Memory Two
After his mother was murdered by his father and right before his father was assassinated there was a puppy. A small, brown furry thing that snooped around their house on the edge of town.
Winter was coming, and the puppy was all alone. It was skinny and sickly and beneath everyone's notice. No one wanted the brown clump of fur, no one cared, but he did. Orochimaru was sure he was the only one who noticed the pathetic creature below everyone's notice.
As a young child, he noticed. He heard its whimper, its cries as it walked down the street, and something in him...something was giving him a strange feeling. It was almost like the duty his father spoke about - the duty to become strong, to prove the almost nonexistent clan worthy just as the man whom he called father had done all his life. But he knew what duty was. This feeling was not duty, it was deeper, foreigner, and unsettling.
He tried to focus his attention elsewhere as winter came closer, as the days shortened, but the puppy lived and came by his house every few days.
Why didn't it just die? Was that not better? The feeling grew within him and sat heavily in his belly.
A few weeks later, the puppy came again and Orochimaru held out food in his hand. The puppy's tail wagged and it barked sharply, happily. Taking the small creature in his hands, he walked to a nearby bridge and stood near the railing. He was shorter, could not reach over the edge, and the puppy squirmed in his hands.
"Why do you live?" he asked the puppy who barked in reply. His father's face entered his mind. Useless the face whispered. Worthless. What was happiness but the passing of chemicals in the brain.
Moving the puppy away from his body, Orochimaru frowned. "You can offer nothing."
With the next bark Orochimaru threw the puppy with all the force he had over the side of the bridge and into the river. He heard its screams, its whimpers one last time before there was nothing more the sound of water flowing on rocks.
And as always, he was the only one who noticed.
The only one who cared.