The young redheaded boy lunged away towards the ground, dashing madly to escape the hands of his drunken mentor. He was skimpy and gangly, with a scrawny body and too-long limbs to match. Inside his scrawny body, his heart raced. It was another bad day for Davey’s mentor, though these kinds of days occurred weekly.

“Get back here, ya damn mick!” the intoxicated blacksmith bellowed, reaching out and snagging the boy’s collar. He quickly brought a hand down, cuffing the side of the boy’s head.

The child whimpered as he fell onto the cold floor, receiving a good number of kicks before getting thrown into the wall. It wasn’t difficult for him to get thrown, because he hardly weighed anything. He curled up into a shameful ball, ragged breaths sending tremors through his bruised, pale body. He opened a single green eye to check if, perhaps by some miracle, the beating would end for the night. But instead, the drunkard grabbed the boy’s shoulders and shook him against the wall till he was saved by unconsciousness.