The door burst open.

“Delrej! Delrej! I’m here now, Delrej!”

A small, white haired boy ran across the wooden floor in his bare feet, dropping the two bags in his hands and finally slipping the one off of his back. Leaving them behind him on the cherry floor of the hallway. He hastily began undoing the bandages that covered his eyes, letting them fall to the ground too. He had run from the door, down the hallway, through the kitchen and into the living room. But he stopped on the edge of the room.

There, lying on a rug in front of the lit fireplace was a charcoal-grey dog, easily the size of a horse. It seemed to be dosing, the darker coloration around over the lid of his eyes giving him the effect of wearing eye shadow. He had very distinguishing markings; there was a mask line and two hearts running down his left cheek, and deformed heart and crown birthmark on the same shoulder.

The boy’s smile grew even wider, giving him quite the ‘kid in a candy store’ appearance – after all he only looked like he was about ten or so. He was dressed rather plainly, in a white cotton t-shirt and a pair of navy shorts that hung around his knees, with bandages around his wrists and ankles. His eyes though, those were the strangest thing about him. The child too had mask lines, dual ones, running down his cheeks. And on top of that, he also had light grey shadow boxes under his eyes. But the eyes themselves, those were just as interesting. They were the palest of grays, it seemed that the boy had to be blind. The iris was only dark enough that it was distinguishable from the white of his eye. But they had a bit of tragedy to them as well, over the right there were three scars – two vertical and one diagonal – and on the left eye – two scars that appeared to make an ‘X’.

He dashed forward onto the cream carpet, and upon impact of the large dog, he began snuggling into its heavy fur coat. He eventually ended up between the canid’s dinner plate sized paws, and under his muzzle. The boy gave the dog a kiss on the underside of his jaws and wrapped his arms around the dog’s head and squirmed them into it’s ultra-violet mane.

“I love you Delrej...” The boy whispered softly.

“I know you do Wynn,” the dog replied, in a voice that was deeper and more refined than the boy’s.

Delrej smiled down on him with his mismatched purple and black optics, and Wynn knew that he was not really sleeping at all, more like just waiting.

“Winnie why have you come to see me?”

“Because I’ve come to live with you Delrej!”

Excitement threatened to seep from every pore of Wynn’s body.

Delrej got up and stretched, tenderly licking behind the boy’s ears in a half-bent position. This action caused the boy to smile and squirm away in almost a bashful manor. He stood fully and walked up the two steps into the dining room.

“And just what makes you think that? Have you just been jumping to conclusions again Wynn? You thought you could just come to me and I’d take care of you, correct? Especially after all I’ve done for you in the past.”

The dog disappeared and standing in his place was a sixteenish-looking man. His usual black button down shirt was open, and his black pants seemed a little sloppier put on today than usual. He was looking at the crystal figurines in the china cabinet, not giving Wynn another glance. He seemed to be simply fascinated by them, almost as if the boy in his living room was an afterthought.

“But I thought… You don’t want me?” The little boy sat cross-legged on the floor looking flabbergasted.

“Of course, Winifred, I want you. But you can’t stay here.” He sent the boy a playful glance.

“Why not? Please Delrej. I’ll do anything. What do you want from me?” His tone quivered, sounding heartbroken; he ran to the man before him, holding onto his waist.

“What do I want?” the man looked amused, “Winnie, I’ll tell you what I want from you.”