He walked up to the new kids, they hadn't yet seen him do anything strange so they hadn't yet shunned him completely on what others said about him. He greeted them with a friendly "Hello", which they returned with more enthusiasm then he had felt his whole life in this place put together.

'Do you guys want to go somewhere cool?' he asked with a fake smile of a curious little boy and not the sinister little man he was becoming.

'Um … sure. Where is it?' asked the middle of the boys, he was a plump boy with dirty blonde hair that hung just below his ears.

'There's a cave by the beach, it's safe, I checked it out the other day before you even came here. It's really cool.'

'I-I'm not sure, Tom. It could be dangerous.' piped another.

'Oh, the cave isn't dangerous.' he assured them. 'I promise you, you'll regret it if you don't come.' he added, staring deeply into their eyes.

There was a few second of muttering between them as they came to a decision. 'We'll come.' said the first boy with a nod. Tom smiled at them, his powers of persuasion worked - they always did with the weak ones.

As he lead them through the garden, over the gate and down to the cave, Tom was getting stronger inside with every step. He'd noticed he had been getting stronger recently with each passing day. He felt it working its magic inside of him all the time, bubbling to be brought to the surface. Oh, it will … it will be shown he thought as they climbed the rocks and made their way into the darkness of the cave.

It had gotten dark by the time Tom made it up to the house. He was bombarded with questions from many matrons, many he didn't recognise. But he didn't really hear what they were saying, what they were asking. His mind wasn't right, it was somewhere far away, somewhere dark. His eyes must've shown that because when he finally looked up at them, most of them started with fright.

Once he made it up to his room and locked the door, he lied down on his bed in the dark abyss, his eyes felt as though they were burning into his skull - it didn't pain him, in fact … he smiled. His sight trickled down to his hands and saw blood. He began to vigorously rub them on his trousers until they too were burning red, he let them flop beside his body as his mind drifted away …