- this piece is something i've been working on for over two years, it ended up about 100 pages in length and i've just started redrafting, this is my baby, be sweet to it ^^-
+ONE USE OF OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE+


Thin shafts of pale-buttercup sunlight crept through the gaps in the tattered, grubby curtains. They illuminated the room, throwing sinister half-shadows. Traffic noise and faint birdsong wafted through the slight opening in the window, which had never closed properly anyway. Under the crumpled, faded quilt huddled a teenage boy, his slight arms and legs held tight to him as he slept.

The boy stirred and blinked blearily into the half-light. Rolling over, disorientated, he peered with some difficulty at the radio clock by his bedside.
'Nine o clock.'�
For a moment, he settled back into a tired stupor, his eyelids heavy and unwilling. However, he knew that the peace wouldn't last. He felt tempted to push his luck, to stay under the body-warm quilt a little longer. He sighed and allowed his eyes to close.
There was a hammering on the door.
'Nathan!'�
His eyes sprung open again, the pupils shrinking against the light and his chest bubbling with fear.
'Get out of bed, or am I gonna have to come in and drag you out!'�

Nathan sat up sharply, calling out that yes, he was awake, and making sure his polite tone reached his father's ears. He had learnt a long time ago not to dispute an order from his father.
Getting out of bed, he rearranged the covers, neatening the edges and creases so as to avoid further confrontation. He kicked his discarded trainers out from under his feet and tugged the curtains open, sending clouds of dust into the glowing streams of sunlight. The day outside was wasted on Nathan, the urban, dew-lit morning singing to occupied ears.

Nathan made his way quietly down the stairs, skipping the third step from the bottom, knowing it protested loudly from the touch of toes. Treading carefully, he took a deep breath and walked cautiously into the kitchen. He could hear his dad outside digging the weeds from the broken rose bed. Shovel sounds drifted in through the half-open door.

He approached the cupboard in search of food and caught his reflection in the grimy oven door. He examined the large purple-red bruise above his eye, barely hidden beneath his fronds of straight dark hair, so deep a brown it was almost black. People had always admired his hair, coupled with his startling blue eyes, just like his mother, they said. Poor kid, they said.
'Yeah, poor kid'�'� Nathan whispered to himself, wincing as his fingertips brushed the bruise. He had already begun to concoct a valid story to explain it away when he realised that the noises of digging had stopped.

His father stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light from outdoors. When he spoke, his voice sent reverberations of horror down Nathan's spine.
'Don't think I've forgotten, boy.'�
Forgetting his breakfast, Nathan sprinted up the stairs two at a time. He made it to his room and slammed the door as his father reached the foot of the stairs.
'You can't hide from me, you little bastard!'�
Forcing a chair against the door, he pulled on the clothes that lay around his feet. A black tee shirt, peppered with holes and faded around the neckline and sleeves. Torn jeans, he had caught them climbing over a wall, or was it a fence? He couldn't remember which he had told his friends.

The door rattled under a hammering fist for the second time that morning.
'Nathan! Open this door!'�
Nathan looked around his room, feeling sick. He grabbed his most prized possession, the midnight black, slightly scuffed Fender guitar. It had been a present from his mother. He slung the strap over his shoulder. She had said that he was going to be her little rock star.

Another crash and the chair gave up on the defensive, the door splintering at the catch, sticking slightly in the frame.

By now, Nathan already had one leg out of the window and he ducked the guitar neck out carefully. A final blow and the sickening howl of splintered wood.
'You get back here now!'�
Nathan took his chances with the first floor drop. He landed with a thud in a small pile of greasy bronze foliage from the trees overshadowing the house, the wooden neck of the guitar slamming into the back of his head, Nathan's vision blurred, his eyes streaming and his head pounding from the pain.

He knew, this time, he couldn't stop running. He scrambled up from the pile of mouldy leaves, his knees crumpling under his weight, painful from his quick fall.
Nathan's father hung out of the window.
'Where do you think you're going? I am all you've got, do you hear?'�
Nathan turned back to face his tormentor, mixed feelings of love and hatred bubbling up inside him, his eyes swam with tears, then he turned and hobbled away, his father still screaming abuse after him.

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