Warning- contains deragatory language, bad language, gratuitous violence, and other stuff, probably. Don't read if you have a tender heart and are easily offended. It should also be noted that anything any of the characters say or do that could be interpeted as offensive by no way or means shows any of my views. Trust me, I'm a proud feminist, a person who would bleed for the rights of animals, a vehement believer in equality for everyone, and a person who is a shameless tree-hugger. Please, I'm as liberal as you can get and still go around cursing like a mother-fuckin' sailor.

I also own nothing someone else really does. Okay?

Author's Note: Okay, I haven't been around much lately. Okay, not at all.

Anyway, as you can see, I'm back- and with what could be a considered, if this was a tv show, a 'mini-series' revolving around one of my most favorite and multi-dimensional characters that I've ever created- Roach.

For those of you who have never read "People of The Scorion", you probably have no idea who the hell I'm babbling about. Well, have no fear- if there's anything crucial that was originally in POTS (Or WILL be, eventually) I will include it. There is no need to read POTS to understand it- but I highly recommend it.

Okay, here's the short list of things you should know in order to understand this paticular story:

- First off, this is set in the Test Village- the home of one of the desert "Drifter" clans. Don't worry, it's the same town set in The Hills Have Eyes, so chill.

- Second, Roach and almost all of the mutants in this multi-chaptered story are ones of my own creation, almost all actually mentioned or are main characters in POTS. If you like the main characters in this story, may I kindly suggest reading POTS to get more storyline for the main characters?

- Third, (a LITTLE bit of a SPOILER for POTS) I should mention that each mutant (in theory) has about three names: their "orginal" one (normal ones, like Billy, Kendra, and Sally), their, erm... second one (shut up, I haven't thought up a catchy name yet!) is the one that'd be more used around friends and family (Roach, Marvel, ect.), and, if they earned it, a more formal one that's either one that carries a regality to it, or one that is the name of a god/goddess. Whew, that was harder than I thought to describe!

Anyway, here's the (extremely short) first chapter... Okay, you can stop reading now... Seriously, GO AWAY already! Geez!

...You're still there, aren't you?

...God-damn it...

-- Mad Red Queen

Wretch

From the time I was a toddler I have always been struggling to find my voice.

Sometimes, when I was small enough to crawl into one of my mother's cupboards, I would toddle up to my mother, my mouth wide- and the only sound I could make was a weird one that did not sound so unlike the noise a coyote makes before it dies. My mother would just tap me on my head and give me an unhindered look at the sadness in her eyes as she looked down at me. Sometimes, it seemed like she knew what I could see in her eyes, and she went as far as to manage a smile. She did what she could back then, I suppose.

After all, she knew that I probably was never going to be able to form a sentence in my entire life. I was born, after all, as mute as one could get. A tongueless one.

Despite being unable to talk to my parents- and the fact that the other kids shunned me entirely- I had a pretty okay childhood, as far as life out here could be.

I had no friends, there was basically nothing to do all of the time, and because my mother and father, who's shared mother and father had never taught them how to read or write, I had no way to talk to them. But, nothing out here tends to last long, with the exception of the heat.

The damn heat.

My mother and I were close for what felt like my entire childhood. I used to help her around the house, carry things for her- things like that. And she used to call me her little bug every night when she would tuck me in.

The closeness my mother and me shared ended, however, when I turned thirteen. During the age of thirteen, (as all of us know) boys are put out into boot camp, and eventually discover what their main proficiency is. It's every man's gift to our clan, as Nefertiti and some of the older ones would say, to learn how to fight, to shoot from tall peaks of rock, and to learn the intricacies of tracking, trapping, and killing. Usually, training can last for an entire lifetime.

As for me, I went to training for almost an entire week.

I can remember saying bye to mom when Kaiser (The drifter who, until he died a year later, was in charge of the Boy's House) came to our house for me.

I can remember how it felt to step out onto our stoop that morning years ago, and the way that the wind was blowing hot sand through the village, making me squint. It was pre-morning- usually the time of day when I would climb from my room's window and onto the roof of our house to watch the colors spreading out over the horizon.

I stared up at the sky for only a few moments before I was interrupted by Kaiser, who had more than likely seen me staring up at the sky as I so often tend to do. He told me to get my head out of my ass, then he lead me to the Boy's House, where I was supposed to stay for at least five months until my place in the clan could be decided.

The Boy's House was smelly- even worse than I had imagined as I walked through the all boy's exclusive house.

The wood floor that covered the entire two-story was a mess of deep, gouged scars and scuffs, the walls had actual holes either punched or shot through in almost every room in the rather large house, and things were thrown all over the floor, ranging all the way from broken baby dolls to old bullet casings. And the boys I was to share home and hearth with for, perhaps, months on end seemed to compliment this house.

Kaiser lead me upstairs past the stairs whose railings had probably long since been broken off by teenager boys, and into a furniture-bare room, which was littered with rumpled blankets where the boys all slept, wrappers from what few treats they were allowed from the Gas Haven, and clothes so filthy I could barely recognize what their original colors were. He told me that I'd be sleeping there with the other boys.--