Eugene remembered the day his whole life changed, the day his innocence was stripped from him. His mother and father's faces were a long forgotten memory, but their voices were crystallized in his mind, an eerie reminder of the horrors of that day. Though the details eluded his memory, he recalled the pain that ensued. The screaming, the knife, the gun. The cries of his parents that haunt him to this day. After that, it was all a hazy memory, years at the orphanage where he was picked on for being different, ridiculed for enjoying stories about the adventures of Flynnigan Rider, the rich and dashing swashbuckler, instead of sports like the other boys.
He had large aspirations then: to grow wealthy and famous. To have a sword in one hand and a gal in the other. To show the other boys that they were wrong. But he was stupid then. The world wasn't a fairy tale.
After he ran away from the orphanage at age 11, he went searching for adventure. But all he got was poverty. He ran away with Lance, his best friend, who survived alongside him in his endeavors. They climbed houses and apartments, infiltrated stores, and pickpocketed people just to survive. In one incident, they broke into a jewelry store, hoping to score big. But the police showed up quickly. They ran, but he heard a loud gunshot and in a split second, he laid on the floor, holding his bleeding side. He was separated from Lance and before he knew it, he was patched up and thrown into prison. His anger only deepened as he felt the pain in his side every day he was in jail. He would train day and night, to get stronger. His body grew tougher under the stress and his mind. His mind grew tougher too, no longer susceptible to the fantasies he had when he was younger.
He looked through the bars of the prison in anticipation for the real world. After 7 years locked up for theft, Eugene was a changed man. But somehow he felt as empty in the world as in the jail cell.
"Watch where you're going bum,"
"Vagrant," they would say.
Eugene redented the world for taking his family from him, sticking him in a miserable shelter, for locking him up at age 15, for always demeaning him.
Eugene heard the jingling keys of the prison guard, who approached his jail cell.
"Ryder, You're free to go."