The once impeccable wooden floor was now stained by awful and thick mud footprints.

"Where are you little garbage?"

His voice was drunk and abrupt, heavier than the storm. The cabin was flooded by his disgusting booze smell and cheap tobacco, as his eyes searched uneasily for the hidden boy.

"Where is my meal? Why aren't you serving the table?"

His tongue was rumbling and mumbles came out in loud word shapes. The table didn't seem much protective now, and the ache on his chest was growing deeper, jumping harshly with every word spit by the monster, as his tiny hands became sweaty and tremulous.

"Kid!! Where the bloody hell are you?"

The boy gasped, perhaps so loud the monster heard him because in that instant he leant to look under the table, finding the terrified boy, who was pressing hopelessly the small notebook against his chest.

"Here you are..."

The boy closed his eyes, feeling his blood desperately running through his veins, being pumped by his heart with no mercy, and painfully burning him.

"Why are you hiding my sweet kid? Come out now, I want to hug you."

The boy didn't open his eyes.

"Can't you hear me? Come out now!!"

The man tossed a firm grip on his skinny shoulders and dragged him out.
Dark yelling became on a rhythm that accompanied the heavy rain and the eventual bolts of lightning crashing against the earth. Tears became his mask.
The man released the child's arm, leaving a reddish print of fingers on the pale skin, only to grab his delicate face, pressing his thick callous hands against it, and making his mouth bleed inside.

"Where is my dinner?"

No answer.

"What is this you're holding?"

The boy grabbed the book stronger, but the man was stronger, even when he was starving, and took it from him.
He left the boy alone for a minute, only to dig into the notebook pages. His lids spread widely as he observed, with his dizzy gaze, the shapes drawn on the notebook.

There were many colours, some darker than others. Beautiful landscapes, but also human shapes.

Bare skin human shapes.

Two men, tangled in nudity, so well reflected that it almost seemed real. They seemed to fight, in a very artistic manner.

The boy's face was red and burning in shame, despair, even anger, but mostly fear, as his eyes catch the disgusted glare of his father.

"What's this?"

He couldn't answer. He had found that notebook on the forests, and also found a nude on it, he thought it was disgusting at first, but then his mind and eyes turned to appreciate it as beautiful artwork. What was wrong in a naked male figure? He couldn't understand it quite well, though his heart feared it was something wrong.
He had read several art books that reflected the beauty of men, and so his mind wanted to reproduce it.
A poorly made copy of "Dante and Virgil in Inferno". Why was it so bad? That was the monster staring at with the angriest eyes.

"Did you make this?"

No answer, once again. Only thick raindrops thumping harshly against the roof.

"Did you.." He grabbed the boy's hair now, and pulled it almost to separate it from his skull, as his other hand pressed the notebook against his childish face "...make this?"

The boy cried, like a baby that had been pulled apart from his mother. Ironically, he never knew such hurt, as he never had a mother.

"I did."

He whispered, almost inaudibly, among sobs and thick tears.
The grip that was holding his hair pulled it harder, and dragged him outside, through the opened Door, throwing him to the open and rainy porch. The kid didn't move, only crawled into a fetal position, a defensive one, waiting for the hit.

The monster approached, and stood over him, nailing his heavy boot over the kid's arms that protected his face.

"Is this why you haven't made my dinner? Because you have been drawing sinful images, of naked men?"

His boot stepped harder, and kick on his ribs.