(Time Skip)
Time did not pass all at once.
It passed in pieces.
Osborn didn't teach Bill with speeches.
He taught him with gestures.
He showed him how to walk through the forest without snapping dry branches. How to stop before entering a clearing and listen first. How to watch the ground before lifting his eyes. Footprints didn't lie—they just needed to be read calmly.
Bill made plenty of mistakes at first. He stepped too hard. Got distracted easily. Wanted to talk when he should stay quiet.
But he learned fast.
In just a few days, he could already tell where coconuts fell more often, which trees were checked first by other poor folk, and which areas were avoided—not out of superstition, but because of real danger. Boars left clear signs, and Osborn made a point of pointing them all out.
"If the ground's torn up like this," he'd say, crouching down, "we don't go through."
Bill would nod. He didn't argue.
Together, they started carrying more than just coconuts. They gathered edible roots, forgotten scraps near lesser-used trails, discarded pieces of cloth that could be turned into bindings or reinforcements for the tent. Everything was useful. Everything had value.
Little by little, Osborn dug deeper beneath the makeshift floor. A larger compartment. Better hidden. There, they stored what they managed to accumulate.
When Osborn finally stopped to count, he realized:they had enough food for almost a month.
Not comfort. Not abundance.But minimal security.
And on that island, that was almost a luxury.
Days began too early, with the damp smell of the forest clinging to their clothes, and ended late, when the distant noise of the port faded into a constant murmur, as if the island itself were breathing in the dark. For Osborn, that week wasn't marked by dates or exact counts, but by rhythm.
Bill's presence changed that rhythm.
At first, the boy slept too much. His body was reclaiming what had been taken from it. Osborn let him. He didn't wake him by force. He simply watched, sitting near the entrance of the tent, sharpening nothing, fixing nothing—just keeping watch. Bill's breathing was still uneven, sometimes too warm, sometimes too weak, but slowly it became steadier.
Food helped. Water helped even more.
They didn't eat well. But they ate enough.
It was on a stifling night, when the heat seemed trapped inside the tent, that Bill spoke.
The days that followed were almost the same—and precisely because of that, they were different.
They woke early. Went out together. Came back together. Reinforced the tent. Improved the hiding place. Adjusted the sound trap. Shared food carefully. Never all at once.
Osborn noticed Bill changing. His body gaining a bit more firmness. His gaze less lost. Fear still there—but now paired with attention.
And Bill noticed Osborn too.
He noticed that Osborn thought too much for his age. That he watched adults the way someone measures distance to flee or to strike. That he never talked about the past beyond what was necessary.
"You act like you've lived here before," Bill commented once.
Osborn didn't answer.
Because, in a way, it was true.
It wasn't sudden. It wasn't dramatic.
He simply asked, staring at the cloth ceiling:
"Have you ever lived somewhere that wasn't yours?"
Osborn took a long time to respond.
"I have."
Silence.
"I lived in a brothel," Bill said, as if talking about anything else. "With my mother."
Osborn slowly turned his head.
Bill went on.
"She worked there. I stayed in the back. Cleaned things. Carried water." He swallowed hard. "One day, the owner… Gamatron… said kids were trouble."
Osborn felt his jaw tighten, but he didn't interrupt.
"He made my mother choose. Either I left… or she did too." His voice faltered for a moment. "She chose to stay."
No accusation came from Bill's mouth. No open anger. Just a raw, dry fact.
"They threw me out onto the street that night. I thought she'd come looking for me later." A crooked smile appeared. "She never did."
Osborn stayed quiet for a long time.
Then he said:
"Here, nobody really gets to choose. They just choose to survive."
Bill nodded, eyes lowered.
"I thought you were going to send me away too."
"If I were going to do that," Osborn replied, "I would've already done it."
That was enough.
At the end of that week, Osborn sat outside the tent, looking at the city in the distance. The port bustled as always. Guards patrolled. Goods came and went. Children were still alone in the streets.
But something had changed.
He was no longer alone.
And more importantly, now he had a base.Food. Routine. An ally.
The next step didn't need to be taken today.
But he already knew what it would be.