He was presented before the others as though he were a prized animal up for auction. His fists clenched at his side as he was scrutinised by the scrawny, little orphans. They were clearly trying to decide if he was worth anything, if he was a threat, and appeared to reach the conclusion of no.

How wrong they were.

"This, children, is Beyond Birthday, his parents have recently died and his grandmother had to relinquish custody when she realised she could not handle another child at her age. I would like you all to be very nice to him and give him a warm welcome."

The overly enthusiastic and bubbly woman's lies were met with nothing but cold silence. You could almost taste the judgement floating through the air. Children were cruel, disgusting little creatures.

"Why don't you go play with some of the other child for a while?"

Beyond looked up at the woman, an eyebrow raised in question. Is she stupid? Clearly she was since she took his obvious question for anxiety and smile at him reassuringly.

"Don't worry. I'm sure you will make a lot of friends."

Disgusting.

He left her side and wandered over to the seemingly full bookshelf in hope of finding something worth reading but upon further inspection, he discovered that it was mostly children's stories and picture books. Neither of which appealed much to the advanced mind of the potential serial killer. But he eventually discovered a book which was worth his time and amusement and so settled down in an armchair to read.

No matter how much the ridiculous woman encouraged him, he did not intend on interacting with any of the potentially disease ridden orphans - who knew what sort of bacteria they were carrying around with them? - planning on awaiting the moment when he could leave and live his life without anyone getting in the way. That meant no friends and no adoption. He didn't need more problems.

However, the small sound of a girl clearing her throat pulled his attention away from the page and up to her face. She was average. A reasonable height with a skinny frame, topped with a messy tangle of brown hair which appeared to be hiding - ...brown? No - blue eyes.

She was not a worthy first victim.

Beyond raised an eyebrow at the girl before him. "Yes?"

The fact that he had acknowledged her existence seemed to take her by surprise, making her stumble over her first few words. This gave him the impression she did not get spoken to often. His respect for her lowered by around twenty percent.

"H-hello... erm... my n-n-name is Alice. What are you doing?"

Clearly the girl was both dimwitted and blind. Of course, he already knew what her name was, and when she was going to die, but he stayed quiet about that fact, not wanting the extra hassle of having to explain.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" he countered, looking back to his book as he lost interest in her pitiful attempt at small talk.

"Erm... It looks like ya readin'."

"Your ability to announce the obvious is truly astounding. I applaud you."

The sarcasm in his toned earned a confused blink from Alice as she tried to decipher if he had any ulterior motives. Thinking about it, she was probably just trying to reach a conclusion as to what any of his words meant. Clearly she was not as educated as he was.

"You speak awful good for a four year old."

"I'm five and I think you mean that I have an impressive range of vocabulary for a person of my age." Beyond corrected, not bothering to look up at her as he spoke.

"Wow. How'd ya get so many smarts?"

Her lack of intelligence was beginning to annoy him. She was doing nothing but wasting the boy's time, time he did not want to waste on someone as... insignificant as her.

The book snapped shut quickly and he pushed himself off of the chair with a sigh. Now that he was stood he could see that, actually, she was not of average height as, even though he believed her to be at least a year older, he was already taller. B looked down at her with an unimpressed and rather bland look.

"I read and I learn. Perhaps if you were to do something other than wallow in a ball of self pity during your desperate search for attention then you would learn too."

Harsh, yes, but necessary.

He did not stand around to find out if she cried or not, although the sound of the now hysterical woman trying to comfort her hinting that she was. As he made his way down to the area that had been designated as "his room" he attempted to come up with a suitable way as to how he could leave early. But his thoughts were soon interrupted by a group of boys, some of which were taller - and wider - than him, stepping out from one of the rooms in front of him.

Each and every one of them stared down at him as though he were nothing but a piece of meat, something they could manipulate and bully to their every desire. But that was, unfortunately, not the case as each of them would surely find out.

"How may I help you?" Beyond practically growled at the one who appeared to be their leader. He was the tallest and the fattest so he assumed the others were merely his "gang members".

"You made Alice cry." The boy informed B, his tone of voice clearly demonstrated how low his IQ was.

"I did? How unfortunate. Perhaps she will learn now." The disinterest was clear in his voice.

"You made Alice cry." The other repeated.

"As you have already said. Do you suffer from brain damage?"

"That wasn't a nice thing to do. Now we're going to make you cry."

Beyond had to literally hold the laughter back, aware that it would probably result in this ending much sooner than he wanted. How entertaining. Anyone witnessing this exchange between the two would clearly see that, although the others attempts at being threatening were valiant, Beyond Birthday was naturally more dominant. If they were dogs, the bully would be a chihuahua and Beyond would be a Rottweiler.

"Oh? And how do you intend to succeed in that?"

The bully appeared to be rather stunned by this question. Clearly the other orphans begged or cried as soon as they were presented with this threat. However, Beyond was not another orphan. After all, he had killed a cat. That was quite an achievement for a five year old, no matter how disappointing it had been.

"W-what?"

Again, he was met by disappointment. B had expected something more entertaining from the boy but instead he was met with more stupidity.

"Il est étonnant que vous êtes capable de marcher et de respirer en même temps." Beyond muttered and walked passed the group of children.

Clearly aware that he was losing the fight the other attempted to regain some control, making another pass at being threatening.

"What did you say?"

Again, the threatening nature failed.

Beyond sighed and turned back to the group, continuing to walk backwards as he spoke. "I said that it is a wonder you are able to walk and breathe at the same time. It is French. Educate yourselves."

He was undisturbed for the rest of the evening and for many after that.

*Authors Note* : First of all, thank you to those who have favourited and reviewed already. I'm honoured that you like my work that much. And thank you for the critism too. Secondly these chapters will be added in a steady stream hopefully, depending on how busy I am. Thank you for reading, you guys rock.