"It's been two years Alphys," Undyne complained. "We're never going to move the plot along."
"Undyne, the author is just tied up," Alphys replied. "He recently moved, and he is also working on a book."

"A book?" Undyne asked.

"Yes," Alphys answered. "It's about his life and how having special needs has changed it. I have the first chapter right here. He asked me to proofread it."

"Can we read it together?" Undyne asked.

"Sure, here it is," Alphys said as she began reading.

Chapter 1: The Beginning

"I'm in a position I'd rather not be in, but the cream will rise to the top."

-Macho Man Randy Savage-

I can't say that I remember a lot of my early life, but I will say that most of my childhood was a mixed experience. It was probably just like any other average childhood, with its high points and low points. It did take several years for me to know that I was in fact different, mostly because the clues were subtle to a toddler's mind.

My parents noticed the clues early on. The first being that whenever I would become excited about anything, I would tend to wave my arms around. Occasionally, jumping would accompany this habit. To the unfamiliar eye, it would appear that I was pretending to be a bird and trying to take off. This was especially noticeable while I was watching Wheel of Fortune, as watching the wheel spin was exciting for me.

It didn't seem like there was a lot to worry about during my first years in life. I didn't really have any problems playing by myself when I was two, and when my parents moved to their first house, I can remember a lot of the weekdays my mother would babysit while my father was at work (I believe that most of the kids were the kids of my father's coworkers). The only catch was that I was the only kid in the group that was my age, which led me to believe that I was the only kid in existence that was as old as me!

Eventually, that did change when I started preschool. I don't remember a lot of the experience, but I do remember that it was a Christian school. While it didn't seem to be fanatical or preachy, I do remember having to recite a prayer every time we got our daily snack. Religion was kind of a weird concept for me, but in my defense, few toddlers would probably get anything out of it, anyway.

While I didn't make any lasting friends when I was in preschool, I can now understand why. The second clue my parents and teacher noticed was that I had delayed speech skills. This was quite evident when I attempted to speak, as whatever I said was merely utterances. This would make interacting with other people frustrating for all parties involved, since it was difficult to get my point across during discussion.

My parents eventually did have to call an itinerant teacher to help me out during class. This teacher would be kind of like an in-class tutor, and she would work with me as I did my schoolwork. She would also work with some other kids, which made sure that I wasn't exactly singled out.

One of the memories that sticks with me to this day is the play that we did. I don't remember the topic myself, but I remember seeing photos of me being on a slide boat with a paper sign that said Mayflower, so I am assuming it was based on Thanksgiving and the first settlers. What I do remember is being positioned to the side of the rest of the class. I do not remember saying any lines, or even singing any songs with the rest of the class, so I wonder if I was even able to keep up with the other kids.

My parents did know that I did have an intelligent mind hiding behind these barriers. I had a Step One toy computer that had a ton of learning games that I played with all the time. It taught math, the alphabet, pattern recognition, and many other things. I would play and learn to progress through the high difficulties, and they took note of this. They knew I was smart, but I just couldn't communicate it very well.

While preschool itself was in the mornings, I had to take a speech class in the afternoons. I can't say I remember much about what happened, but I do remember spending a lot of those days looking at the room from the bottom of a bookshelf, and I can remember hearing quite a bit of disapproval from the teacher. This leads me to believe that I had sudden episodes of apprehension, and it caused me to act more volatile than normal. Unfortunately, this was over twenty-five years ago, and I cannot remember if anything set off these episodes.

Kindergarten was an experience in and of itself. The social situation was a lot similar to preschool. I didn't make lasting friends, but did get along with many of the other kids. There were two other problems though.

The first one is that I recently figured out how to play games on computers. When I was at home I would spend quite a bit of time playing Chip's Challenge, as well as educational games that prepared kids for first grade. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but this fascination quickly became an addiction, and I would oftentimes use the computers at school and play educational games instead of doing assignments I was supposed to do. I would frequently have notes paperclipped to my back shirt collar regarding this!

The second problem I had was a strange phobia I had developed. I was using the restroom one day and a fire drill started. Each restroom had its own flashing light and alarm speaker, so of course it was a scary experience for a five year old me.

Every subsequent restroom break was met with fear. When I was using it by myself, I would slowly inch my way to the stall or urinal and spend half my time staring at the siren, scared that it would go off again. I don't remember all the details about this (I honestly don't remember it going off while I used the facilities. I just know the story), but I do remember that there were systems put in place. They had to reassure me that there were no fire drills scheduled if I needed to use the restroom, and they encouraged me to use the bathroom during the class restroom breaks (probably so I didn't need to by myself). As silly as this fear sounds now, it was something that gave me nightmares at the time.

Despite these issues, the concepts that were taught to me in school were not challenging for me to grasp. In fact, most of the challenge would wait in the next chapter of my life: grade school.

AN: That's right, I am writing a book, and this is the rough draft of the first chapter. Subsequent chapters are longer (probably because I remember more), but this one sets the stage and explains how life was for me starting out. I do not have a title yet, and I don't even plan on being ready to publish for probably another year, but I will keep you posted!

No reviews to address, so with that, have a nice day.