Chapter 1: One of One Thousand?
"HEY! GET UP!"
"11:45 PM. It's not even the right day yet."
Glancing at the time I guess what is about to happen.
'Oh well,' I sigh. 'At least I won't be here any longer.'
I drowsily get out of bed and take a moment to look around my practically empty room. No windows, a closet with only one pair of clothes, a bed with a stiff mattress and a thin blanket, and last but not least, a calendar. That's it.
The 31st of December. I have it circled as my "Last Day". As ominous as it sounds, it just marks my 16th birthday which means my life is about a whole heck of alot harder.
"Not much to miss." I whisper to myself.
"BOY! HURRY YOUR ASS UP BEFORE I-"
I open my door to see the orphanage director's mouth open with a wave of alcohol-filled breath getting ready to yell whatever threat to make me get up. He likes making threats. Guess it gets him off on some power trip when we obediently listen. I'm not in the mood to get beaten for disobedience so I calmly stare at him with the most neutral sleep deprived face I can put on. He smiles back in the most shit-eating grin ever saying,
"Time to go."
"Where?" I (fake) sleepily reply, although I already know the answer.
Instead, he just grabs me by the wrist practically dragging me to the front door before exclaiming.
"Congratulations! You've been adopted!"
At my age I already know he's full of shit. But I play along.
"Adopted? By who?"
He nearly holds himself from laughing swinging the front door open as he says,
"THE STREETS! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
At 16, you are considered too old to be living in an orphanage. I already expected this but I was hoping I would be able to stay for a few more hours just so I could enjoy sleeping on a bed or say goodbye to the other kids.
Not like any of us liked each other. One way or another we were all abandoned or orphaned. In an orphanage like this it was hard to really care about anyone but yourself. You gained nothing by working together. Mental trauma of abandonment doesn't leave easily so attachments were rare to come by. Even if someone did have an attachment like a pair of siblings. The director was sick and twisted as he did everything he could to break them. Prolonged isolation, abuse (verbal, physical, mental, you name it), neglect. If that didn't work he had buddies who would "adopt" one of them but not the other.
Actually… most of the good-looking young ones were "adopted". Someone like me with a battered 'used' body, scars littering my skin, unkempt black hair, and most strikingly of all; my deep black eyes was an anomaly to the youthful, fresh youths.
Yes I really did have black eyes. Well… the real name is aniridia. Basically I have no irises so my eyes look pitch black.
I had entered the orphanage at the age of 6 after the two adults who created me died of overdose, coincidently on this very same day. I refused to call those people my parents. What type of parental guidance or wisdom did they pass onto me? They beat me when they got drunk, were shells when high, and neglected me when they were under neither. I survived only by the fact my creators ate pre-made meals. I would regularly eat the leftovers that were either thrown out or left while they got drunk.
Worse of all were the times they would invite friends over and they would… pass me around. At least those times there was more food then they could finish and it would be a feast for me as they were all too high to understand what was happening. I was treated more like an object than a person.
If anything I'm surprised they were sane enough to care for me until I could think and move independently.
'Oh how the human mind and body adapts to adversity. All in an effort to survive. At least I'm out of there… and here.' I smile
I look down not wanting him to see my happy expression but he still senses something is off.
"What's wrong? You seem happy to leave? Do you not miss me?!"
Silently, I walk out the door ignoring his question. He grabs my arm and I look him dead in the eye. He looks pissed.
"YOU DARE IGNORE ME!?" He screams.
"FUCK YOU!" I snapped back before pulling my arm away grabbing the door and slamming it closed in his face. I book it already knowing staying would only get me in more trouble. I'm already rounding the corner when he yells back at me,
"I HOPE YOU DIE ON THE STREETS! YOU FUCKING FREAK!"
Running for a few more streets to make sure I'm not chased I slow down and let the gravity of my situation sink in. I slammed the door closed on the orphanage that I called home for 10 years. Actually… I never once considered that place home. Every night was a living hell as the director would constantly beat us while inviting his friends over to get high, drunk, or both. Or worse. It was like living at my former place. But at least I was acknowledged as more than an object and more like a pet. A pet with no free will, stuck with a dozen other pets all trying to survive with the limited resources provided.
I look up at the night sky.
'Maybe I should try to find something' That something I didn't know yet but I would search nonetheless.
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'It's freezing.'
My adrenaline had worn off at this point and the sweat I accumulated from running had frozen and made the cold even worse. I have nothing other than the clothes on my back. Not like I had anything personal to begin with.
It's a winter midnight but with a day before the new year the streets are lively with parties celebrating the new year happening elsewhere in the world.
Looking at these people, all I feel is disdain.
'Why are people so happy about what happens in another part of the world? It's just a new year, not some doomsday that will never happen again. It happens once every 365 days but people still care. Where was any of that for any of us back in the orphanage, for me.' I think, shivering in the winter cold.
I notice a disheveled young man slumped over by the side of an alleyway. He appears to be passed out from who knows what but what catches my eye is his clothes.
He has on a thick trench coat, cargo pants, and a pair of heavy set boots. Deciding it's better than nothing I proceed to undress the man to take the clothes for myself. In this 'survival of the fittest' type world, I try to push away any thought that this is wrong.
'I'm doing this to survive. But why? Why survive?'
That thought creeps into my head as I'm starting to pull the pants off the man when he suddenly awakens and tries to grab me.
"THIEF!"
Just my luck. I make a beeline down another alley not far ahead.
Hiding behind a trash bin, I watch as the man sprints down the alleyway missing me. I'm tempted to get up but my tired body forbids me from taking another step. Next to the trash, its putrid smell coupled with my overexertion of running makes me puke up whatever food I had last in my system.
'Guess that run took whatever was left in me.'
Now exhausted, freezing, and starved, I fall asleep right there in a back alley next to my puke and trash.
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A few hours later…
It's early morning with the sun barely rising but in New York, this much activity is to be expected. People on calls, having their morning coffee, the honking of cars. All this to me is way better than my life in the orphanage.
'Wish I could live like them' I tell myself internally.
Most people don't realise how privileged they are walking around rushing to their destination.
'What a first world problem'
Caught up in my thoughts, I barely have time to react when a man bumps into me causing both of us to fall to the ground. As he falls the coffee cup he's holding falls out of his hand and all over his suit.
"AY, FUCK! Watch where your fucking going! You ruined my fucking suit! You are going to fucking pay for this you fucking little shit!"
'How many times are you going to swear?'
I instinctively look down in an apologetic manner, not like I mean it, which only causes the man to spill the rest of his coffee on my head while demanding me to pay up.
"I can't." I quietly mumble.
"HUH! What did you say!?"
"I can't pay."
With that a knee is sent into my ribcage and I fall to the ground.
"If you can't pay, pay with something else!" and with that the man starts giving me a beating right there in the middle of the street.
While the man starts beating me in broad daylight, I watch as a crowd starts to form. They start pulling out their phones to film. Others just watch. Worst of all are the ones who choose to go around everything, completely disregarding the situation unfolding before their eyes.
'Guess the real world isn't much different.'
The man stomps his foot into my ribcage one last time for good measure before storming off.
"This is what you get, you demonspawn!"
People make way for him, stop filming, then start walking away.
I sit up as a young woman approaches.
"Are you OK?" she asks but I can tell she was a bit startled after looking at my eyes.
"Does it look like I'm OK?!" I answer back in a slightly aggressive tone.
"Jeez. Just trying to help. What's your problem?" she says before looking me up and down walking away. "You look like a monster anyway."
'These damn eyes!' I curse myself internally. I always hated them because they made me feel different. Even in the orphanage, the other kids called me other names like demon, devil, monster, or any other horror they could think of. It's not just that…
No matter where I am, someone always seems to have a problem. Maybe that's just a human thing. I get it. I get angered too. I get angered by all the mistreatment. The people who don't give a shit. The people who pretend to give a shit. It's all fake.
Getting up all by myself I continue wandering the streets looking more like a beggar (or monster) after the beating I just went through. This actually works out for me as people actively avoid me letting me slip through the crowded streets.
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I end up in a park and decide to scale a random tree. There I reflect back on my life up until that point.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
No achievements, short, weak, thin, no goals, no dreams, no desires. My life was nothing but a bunch of 'inadequate', and 'no's. It was almost like I was empty. Except for these accursed eyes.
'My only unique feature is also one of my most hated.' I laughed at that thought.
Really nothing to reflect on other than how pointless his life had been up until that point.
You know that feeling of living life by going through the motions. That's all I've ever done. Everything so far was just my human nature to keep living.
Back at my former place I was beaten for no reason. But I kept living, letting it happen because after a while the punches lost their pain. The same thing at the orphanage. I was numb to it. The beatings, the names, neglect, all of it. Thinking back, that only made the director more furious seeing how I gave him no reaction other than indifference or in his eyes 'defiance'. Or maybe it was my eyes that screamed 'lifeless'.
The same was true out here. I had received a beating not even a few hours ago yet here I am moving about with the pain as if nothing happened.
Dropping from the tree with really no fear of how high I was coupled with my injuries, I landed without much issue.
The last words of the director echo in my mind.
'Maybe I am a freak.'
A gust of wind brings me back to reality. Picking a random direction, I walk to nowhere in particular.
'I guess I should do something as it is the last day of the year'
I was still searching for something that would… I don't even know.
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A few hours later…
Seeing as there was nothing I could do by myself as I had no money or people to talk to I decided to sit atop a rooftop and watch the crowds below
Watching the crowd below shouting the last few seconds of the year I could be less bothered.
"Another shitty day, another shitty year, another shitty birthday."
I'm tempted to jump as I have nothing.
No friends
No family
No future
Three fundamental f-terms I was told to have a good life.
'Where did I hear that?' Not like it matters.
I pondered on the whole point of my life.
Why did I live through that hell of a childhood with my makers? Deep down it was because I was a naive child with the hope that they would get better.
Then why did I survive another ten years after they left? Why did I put up with that shith*le director? Deep down it was my hope that one day I would get "adopted" and things would turn out for the better.
Then why am I still alive even though I'm out of there? The answer… Because out in the free world, I thought I could find something… Something to validate my reason for living. All I got was the same thing, the same words, the same treatment.
But now… I've realized…
I never found it. My reason for living.
I'm ready to jump but as I stand on the precipice, I'm greeted by a message.
*CONGRATULATIONS*
*YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN*
I look around confused wondering where the voice came from. I turned to check if maybe someone was up on the roof with me. It wasn't unnatural for New Year's to have some of the highest suicide rates of any day so I thought someone eager to join that statistic was there with me.
My momentary panic changed in an instant when the next thing I know I'm hit with the worst pain in my life. I stumble about on the edge of the rooftop. It feels as though all the air was being sucked out of my body, I can barely scream before blacking out. But not before feeling the sensation of wind on my back with the rooftop slowly getting smaller.
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I wake to see myself surrounded by trash. By some dumb luck, I landed directly on a particularly soft heap of trash. I'm about to credit that to saving me from my death by falling when I realize something amiss. My back feels heavier?
I turn and am faced with something only seen in TV shows or fantasy books.
I'm enclosed in feathers. Black, but beautifully mesmerizing. Soft, yet strong and sturdy. Looking at them I feel protected. Secure. Relaxed. It's weird. I just fell maybe 20 stories yet here I am admiring these feathers. No, not just feathers, there Wings. This realization hits me like a truck.
"What the f*ck just happened?!"
As if answering my thoughts I hear a voice saying,
"YOU HAVE NOW BECOME ONE OF THE WINGED! YOU ARE ONE OF 1,000 INDIVIDUALS TO RECEIVE SUCH A GIFT!"