"Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, ..."

The boy rushed to run quickly in the pouring rain, the wall of water and the whirlwind blowing back made his weak little body even more helpless. With his hot heart struggling to beat in his chest, he ran into a corner, but it was a dead end, the expression of terror on his face remained even though he had run quite a distance, or because he thinks so. He stared at the wall, his whole body naked, drenched.
Suddenly, from the wall, he saw a black shadow approaching very quickly, without time to react, he was grabbed from behind and bitten hard, as if to tear the weak boy in two.
He cried out in terror:

-Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. . .

And "bam" , he was startled and awake.
"So it was all just a dream"-he thought.

The feeling that the dream left is still very real. He wanted to sit up, but his body was completely exhausted. Sweat poured out of everywhere on his body, making him feel slimy, uncomfortable. He struggled to sit up with his arms and leaned against the wooden wall next to him. With a throbbing head and eyes that could magically see things in two, he reached up and touched his forehead only to feel a second sun lying within.

Looks like our poor little boy was sick!

He tried to take a full breath of air with his heavy lungs, and exhaled softly. At this point, his body seemed to have gotten used to the sitting position, so he could temporarily relax and look around. The place where he was sitting was a street, not an alley, the wall he was leaning against belonged to a house, or we could said, it belonged to what was once a house, because it looked as if it had been destroyed by a tornado or something, the roof's gone, the windows and a big chunk of the wall are gone too! Beside him were two homeless people in black clothes lying side by side, one of whom had long hair, which he assumed was female, the other, who looked smaller and had short hair, possibly the woman's child. The spot where the boy was sitting with the homeless mother and her child was the only dry place on the entire road, the rest were in a state of flooding due to last night's rain. It is often said that "after the rain, the sun will shine again", today although it is still cloudy, there are more spaces for the bright rays of the sun to shine on the ground, reflecting on the stagnant water, glittering gold. The boy seems to enjoyed that beautiful color alot and even forgot about his illness, after all, sunlight was a rare occurrence in this dead land.

However, that beautiful and peaceful time did not last long, the boy realized that he had not yet come to the center of town to see the clock. You may have wondered before, how can he know the right time to get to the square and receive his food even though he doesn't have any tools or even the sun to measure the time? The answer is experience. Twelve years of living under gray skies forced him to find or think of different ways to measure and determine time. The first way is thanks to the wind, the wind here blows in waves, every hour, there will be a big wind blowing through, based on the base time (originally read time) and adding the number of winds blow, we get the time in hours. The second way is to rely on the little sunlight that penetrates through the cloud layer, depending on the time of day, the light can be strong or weak and the clouds can be thick or thin. In general, it is all thanks to long-term experience, if only using theory, perhaps anyone can do it, including you all. The point is, in order to use these methods, we need to visit the square clock atleast once a day. And today he still hasn't! Fearing that he would lose his meal for being late, the boy stood up, but quickly plopped down due to dizziness. The headache of the morning was back and even more intense than before, it made him tired and out of breath. The boy tried to stand up again slowly, staggered a bit, but managed to stand and leaned against the wall. Our little boy right now is trying to find direction and remember where he is, even though all the memories seem to have flown with the rain and don't know if there is any left on the puddles in front of this writhing boy. Seems to be, because he started to move forward. The puddles were not deep, only half a foot, some of them deeper, to the ankles. The boy waded slowly through the puddles, his head burning, but not a drop of sweat. The sky was not sunny, but the wind is still blowing, giving him goosebumps. Putting his hands rubbing his shoulders, he suddenly realized that there was no cloth on his body, completely naked. Since he only had one shirt and no pants, he was forced to look for it. The boy grimaced, remembering vaguely the scene of the rain in the previous afternoon as well as the alleyway with the strange wooden house. The harder he tried, the more his head hurt. but in the end, the boy still managed to remembered what he was looking for and started walking slowly.

As he waded through the water, the boy looked to the sides of the road and saw many other homeless people huddled in dry places such as indoors or under cramped small porches. All were bruised and bleeding, and some had to sleep in wet places.

"Looks like there was a big fight last night"-He thought

Every day someone died of hunger or fighting, so he was used to seeing strange "things" being "handled" on the streets by hardworking, gray-haired "little friends", who likes to sleep in pipes.
After about five minutes of wandering, the boy was able to find the old wooden house where he had left his shirt. Before he could rejoice, the worry that this place might have been occupied or that his precious shirt was stolen suddenly arose, causing his legs to slow down and then stop. At this moment, he needed to become more cautious. The boy's observation told him that this house seemed to be empty, unlike the night before when it was dark and raining, he could see everything clearly now. Near the entrance of the house, which was on the side and widely opened, there were two large pools of stagnant water. And yet there was no trace of wet footprints on the door or stairs at all!
With no time to waste, the boy trusted his intuition and walked over to the open door. He see the plate that he previously forgot with the shirt and picked it up, clamp it in the armpit. After that, he continue to gently poked his head inside and was startled to see a knight in an armor standing motionless. Calmed himself, the boy realized that it was just a suit of armor, but with its red color and larger stature than other armor still made him shiver. The boy slowly looked up bit by bit, his eyes still attached to the armor. Pleasure flashed across his face as he found his forgotten shirt still lying across the old wooden door, looking at him with a sulky expression. The boy quickly took down his shirt and turned around to actually, fly out of the house with a kid's running speed. Heaving a sigh of relief, he promised himself that he would never venture into that creepy place again!

Little did he know that that promise will quickly be broken in the next few days!

Our young teenager ran while wearing a shirt, soaring through the big and small roads.

"Imma be late, Imma be late," he muttered.

Everywhere he passed, nobody around. the cool breeze kept diligently sweeping away the dust on the street, unintentionally throwing a basket of sand into the boy's face, causing him to run and rub his eyes. . The sky is a little brighter now, and from his own experience, it tells us it's noon now and time is passing quickly. Although the boy was tired, he still accelerated, that why when he got there, he had to stand with his back, support his knees and breathe as if there was no tomorrow. But at least he wasn't late, the minute hand on the square clock was now showing fifty-six, which meant four more minutes to twelve. The little boy anxiety began to rise again as the number of people gathered in the square was increasing and he had no confidence that he could squeeze into a good spot after running such a long distance without rest. But if you don't do it, you'll starve, so you have to do it!

The red imperial flag shows up and the run begin!

Ten minutes later, the boy was holding his soup plate with a happy face but swelling in some places from having to line up with strong-armed criminals. Just a little more delay, he would be starving like those beggars over there crying and clinging to the knights to distributed more food because they didn't have a portion, all of that just to received such strong pushbacks that they all fell backwards. But caring will cause tiredness, Our boy don't even care anymore, all he need now is just to a seat to enjoy his own radish soup as a reward for his wounded face. Searching for a while, he managed to find a seat with no water and still not occupied, but yet a bit dirty due to mud. He lightly brushed it off with one hand, then sat down and leaned back against the wall. The boy slurped his soup plate without dropping a drop, sip by sip, the sound of soup flowing was his favorite sound, it was very pleasant to listen to. Having finished his lunch and also his last meal of the day, he gave a very long yawn. The boy's eyelids becoming heavy and began to wrinkle, it was like there were somebody in his head is pulling tiny curtains. Although not very tired from waking up late this morning, the boy still decided to lie down and take a nap. Since today was "that day", a very important day, he needed strength to be able to function smoothly at night without falling asleep. Leaning back against the wall, after making sure that he wouldn't be "accidentally" trampled by someone, he slowly began to close his eyes, letting the surroundings darken and the light breeze blowing and lull him to sleep. In his mind, thoughts of what to do in the evening fadely flying through. . .

And he slept.