My vision was filled with a purity I'd never experienced before. I felt nothing, but my mind was scrambled, as though I had just recovered from a great pain. My hearing was reduced to deafness.

Yet with all of that, my mind felt normal. I was scared, yes, but below that I could feel some familiarity. I tried to curl my fingers but could not feel the nerves in my hands. Some false hope told me I had done it.

Somehow that relieved me.

I could faintly hear murmuring next to me as I was lifted up, presumably into someone's arms. Next came the angered shouts of a man and the shrieks of a woman much closer. My senses were still numb, but at least now I could somewhat understand the situation. I tried my hardest to calm down, exhausted from my attempts to force life into my body.

I recognized the fear in the woman's voice, which did little to null my own. I desperately flailed - or rather I tried to - to escape whatever hell I had found myself in. My involuntary screams continued to grow as my desires multiplied. The one holding me began to walk away. I tried and pleaded for my body to respond, for the slightest hope to escape.

I found no such thing.

Inevitability struck me as I felt my entire body relax. My vision had not returned to me. In fact, it felt as though my eyes had been welded shut. Nothing was in my control.

I felt myself get sat down on something soft. My exhaustion began to eat away at my mind. Never had I felt so inclined to sleep. Voices filled my muffled hearing as my mind drifted away.

/-/

Movement was a fine thing indeed. Not once would I have ever considered it such a privilege. I sat in a colorful room full of other children, all of which were about my age. They sat around playing their elementary games with each other. Occasionally they would laugh or cry, depending on the situation. Number blocks rolled like dice in a casino; toys flew like the cards from a dealer's hands. Raw emotion fueled by a lack of intelligence filled the atmosphere.

It was not an atmosphere I enjoyed.

I sat in the corner, reading what had to be the most boring thing I'd ever seen. It was a picture book written for five year olds with vocabularies rivaling the size of the boogers they'd tear from their noses. I'd gone through it six, maybe seven times in the last two hours. I'd slowly go through it, acting as though I had some sort of interest while my mind drifted elsewhere. Not even Walt Whitman's works had bored me this much. Though to be fair -

I felt a sharp pain rush through the back of my head as some kids giggled behind me. I rubbed the spot with one hand while turning to face those behind me. They continued on with their games, each of them laughing with giddy excitement. One boy in particular began to laugh harder than the rest. My slit pupils narrowed on him, simmering with a hint of rage. He turned to me, picked up another block, and walked towards me, leaving a mere five foot gap between us.

That ballsy prick reeled his arm back to throw again. He was too dumb to know I'd be able to do something about it. The block hurtled towards me, so I raised my right arm to catch it. For a second, I felt nervous. From my knowledge, I'd never been a good catcher. In the distorted memories that drifted through my mind, I would often see visions of another world filled with faces I knew like family. I knew them just enough to not ask who they were, but the question that remained was how?

My eyes traced up the scales running down my right arm to the face of the boy. For a moment, I wanted him to hurt. Another part of me wanted to shut up those behind him. However, I knew that they would just cry and get someone to help them, so I dropped the block and kicked it, as well as the block previously thrown at me, back towards him.

He and the group seated behind him snickered and went back to their game. I heard a few of them say things like, "Mom told me he's an animal," and, "my parents think they're filth." The second comment made me laugh.

The classes I took in my memories taught me the importance of pronouns in writing. In this case, when that other kid said, "they," I realized I wasn't the only freak of nature in the world. For once, it felt as though being part of the group made things easier. I chuckled and returned to my picture book, wishing that somebody would give me literally anything else to read.

Yes. Even Walt Whitman.

/-/

I was now seven.

The shift from a day care to an orphanage had come when I turned, by my count, four. The other kids had developed very clear behavioral patterns by now, resulting in what I'd dare to call a "personality." These "personalities" often varied, but all of them tried to seem much more social and outgoing when people were around.

I, on the other hand, had finally managed to get my hands on some actually good books from the elementary school I now attended. I didn't care much for showing my intellect to most, but I did make it clear that I was miles ahead of the others in terms of subject knowledge. The only thing I had a problem with was getting books pertaining to the middle and high school subjects. The only reason I bothered going that far was because I wanted to see if I could skip the nightmare of public schooling. Though, I did try to hide that from the caretakers here.

I flipped a page in a book full of poems and fairy tales. I thoroughly enjoyed the descriptive imagery used to describe the creatures of Grimm. One even included a few expertly made sketches of a few of the types. I found the "Nevermore" to be the most enthralling. Another book I had was purely informational. It contained everything from anatomy to behavior. If these creatures existed, which they no doubt did, it seemed as though this book was to serve as a guide for civilians, mainly to avoid brutal evisceration by giant beast. I did have some difficulty with a lot of the words, but I'd mainly just skip over them in hope that I could still understand the rest.

One older girl leaned over my shoulder and snatched the book from my hands. I heard them slam it shut before I could turn around to take it. By the time I did, she was bringing the spine of it down into my nose. The impact hurt, but I knew that the lingering pain would hurt more. I recoiled, raising my hands to my face and falling onto my back. She tossed the book back down at me. It landed in the middle of my chest. She then walked away, muttering "worthless freaks" under her breath.

I fought the tears in my eyes as I sat up. I put the two books onto the table I sat at and rushed to the bathroom. The whiteness of the room blinded me at first. I went over to the sink and turned on the water. I then leaned over the sink and cupped my hands, rinsing the blood away. I hoped that it wasn't broken. Luckily, the cold water seemed to wash away some of the pain as well.

Once I finished, I grabbed a few paper towels and dried my face off gently. I tore off a small portion and crumpled it up into two makeshift nose plugs. The lingering soreness remained as I expected. I left the bathroom and walked to the table I was sitting at before.

Thankfully, the two books I was reading hadn't been ruined while I was gone. I sat back down, noting that one of the other kids was gracious enough to mark my page with a sticky note reading "NERD."

/-/

I think my tenth birthday passed by recently. Never had I cared about my birthday, but I decided to assign an arbitrary date to fill the role. Normally, I wouldn't have cared too much, but there were two other kids that arrived recently. They both seemed to be a year older than me. The first was the equivalent of a hamster given a near lethal dose of crack cocaine told to run on its wheel for all eternity. The other was a soft spoken intellectual who seemed to care more about books than much else.

The first, Nora, had a good amount of fun wrestling the other kids until they nearly died of exhaustion. She also seemed to be too dumb to tell that the others kids wanted her dead. The other, Lie Ren, was great person to discuss readings with. He also seemed to be knowledgeable when it came to the Grimm. He managed to solidify our friendship after he confirmed their existence for me, though he never said how he managed to learn about it. I could tell he was hiding something, but I decided against prying him open.

I also managed to "befriend" Nora in the process. Apparently all I had to do was befriend her "Renny" and that was the end of it. I also felt her do something to me in the middle of the night once, which left me tingling for the next six hours. It was supposed to be a "gift" securing our friendship, but all it left me with was several questions pertaining to the well being of my manhood.

The three of us have been going at it for almost three months, a time I've learned to consider short. Sure, Ren and Nora do get a lot of crap for being my friend, but it's nice. Besides, anyone who fights Nora gets ground into a bloody pulp. Figuratively speaking.

We usually watch the people walk into the orphanage and play games to see who'll end up getting picked next. So far I have seven points, Ren has 2, and Nora has 4. She once asked me how I was so good, so I jokingly told her that it was the reptilian eyes. We had a good laugh afterwards.

Today, someone else walked in. It was a faunus, which surprised us. We hadn't seen one of them in a month. Ren guessed that they quit coming after realizing that they wouldn't be allowed to adopt anyone due to discrimination. I agreed and Nora just shrugged. We listened in to the conversation between her and the desk clerk.

"Do you have your paperwork with you?" I noted that she'd normally say it much more respectfully, adding a "ma'am" or something at the end.

"I filed it a week ago. They told me it was confirmed." I was astonished. Five, six years and finally a faunus was allowed to adopt a kid. What a sick and twisted world we live in.

"Oh, well let me just check really quick and-" As the clerk turned her head down to the monitor we watched her expression turn to pure shock. She then squinted, presumably double checking.

"Well?" The faunus put a hand on her hip and rolled her eyes.

"It would appear as though you are clear..." The clerk froze, struggling to comprehend the situation.

The faunus rolled her eyes even harder. "So can we get a move on or..?"

"Y - yes, of course." The clerk showed the lady to all of the kids. I nudged Ren.

"So who do you think it'll be?" I spoke lowly enough to not be heard outside, but anyone in the room would've heard me easily.

Nora spoke up with excitement. "Ooh, maybe it'll be you!"

Ren shrugged. "It would be likely."

My eyes narrowed on each of them. "You're joking, right?"

Neither of them spoke up.

The desk clerk walked in and shot me a stern glance. "Pack your things." She also spoke through her teeth.

I was immediately assaulted by Nora, who almost broke a multitude of my ribs in a devastating bear hug. She let out a triumphant "yay" as she lifted me off the ground. I tried my hardest to signal to Ren for help. He lightly tapped Nora and she put me down. "Looks like we win!"

Ren was excited, as excited as he got. He congratulated me. Nothing more, but that was expected.

I was scared that they would be stuck here like I was, unable to do anything with their lives until it was too late. I decided to give them a small piece of advice. "Don't bother staying here. You're better off in the wilds."

They both seemed confused as to what I meant, so I continued. "There's two of you and you're older than most of the people here. Someone might not roll around for the two of you."

I heard Ren mutter. "Better to die together than to live alone." Nora nodded, though she was taking it worse than Ren.

I went to go gather my things and wondered where I'd heard Ren say that before.

/-/

Having a house felt like something I'd forgotten the feeling of years ago. It was relieving to be reminded. My room wasn't too big, but neither was the house. We were in Patch, a small island off the coast of Vale. It was about an hour drive away, but we would usually just walk the distance.

"Mother," as I've begun to mockingly call her, is an eagle faunus. She has these weird white feathers that naturally grow intermingled with her hair, which is her only noticeable trait. She also has pretty good eyesight, but that's about it. To be fair, all my eyes let me do is see really well in the dark.

She's nice and well kept. My only complaint is that, as a huntress, she is openly opposed to me sitting around reading all day. She's begun forcing me to wake up and exercise at ridiculous times. Some days it'll be at seven, others at four. Also, she's been trying to teach me how to defend myself. I can't blame her, but it just feels overwhelming.

"Get up, come on!" She was trying to motivate me to get off the ground. Unnecessary, but not unwelcome. I used the tip of my staff to push myself up to my feet. Shifting my hands along it, I regained my grip on it, holding it at the ready.

All I had to do was hit her. I'd been running in and getting pummeled for almost half an hour now. I tried waiting until she attacked me, but it ended quicker than it would've if I just attacked her. Armed with just a simple longsword, I thought that I would've lucked out by now. But at day one, she figured out something about me.

I wouldn't stop until I was better than her. Once, she'd quit for a week after I threw an immature pissy fit, only to resume these sessions after I came back begging her. Besides, it wasn't like I completely hated this. It was a pretty nice way of blowing off steam, after all.

I ran at her and slid past her, pulling my staff up in an uppercut and performing a 180 after passing her. She blocked the uppercut and went for a strike on me as I brought the staff down on top of her. With ease, she sidestepped it and tried to hit me with the base of her hilt. I ducked down and tried to sweep her legs out with a kick, only for her to jump up and bring her foot down in an axe kick atop my head.

It hurt, but what made it so bad was the fact it completely disoriented me. I rolled over on to the ground with my head in my hands.

It reminded me of the orphanage.

I grit my teeth together as she began to walk away. My hand slowly moved to pick up my staff, grabbing it without a sound. For my next move, I slowly got to my feet and leapt towards her.

Only for her to sidestep me and punch me in the gut.

Through my teared eyes I, groaning in pain, looked up to her smiling. "Nice try, Sylas, but you should know better." She knelt down and patted me on the head. "Now, what sounds good for dinner?"