He hadn’t really meant to run as far as he did. Most of the other orphans were flocking around their burning ‘home.’ Home or prison.

But Red didn’t stop. He just kept running and running.

He was afraid and couldn’t stop running. Every time he tried to slow down his brain screamed, “Fire!”

When he realized that he was too far away for the fire his brain started telling him that he knew who’d set it. Tom had set it. His friend.

And so he kept running, because Tom would be caught and probably killed.

Because the guards would think he’d be in on it.

Because if he went back now they would think he had tried to run away and beat him.

And then, he realized, he was running because he just wanted out!

He ran into a guy while he was running. Sven.

And Sven offered him some food, a place to crash for a while. He wasn’t going to say no, of course not.

So he took it, and then he stayed with Sven because Sven was the first person who had ever been nice to him.

And here he was now.