The sad Boy

Previously

…He pushed through a final thicket of bushes and found himself on the edge of a dirt road. Beyond it, he could see the faint lights of a distant village. He had made it. He had escaped. He sank to his knees, the rough dirt cool against his skin, and wept. Tears of relief, of exhaustion, of a profound, aching joy. He was out. He was free. But as he looked back at the dark, silent woods, he knew his journey had just begun. The road ahead was uncertain, and the shadows of his past might still stretch long, but for the first time in his young life, Leo felt the whisper of possibility, a promise of a dawn he had dared to believe in.