"Mommy! Daddy!" he shouted and tried to fight through the building crowd. He had heard gunshots moments before, and feared the worst. Many people's hands struck out to stop him, but he continued to shove his way through. His eyes widened at the sight in front of the diner. The gray concrete was dyed red, and the windows were cracked and bloody. A white gloved hand and a black gloved hand had their fingers intertwined. The man's green eyes were glassy and unblinking. The woman's eyes were closed and it looked like she was in a peaceful slumber. Their striking red hair was messy. Their glasses both lay on the ground, with missing or cracked lenses.
Film reels started to fly out of their chests, assuring the young boy that his parents were in fact... dead. He sunk to his knees as he watched their lives together float into the air. He saw a bright light before the reels disappeared. He heard his friend's father's voice as he read off the mission. Knowing that he couldn't help, and he couldn't go back home on his own, he tugged on the older reaper's pant leg. The reaper looked down and saw the little boy. He picked the young boy up and closed the book. All of the humans that stood around looked for the boy, but they eventually gave up and just watched the police take the husband and wife away.
Grell stared at the broken window one more time, before he hid his face in the man's neck and sobbed. If only he didn't leave to go to the candy store down the street. Maybe the person that killed his parents would've killed him, too. Maybe then he wouldn't have been left alone.
Unlike most children, Grell understood that his parents would never come back. All of the orphans he was surrounded by knew that. They were Shinigami, after all. They understood that once something was dead, it wasn't going to come back. Grell sat in a small closet in one of the many boy's bedrooms. He clutched his mother's favorite hair flower in one hand, and his father's pocket watch in the other. His mother's locket hung around his neck as he cried. He thought of his mother's lullaby and started to hum it. Before he knew it, the door opened, and he saw three boys staring at him with matching evil grins. He wiped his tears and clutched the items closer to his chest, the dull ticking of the watch calming his nerves a bit.
The boys dragged him out of the closet and took the flower and watch. Grell chased the boys through the house, yelling at them to give him his things back. He knew that if William was here with him, those boys wouldn't have taken the objects in the first place. He knew though, that by now, William was having dinner with his father, and then he'd curl up in his room and read a book that was high above their grade level.
Grell hated being alone, because that's when everyone would pick on him. A few of the older kids saw Grell and held him up by the back of his collar. The two boys from earlier, assuming they were now safe, started to rip up the red flower, and the other started to stomp on the watch. The last boy stayed far away from his friends, and stared at Grell apologetically. He closed his eyes at Grell's wailing and backed away when Grell fell to the floor, due to his thrashing.
Grell charged at the boys, before he was picked up again, by two boys, this time. He continued to shout at the boys to stop, before he heard the loud and booming voice of the headmistress of the building. The boys scrambled to hide the evidence as the woman's heels clicked closer.
"What is going on here?" she asks.
"They stole my mom's flower, and my dad's watch!" Grell growled.
"Did not!" The boys chimed, hiding the evidence in their pockets. "Grell's lying!"
"No he isn't!" a little girl with bright orange hair and Shinigami green eyes runs into the room. She reached into their pockets and showed the headmistress the evidence. The woman sighed and took the two boys away and ordered the older boys to put Grell down. The little girl took Grell's hand and dragged him to the field behind the orphanage. "I'm Cynder. It's nice to meet you."
"Thank you for helping me, Cynder." Grell rubs his sore arms, checking for bruises. "You don't have to be nice to me, anymore."
"Here." she thrust a small, overstuffed doll in his hands. "Her name is Ellie. I want you to have her."
"But she's yours." Grell stares at the small doll with a small green button for an eye, and the other one was a large star. She had perfectly braided purple yarn hair, tied in a bright pink ribbon.
"I can always make another one, besides, she's different, just like you."
"I'm Grell."
"Let's be friends, okay, Grell?"
"O-okay." Grell smiles with a faint blush. He didn't have any friends, other than William. He was glad that he made one that could help him when William wasn't around.
"Best friends forever."
"Forever."