Then, one may ask, what makes a human a child? Children are those who require guidance, the ones who we need to help so that they can make a choice. Even so, you cannot call an aged man a child. With age comes experience, with experience comes wisdom, with wisdom comes understanding, and with understanding comes adulthood. Those who have aged but have not yet gained experience are those who have not yet found adventure in their life.

Thus, the reverse is also true. There are some children who have gained wisdom, who have experienced far more than adults. Even if you say a young one cannot be classified as an adult, some children have surpassed the age gap between them and their elders. A child is only a child so long as he retains his innocence and needs the assistance of others.

-.-.-

With every pump of his heart, a pang of pain filled his head. The incessant pounding was what told him to stop, and he gladly complied, tossing the pencil onto the wooden desk, scattering papers, and dropping anything else. He felt like he needed one of those medicine pills—Tyrogue-ol? He rested his head on the face of the desk, closing his eyes and trying to ignore the pain. It was like someone was trying to drill a hole into his skull, the pain was so intense.

Derek stood up, rather shakily, pushing the chair out of the way and reaching for the door. The only thing he could think of was getting some water to drink to cool himself down. It felt as if he didn't get something cold he would explode from the pangs of pain in his head. Then again, it would probably be better to drink something warm and get some ice on the forehead, he told himself as he twisted open the doorknob.

He stepped out onto the wooden floor of the hallway, trudging towards the staircase and nearly tripping over the glossy (and probably recently waxed) floor. Sounds of explosions and cheesy dialogue further aggravated him as he reached the bottom of the staircase. He cast a look towards the source: the television. The four-year-old Jane had somehow managed to turn it on and find the worst possible TV show for him in his condition, and he had no idea what it was. The sounds made his head pound further, making him grit his teeth in irritation.

"Derek?"

"Shut the hell up. I'm not in the mood," he snapped, not even glancing at the girl lying on the couch as he walked through the living room. He held a hand to his head, trying to massage his head and relieve the pain a bit. "And turn the volume down."

The girl turned back towards the television, or at least he guessed so from the creaking of the couch. He walked past the counter that separated the living room from the kitchen and grabbed a mug from the cupboard—only to feel a wave of anger and pain flow through him as the sounds of explosions grew explosively louder.

He turned towards the girl watching the TV, who was staring back with wide, innocent eyes. A growl of anger escaped from between his teeth. "Shut. That. Thing. Off. Now."

She smiled at him with a toothy grin. "Why?"

'That's it,' he told himself. 'I'm not taking this anymore.'

A shocking pain in his right hand made him wince, momentarily halting him. He glanced down, noticing for the first time how tightly he was grasping the handle of the cup. With difficulty, he managed to force his fingers to unclench.

He would have left her alone if she had stopped there. But she went and turned up the volume even higher.

Something snapped. He knew he was moving, he knew he was shouting, but he had no idea what. All he felt was anger—pure anger, even hatred towards this girl. She got everything; all the toys, the benefits, the luxuries, the expense, the love and recognition—and for what?

What did she ever do?

The cup shattered. He had no idea how. Had he thrown it? Had it shattered in his hand? All he knew was that blood was spilling from his right hand palm, and that pieces of the shattered mug lay on the wood of the floor, colored by a crimson liquid.

He looked up wearily, hands shaking. The girl in front of him, lying on the couch, was crying. There was no satisfaction in the action. There was no relief, no guilt, no sorrow or hate. All he felt was empty, as if he had just exhausted himself.

A sudden dizziness took ahold of him. He nearly fell over, but he managed to walk forward and grab a roll of paper towels. It wasn't until he pulled a few sheets off that he noticed his hand was soaking through the material, coloring it a bloody red. He was bleeding. A lot.

It was just his luck that his mother walked in at that very moment. She cast one look at the bloody hand of the boy, the broken mug, and the crying Jane, before beginning to shout. The words didn't make any sense to him; his head felt blank, as if enveloped in a sort of darkness. He wanted to move, to fight, to scream, to cause suffering and pain to someone else—anything but this nothingness.

The only words that did reach him were: "Michael and Aliana wouldn't do something like this."

The pain in his right hand doubled on the spot. He began to shake out of pure fury; she didn't care about him at all—he was just a tool, a shadow, a copy of her perfect children. He was nothing to her, nothing but a thing that she could use. The angrier he got, the more his hand seemed to hurt, until it felt like his hand would be cut in half by the pain.

"Shut up!" he shouted, delusional in the swallowing darkness. He glared at his mother—no, the monster in front of him, shaking with an outrage he had never felt before. "Why do you never—"

A hand on his shoulder made him jump, recoil. He turned, ready to lash out with his anger, ready to fight whoever dared to so much as get near him—but he halted. In front of him stood someone he had never expected to see, one of the only people who showed so much as a trace of recognition towards Derek.

"Calm down. You're letting your emotions get the better of you," Setsora said simply. He knelt by the boy's side, his crimson eyes inspecting the injury as he took Derek's hand. The boy closed his eyes, too afraid to look into his uncle's. "Most kids your age would be crying in pain. Getting angry is no better, though."

Derek cracked open his eyes a tiny bit. "It's—"

"Not your fault," the man agreed, nodding his head. A lock of his brown hair, the same color as Derek's, shadowed Setsora's eyes, which gave Derek the courage to open his eyes completely. "Still, you could have more control over your emotions."

The boy said nothing, blinking back tears. He could feel the sincerity of the man in front of him, yet he felt a horrible sinking feeling as he heard his own mother behind him comfort the bratty, crying child instead of him. He couldn't help but wince, though, when he felt the white cloth wrap around his hand. The man's motions were hardly gentle, and every action seemed to shout out "This is your own fault."

"Selena," Setsora said, still studying Derek's hand, despite the gauze covering the wound. "Is Michael here yet?"

"Michael?" the woman echoed, confused. "He's coming? Here?"

"It's what we planned." The man pressed his palm against Derek's, which made the boy jump; it felt like an electric current had just passed between their two hands. His eyes seemed to black out for a moment, as the area of vision around his hands darkened. Setsora then let go, dusted his hands off, and stood up. "How about Aliana?"

The crying of Jane seemed to have ceased, Derek noticed. It was when he noticed that when he noticed she wasn't there in the first place; she had probably left to shut herself in her room. He almost smiled out of spite, though the pain of everything that had happened still weighed him down. Still, the mention of his older sister lifted his spirits...a bit.

His mother shook her head, apparently ignoring the existence of her son. "I would have heard from either of them."

"Hmm." Setsora glanced around. His eyes seemed to linger on the broken cup and bloody floor a split second longer than it did on anything else. "You might want to clean that up, Selena. Derek, you should go to your room."

The boy stood up shakily, so nervous that he couldn't make a noise louder than a whimper. He rushed off, jumping up the flight of stairs and running straight through his door, shutting it behind him. It took him a while to notice how badly he was shivering, and a bit longer to realize that the pain was completely gone from his hand.

He lay down on his bed, closing his head. He wiped away the tears from his eyes in frustration, trying hard not to start sobbing. There was something wrong with him—and he needed to figure out what.