Chapter 1: Riddle's Answer

He was Tom, always Tom. Never Thomas and certainly not Tommy. He'd bitten the hand of a man who'd ruffled his hair and called him that awful nickname when he was two years old. After that, he was always placed in the back with the kids that no one would adopt on open house days. And so he sat in the miserable shabby room they referred to as the "nursery" with the kids that stared at the wall with glassy, stupid eyes, the kids who rocked back and forth muttering gibberish and the old kids who would be turned out with a pittance and the clothes on their backs once they reached their majority.

It was just as well. He hated when they trotted him out like a dog at the pound for prospective parents to ogle at, anyway.

Tom could not remember what his mother had looked like, which was upsetting. Thid was not because it made him sad, but because a part of him wished that he could remember her face every time he cursed her for leaving him in this godforsaken hellhole. Tom was fairly certain that, even as orphanages go, his particular institution was rather lacking in comparison to most, and he resented the fact that his pregnant whore of a mother couldn't have had the decency to die on the doorstep of a nicer establishment.

The orphanage stood at the side of a large property owned by a church. The nearby living quarters for the staff and the steepled church down the lane were at least sturdily built and draft-free. In the orphanage, though, it was a different story. There was never any warm water, even for bathing, which meant that most of the children put off keeping to any bodily hygiene until they were forced to do it. There were cracks and holes in the old, rotted wood that made up the ancient building that let in the cold, the rain and the bugs. But the worst part had to be that that most of the orphans had to sleep three to a bed in the large, single, windowless room. They even had to share with the older boys who couldn't keep their hands to themselves. One had tried it with Tom, and the older boy had gone blind after he'd mysteriously burst into flame only moments afterwards. After that, no one ever tried it again. In fact, no one would share a bed with him, either, and Tom couldn't complain about that. If he'd known it would have worked so well, he'd have set someone on fire earlier.

In fact, though he was not the oldest or the strongest, Tom was king of the hellhole he called home, and while it didn't please him to live there, it did feel good to be in control.

Power.

It was the only thing that mattered.

He knew the adults were fearful of him. Bad things happened to people who tried to push Tom around, things that everyone knew were his fault even though they could never prove it. This reason and this reason alone was why they didn't sell him to the mill in the north, the one that didn't care that new labor laws forbade children from working before they started puberty.

They'd tried sending a man from a hospital once, the kind with straight jackets and rubber rooms, but Tom had already known this and had been certain to act the perfect little orphan, complete with quivering lip. He'd practiced for awhile to get his lip to shake just so to complete the pathetic display, and it was apparently very convincing, judging by the allies he'd made through using it.

Tom relished being able to hear other's thoughts, knowing that they couldn't do the same. It was a mark of superiority and therefore power, an advantage that he was happy to exploit if it got him what he wanted. He'd started hearing thoughts right after the New Year, but it had helped him more than any of the other abilities he'd developed thus far. He wondered what new things he'd gain as he grew older. He hoped they would be even more useful.

As far as Tom was concerned, it was rather irritating that life didn't come with a complete list of rules about how to act to properly fit in. For example, he had to learn the hard way that others didn't like being laughed at, even if they'd done something that he'd learned was supposed to be humorous. How was he to know, though? They laughed at him for the same sorts of things. He'd assumed it was just how it worked, but that was not at all true. There were so many nuances to fitting in and becoming popular, even amongst the pathetic specimens he was forced to call peers, that the only way he'd been able to learn how everything worked was by spending a year blending silently into the background and watching interactions between others.

The first thing he learned was that power and possessions were the primary way that other humans subjugated whom they considered their inferiors. Whoever had all the toys had all the friends because friends appeared to be defined as people who offered their company in exchange for favors and things to play with. The second thing he learned was that humans, even those who were being actively bullied or controlled by those with power and status, craved hierarchy. He watched bullied kids capitulate to their bullies every time, and though there was plenty of whining and complaining about their state, there was rarely ever any fighting back, though it was obviously highly unjust. It defied logical sense, but Tom witnessed it again and again, so he came to the conclusion that this must be the normal state of things. There were those who used fear, pain and intimidation as tools to take what they wanted, and there were those who were easily preyed upon and accepted their fate.

And, in the end, he had very little trouble deciding which part of that hierarchy he would be on.

There was much talk of God in his orphanage, as it was run by the Church, though what church he couldn't say, as it never interested him enough to find out. From the first moment that Tom learned about God, he was enthralled. Not because he actually believed that some massive immortal being was sitting up in the clouds watching his every move, but because he was amazed at how the human love for hierarchy was so great that even those at the top of the heap weren't happy until they'd literally created a god that they'd never actually seen to place above them.

And not only that, but they gave money to this being! They worshiped him and sang his praises! There were all manner of rules, from the logical to the confusing that were supposed to be followed with very clear consequences for failure and eternal pleasure in the presence of God for loyal followers.

Tom wasn't stupid. Now that he realized that there was a third tier to life's apparent pecking order, there was only one place in any hierarchy that he was willing to stand.

There was only one little problem.

Mortality.