Chapter 1: Days of a Dying Present (1/4)

Nero was laying on his bed at night unable to sleep. It's been two days since his failed attempt to jump off that building, but it wasn't his failure that bothered him. He was sure that he fell from that building and that he broke every bone of his body in the fall. He remembers the pain he felt, but how is it possible that he's in perfect condition after a fall like that. That strange sensation he felt when he was on the ground was one of his theories of how it happened. It was strange, his entire body felt warn and cold at the same time then a tingling sensation came and before he knew it. He was ok. But how, that was the question stuck in his head.

He raises himself from his bed because he knows that sleep wasn't going to happen tonight. He opens his drawer to grab some clothes. His blue jeans and white sneakers, but he put on a Black Puffer Jacket this time. Nero didn't have many clothes, two pair of jeans, one pair of shoes and few t-shirts and a jacket.

Nero opened one of the windows in his room. His room was in the second floor, there were two windows there and in the middle there was a pipe that he uses to slip down since he was eight. He uses it when he wants to get in and out of the orphanage at night. His night activities are nothing remarkable. He can't wonder too far from the orphanage he needs to be back before Sister Maggie, comes to check on him like she does every morning. Nero was aware of why she payed the most attention to him.

Since he can remember, Nero always received weird looks from people due to his appearance. No one can tell why he looks like that, he wasn't ugly or deformed but he looked different. But it never really bothered Nero, he liked to look different. He always like to think that it made him unique.

Nero was just wondering what he was going to do for the rest of the night. The first thing he did was stop on a basketball court that was not too far away from the orphanage. Nero got into a fight there a few days ago, he won and the boy ran away leaving his basketball ball behind. Nero kept it on a hidden spot that he found on a building that was beside the court, he could have taken it back to the orphanage but Sister Maggie would have asked how he got it. He grabbed and started to toss it a bit. He does it for sometime until he hears someone calling him.

"Hey." He heard someone calling him from behind. He turns around to see who was it.

"Carl?" It was a friend of Nero, Carl Lucas. "What are you doing here?"

"I was passing by." Nero doesn't really believe him. "Didn't I tell to not come back here."

The fight that Nero had in the basketball court didn't exactly ended after the boy that started it ran away. He came back with six other boys and Nero would have been in deep trouble if Carl wasn't passing by to help him. The two kinda became friends afterwords. Similar to Matthew, Carl was much older then Nero. Nero never asked how old he was but he suspects that he was three or four years older than Matt.

"You did, I just chose to ignored it."

Carl gets close and takes the ball off his hand. "You're a stubborn little shit, you know that."

"Yup." Nero said with a smile.

Carl also smiled at that before shooting the ball at the ring. The two started to play together for sometime, though Carl was better then Nero. But it was fair comparison because Carl was much taller then him. Not to say that Nero was bad, he managed to land several times which impressed him a bit.

The two kept playing for an hour and half, until it was time for Carl to leave. He said something about having a encounter with someone named Shades, which Nero has no idea who that was.

Nero decided to go back to the orphanage cause it was almost sunrise. He walked back to the orphanage, climbed the pipe and entered the window.

Soon enough, it was time to wake up. Even though he didn't sleep. He left his bed and went to eat breakfast. The food at the orphanage wasn't bad but it wasn't good either. Not that he cared. He ate quickly and then he left the orphanage. He wanted to see if FJ wanted to do something today. Nero took a train to FJ's neighborhood and got there quickly enough.

He knocked on his door. The one who answers it was his mother Maria Castle.

"Oh, it's you Nero." She greets him.

"Hello, Ms. Castle." Nero greeted her in return. "Is FJ home?"

"He's having breakfast, you can come in." She answers while signalling him to come in.

Nero obeys her and walks inside the house, then he sees FJ and his sister eating at the dining table.

"Nero is here." FJ's sister Lisa Castle said.

"Hey Nero." FJ said as soon as he saw him.

He just waved at them before approaching the table.

Nero couldn't resist and ended up eating a bit of the waffles that Ms. Castle made. After they all finished with breakfast, Nero asked FJ if he wanted to play with on the park. He quickly said yes and the two left the house together.

"My dad is coming home next week." FJ said as the two walked beside each other.

"Really?"

"Yeah, Mom wants to have a picnic at central park while he's home." FJ said to him.

"Oh, that's good." Nero didn't really care about that very much. He never saw FJ's father.

The two kept on walking towards the park that was not too far away from FJ's house. His neighborhood was very calm and clean, definitely a far cry from hell's kitchen. Nero was a bit envious at times, but he often heard that it was no use to feel envy cause it could consume you.

Nero and FJ arrived there quickly enough.

The two friends played hide and seek for a while which wasn't really Nero's favorite game. Mostly because he wasn't very good at hiding, but he was pretty good at seeking. The two played until it was time for FJ to go back home. They said goodbye to each other and went on their separate ways.

Nero walked towards the train station to go back to Hell's Kitchen. But the moment he arrived there, the station was closed for some reason. There was a few people standing there.

"Excuse me." Nero pulled a woman's shirt. She turned around and gave Nero a look that he was used to it. "What happened in the station?"

"A man running away from the police entered it and the police closed down to catch him." She quickly answered before turning her back to him.

Nero knew that there was no use waiting around. It could take some time for them to catch the man and reopen the station. So he will have to go to a different station. But that will be a bit difficult, since Nero doesn't know the place very well. He usually goes from the train station straight to FJ's house, so he will have to look around a bit. He could go back to FJ's house and ask his mother for help, but that would cause a few complications since doesn't exactly has permission to be here.

It turned out to be a bad idea. Nero walked for hours looking for another train station, but he moment he found it. It turned out to be closed as well. Apparently, the fugitive that the police was chasing got into the train tracks and ran all the way to this station. If Nero didn't know better, he would say that someone was playing a joke on him.

He had to walk and walk and walk, to try to find a third train station for him to go home. But then his hunger just got worse. He decided to have something to eat, he starts to look for a diner. He walks a bit more until he sees one in the end of the street.

Nero quickly walks towards there. The street was kinda of empty which was strange, he could see a few people but this looks like the kind of place that it's usually crowded. Nero wondered if something happened or if there was a event going on. He arrived at the end of the street and was waiting to cross it. He looked around and saw a few people.

An old man that was beside him, a man wearing a nice suit and in the other side of the street he saw a family. Well he assumes that they are a family. A man with a receding hairline and a nice mustache,a slightly overweight blond woman with glasses,a browned haired little boy that looked like a miniature of the man, a blond girl that looked just like the woman and a red haired girl. They looked like a very beautiful family. Nero wondered what it felt like sometimes.

The blond girl was the oldest, the red head one was the middle and the boy was the youngest. He could assume that he was close to age to the red head girl.

Nero chuckles a bit. He was analyzing a bunch of people that he probably never will see again to distract himself from his hunger which is pretty stupid. He kept on observing the family. He noticed that the small boy was holding a ball at one hand and his mother's hand with the other. The couple looked like they were discussing something and the older daughter was trying to get something from a vending machine.. Nero really needed to eat something and stopping worrying about other people's business.

Then the boy dropped the ball that he was holding, and was trying to reach out but his mother was holding his hand tight. The ball rolls to the middle of the street, the boy better say goodbye to it because Nero can see a car coming.

But then, to his shock.

The red head girl started to walk towards the middle of the street to get her brother's ball. Nero then looks at the car and notices that it was coming at her direction at full speed. He quickly starts to run towards the girl as the car rapidly approaches her. She looks at the car but doesn't move, her parents noticed where she was.

"Jean!" The father screams as the car is near her.

Nero ran exceptionally fast, it felt like time has slowed down as he ran. He could hear police sirens coming from afar, and people screaming. When he got close to her, in a split second. He pushed the girl out of the way.

She looked at him with her green eyes. Nero took a good look at her with his white eyes.

Until.

He felt the pain of the impact of the car.