The Runaway Kid

* Current
* Human

## Voice Clips

**The Runaway Kid**, or commonly referred to as **the Kid**, is the main protagonist of the *Little Nightmares* DLC, *Secrets of the Maw* where he ventures through the lower depths of the Maw and explores parts that have not been seen in the main game as well as avoiding monsters.

## Appearance

The Runaway Kid was around the size of Six, with a similar lean build, both being scrawny and thin. He wears a blue garment, with a collar around his neck and long slate blue pants. He also has a metal cuff with a broken chain wrapped around his right ankle. He has short charcoal brown hair with long bangs that completely cover his eyes, only revealing a tiny mouth and nose. His feet and hands are bare, like most children. He possessed no objects until finding a flashlight, which he used repeatedly throughout his adventure. It is presumed that he puts it in his pocket when not in use.

## Personality

Like other characters in the *Little Nightmares* series, the Runaway Kid does not speak, but his personality is shown through his actions. Similar to Six, he has a strong desire to escape the Maw. The Kid is a proficient puzzle solver, repeatedly shown to crack codes and solve puzzles with perseverance. He is also not afraid of harming others as an act of self-defense, shown by him electrocuting the Granny with a TV, and later, he battles with the Shadow Kids, burning them with his flashlight. However, unlike Six, he is more than willing to work with others in order to escape. This is shown when he recruited several Nomes to fuel a furnace in order to get out of the Hideaway.

## Mechanics

Like Six, the Runaway Kid is a proficient climber and can run for substantial periods of time; the Runaway Kid can also swim well, as demonstrated in The Depths chapter. Similar to Six, the Runaway Kid uses an illumination tool: a flashlight. Unlike Six, whose lighter illuminates only those places where the heroine goes, the Runaway Kid can direct the light anywhere. In The Residence chapter, the hero receives protection from the Shadow Kids by burning several of them using the emitted from his flashlight.

## *Secrets of the Maw*

### The Depths

The Runaway Kid is seen in the misty depths of the Maw, swimming through the water stream. He is then dragged into the deep waters by an unknown monster.

He then wakes up in a gasp from his nightmare, revealing that he is inside the prison's bedroom, and begins his escape. He runs along the prison's main hall, then down a pile of stacked cages, where he manages to spot a girl with a flashlight as she runs away. The Runaway Kid gets past an Eye and continues to follow the girl. After running down the halls, he goes into the children's playroom then into the lavatory, finding the girl pushing a makeshift rope down the prison window. He follows her as he climbs down the rope.

He later sees an open hatch in the ground and jumps into it. Soon after, he finds himself in the lower depths of the Maw. He explores for a bit, before climbing and going into a barricade of wood. With one of the pieces broken off, he climbs through it. The Runaway Kid finds the girl's flashlight on the ground with the girl nowhere to be seen. As he encounters numerous leeches, the girl is possibly killed by them.

Soon, the Runaway Kid is in the flooded depths of the Maw and makes his way further below. Meanwhile, he spots the unknown monster from his dream in the distance: the Granny. The Granny begins stalking him underwater as she senses his presence, while the Runaway Kid proceeds his escape while avoiding the Granny. Eventually, the Granny begins breaking down the obstacles the Runaway Kid has been on. The Runaway Kid is forced to flee and make a path out of the depths using his surrounding area to his advantage. At the same time, the Runaway Kid has to solve timed events in order to ascend farther into the Depths. Once he finishes solving them, he encounters the Granny, who begins to tear apart the wooden platform he is on. He activates electricity, simultaneously turning on a television set, and pushes it into the water, which electrocutes the Granny. The Runaway Kid then climbs a ladder leading to the Lair, but is ambushed and captured by the Janitor instantly.

The Kid finds himself stuck in the cage room. He is now in the same room as Six. It is revealed he is the child in the large cage being dragged out of the room by the Janitor during in *Little Nightmares*.

### The Hideaway

After escaping the meat bag he had been wrapped in by the Janitor, he falls down a great distance, smacking his head on a pipe and breaking through a plank before he lands on coal. He recovers slowly and sees a few Nomes. The Runaway Kid begins to follow them.

He soon enters the engine area where he learns to work with the Nomes in order to escape. He helps and recruits Nomes that work on the furnace and assist him in escaping. He manages to get help from some Nomes who get the furnace running.

This allows the coal baskets to begin moving. The Kid uses the moving machinery as an elevator. He soon enters the furnace room. Some more Nomes welcome him by inviting him into a secret passageway. The Kid enters it, and eventually meets a large number of Nomes resting beside the fire, enamored by the light as a calm tune plays. It is revealed that the secret room is the Nomes' hideaway. When the Runaway Kid shines his flashlight on them, the Nomes cast shadows of children, revealing that they were once innocent children who resided within the Maw just like him. The Runaway Kid looks at the Nomes once again to greet them farewell, and leaves through a vent. He ends up on top of an elevator. As the elevator begins to ascend, the camera zooms out to reveal the Lady inside the elevator. With a slow nod, the Lady pans up to look on the ceiling of the elevator, signifying she seemingly senses the Kid's presence.

### The Residence

The Runaway Kid wakes up on top of the elevator after being knocked out by the Lady in the previous chapter. He climbs on the side, and swings on the elevator rope which boosts him towards a vent. He eventually falls out into the Residence.

The Runaway Kid sneaks past the Lady, who is playing with a doll while her music box plays a tune. The Kid soon arrives the Residence's main hall. The Kid is tasked with dangerous puzzles to reach the next room. He will have to grab 3 statues in order to be able to get towards the next area.

When two of the statues are put in place, the lights black out and the Kid retreats to the room where the Lady has been previously in. The Lady is nowhere to be found, instead, the Shadow Kids appear to greet him. They relentlessly attack the Kid throughout the Residence. They stalk and try to kill the Runaway Kid, but he's able to use his flashlight to vaporize them. The Kid retrieves a key from the room and accesses a secret room, and soon finds the last statue and opens the door. The Runaway Kid makes his way through the Lady's quarters, until he unintentionally sees the Lady's true face inside a mirror. She notices him in the reflection and shrieks, then vanishes and destroys the mirror behind her.

The Runaway Kid realizes he needs to quickly escape the area before the Lady captures him. He enters a maze of wooden mannequins as the Lady stalks him among them. He runs down a steep hallway, then he enters one of the rooms until he hears a previously locked door creak open. The Runaway Kid enters this now-unlocked room and is near the exit, but the Lady is one step ahead. Now within the grasp of the Lady, he levitates into the air while black smoke envelops him and then he blacks out.

The Runaway Kid then wakes up as a Nome, revealing that the Lady is responsible for the transformation of most Nomes in the Maw. He leaves the Residence, then goes down a shaft where he makes his way past the Guest Area. As the Runaway Kid wanders around the Guest area, he eventually makes his way into a little room and looks curiously at a sausage on the ground. He stands next to the sausage, revealing that he is the Nome who offered Six the sausage in *Little Nightmares,* before subsequently getting eaten by her instead.

## *Little Nightmares*

As a character developed after the release of the first game, the Runaway kid's identity is initially not present in the game, but is revealed upon the release of *Secrets of the Maw*. It is revealed that the Runaway Kid's journey takes place at the same time as Six's. By matching the corresponding timelines, the Runaway Kid first appears as a withered child, with his model similar to the other captured children in the cages. The Runaway Kid is inside a big cage, being dragged away by the Janitor before Six wakes up. This can be considered as their first encounter.

The Runaway Kid later appears in the Guest Area as a Nome, offering Six a sausage before being eaten alive by her.

## *Little Nightmares II*

While the Runaway Kid doesn't make a physical appearance, a painting depicting Six eating him as a Nome appears in the Transmission chapter.

## Theories

* The Runaway Kid shares many of the same physical attributes as the Bread Giving Boy. Because of this, many has speculated that they are the same character.

## Trivia

* The official *Little Nightmares* Twitter confirms that the Runaway Kid was not the one who gave Six the bread. Quote: "The Kids is already in the Depths when this Six is fed by the little guy behind the bars."
* The Runaway Kid is the first playable male character.
* The Runaway Kid is shorter than Six and Mono.
* Among the three protagonists of the main Little Nightmares game series, the Runaway Kid's nightmare is the only one which canonically does not come true.
	+ Six encounters the Lady in the later parts of the game, fulfilling her nightmare at the beginning. After Six consumes the Lady's flesh, a dark aura surrounds her as she slowly turns her back, her stance is similar to the Lady's when she is first seen in her nightmare at the beginning of the game.
	+ Mono encounters the hallway he sees in his nightmare in the beginning several times, and it is even revealed in the end that he resides in the room at the end of the dream hallway.
	+ However, the nightmare of the Runaway Kid can be achieved non-canonically by letting the Granny pull him underwater, but this results in a game over.
* Most of the early concept art for *Little Nightmares II* features a kid wearing blue clothing, it could possibly mean: the Runaway Kid was initially the main character of *Little Nightmares II*, Mono's beta design, or the Runaway Kid was a placeholder character before Mono was created and designed.
* Up until his transformation into a Nome, the Kid never tries removing the metal cuff on his right ankle. The developers at Tarsier Studios jokingly suggested the reason he continued wearing it is for "fashion purposes".
* When questioning the scene where Six eats the Nome, the official Little Nightmares Twitter replied "But when you know what the sausages are made of in The Maw, you can understand the choice". Implying that Six might have realized the sausage and other meats within the Maw were produced from the bodies of children and guests, leaving her in the midst of a dilemma to choose between eating the sausage or the Nome, though she may not have been aware the Nomes were once children like the Runaway Kid was.

## References

1. ↑ https://twitter.com/LittleNights/status/932928218230874112
2. ↑ https://twitter.com/LittleNights/status/886929810873884672

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