about battling loneliness.

Nor was running away.

Running away did not solve a thing.

He should know already; he had done it before.

People boarded and alighted the bus at sporadic intervals as it wound around the city, avoiding larger potholes and squeezing through narrow pathways. All this time Hansel did not move an inch from where he sat, though he watched everything else with a sort of glazed listlessness, absorbing nothing. If Heart was not a city cordoned off, one would have thought he was a runaway wandering aimlessly, roaming the streets because he had nowhere else to go.

But he was a runaway.

Fugitive on the run, came the words to his mind unbidden. His eyes unfocused, no longer seeing. Murderer on the loose.

Hansel sat there, limp like a puppet with loose strings.

He got off the bus near City Park, touching down on a dusty street with cracks through the tar. He slouched towards a surprisingly well-maintained convenience store by the side of the pavement and bought a bottle of water and a packet of biscuits. Then he walked towards the park, his favourite thinking spot.

Maple leaves rustled overhead as he settled into a bench, then put down his recent purchases beside him on the metal seat. He had barely breathed out before he felt something feathery brush against his leg. He nearly jumped, eyes snapping towards the ground. A scrawny cat the colour of walnuts peeked up at him from between his legs, its large, endearingly blue eyes fixed on him questioningly.

"Dream?" asked Hansel, happily surprised.

The cat put a soft paw against his leg as if in acknowledgement. Something like relief coursed through Hansel, as if someone had smeared a salve on his heartburn. He stretched a hand and rubbed the cat between its ears, and the feline arched into his touch, as hungry for a gesture of compassion as Hansel was. Hansel sighed. "Oh, Dream."

Hansel knew this cat. In fact, he had been the one to name it. The first time they met Hansel had been eating a green apple, and he had seen the cat slink out from behind the trunk of a tree, a boney thing with haunted eyes. The cat had taken a few careful steps towards him, then sat down on its haunches when it was two yards away. Then it simply watched Hansel eat, silent and unmoving.

Having someone stare at him, even if it was only an animal was too distressing for Hansel. He tossed the cat what was left of his apple and made himself scarce. On the second day, Hansel still had an apple with him and the cat was still there. So he shared his apple with the cat again, but this time he waited to watch it eat.

It became a routine, and it stopped being apples all the time. But their arrivals did not always coincide. Some days Hansel would be there but the cat wouldn't show up; other days the cat would come to their usual haunt but Hansel would not be there. But over time they became familiar with one another and the cat shunned its wariness to allow Hansel to come closer, to pet it. A little more time passed before the cat went to him willingly, wanting to cuddle. And soon Hansel had become a part of the cat's life, and the cat had become his.

And one day, on a whim, when Hansel was feeling less depressed and more hopeful, when he still had faith in tomorrow, he had looked upon the cat fondly and called it Dream.

Now as he gazed at the cat nuzzling against his leg, trustful and adoring, he realized, almost like an afterthought, that he wasn't feeling as lonely.

He wasn't completely forsaken. Dream liked him.

Pathetic, thought Hansel, tracing loops in the cat's fur. To seek validation from a stray cat.

He straightened then and slid out a biscuit from its packet. He broke it to pieces that Dream would find easy to nibble on. Then he lowered his hand, the crumbs of biscuits nestled inside his cupped palm, and Dream limped forth to sniff it with an experimental air.

Immediately, Hansel narrowed his eyes. Why was Dream limping?

Then he saw the stain of blood on one of Dream's forelegs, the missing patch of fur-something had attacked him, and being the proud thing he was, Dream was pretending it didn't hurt, that he wasn't even aware of being wounded. Hansel wondered what creature had done it to him. Probably a dog, or another cat, although it was equally likely that it was a shadow. Thinking back on it, Hansel could not fathom how the cat had survived so long in the city, when the night was dangerous to humans and non-humans alike-anything that breathed and channelled blood in their veins. Cats must really have nine lives.

Still, Hansel could not trust that limp of his. So Dream survived yesterday, but would he survive today? Hansel got up, shoving the water bottle and the packet of biscuits into his pockets as he did. Then he scooped up the cat in his arms. "Dream, I'm taking you home. I hope you don't mind.

Dream did seem bothered that he had just been lifted into the air and hugged against a warm chest, or that he was being carried away. He seemed to love it actually, watching Hansel with curious eyes, trying to scratch his way into seeing what was in his shirt-pocket.

When they arrived at Hansel's house, Hansel laid the cat on the dinner table, who seemed to be trying to make Hansel understand that he wanted less lying down and more exploring. Hansel cleaned Dream's wounds and wrapped them in clean bandages, and the cat watched this entire procedure with lofty disinterest. Then Hansel went to the kitchen to heat some milk, which he then poured into a bowl for Dream to lick up from.

After he had had his fill, Dream leapt off the table and started wandering here and there about the house. And when he was bored of this he climbed onto the couch in the living room and fell asleep curled into a corner.

When Felix returned later that night he was not pleased to see the new guest in the house. He pointed a malevolent finger at the napping cat, his disapproval stark and clear as day. "Throw that pestilence outside immediately."

Something came over Hansel then. His voice was a cold murmur. "Touch that cat and I will make you pay."

Felix turned slowly, the astonishment on his face unmistakable. "Say that again."

"I said, you will leave Dream alone."

"Dream?" The confusion only lasted a moment, then Felix's eyes transformed with fury and his voice brimmed with venom. "Don't tell me you named that creature Dream." His expression was frightening, like a nightmare given life, like a war about to happen. "You are willing to name a random cat Dream when you could not be bothered to name me! How horrible you are. I hate that cat! If you won't throw it out of the house this instant I'm going to kill it!"

"You wouldn't dare," Hansel snarled back at him.

His tone shut Felix up for a second, for the time it took for him to wrap his head around the fact that Hansel was not bending to his will as usual, that something had changed and that he was taking a stand, after everything he did to him, after Hansel knew what he could do to him. Then his eyes glimmered. His voice dropped several octaves. "What is this now? A fool's rebellion? Did you forget that I could tell all your classmates the truth about you? Or are you labouring under the delusion that I wouldn't make good on my word? Do you think I'm mellow? Do you think I won't tell?"

Hansel gave him a frosty glare. "Go ahead then. Do it. Tell them. I couldn't care less." He swept up Dream into his shaking arms, who startled awake but did not try to escape, then stomped up the stairs to his bedroom and slammed the door, leaving Felix to gawk after him open-mouthed.

"I swear I will kill that cat!" Felix's shout burst up through the floorboards, trying to make it so that he had had the last word.

Hansel simply dragged a chair towards the window and sat down, Dream on his lap, nestled into the protective circle of his arms, while a starless sky and the swirling darkness outside kept him company.