[ nameless : prologue ]
My life is not one of those tragedies you hear about in story books. I was not abandoned as a child, left for dead, fighting for every day’s meal. Well, not entirely, at least.
I was raised an orphan though I did not grow up in the orphanage at which I was left. In those times, money was a rare commodity and most families had to make certain alterations to their lifestyle in order to live cheaper and save money. For most people, that meant getting rid of a kid or two. That abandoned child I mentioned, fighting for their life? That was not an uncommon sight in the back streets of our wonderful world. People either didn’t know about them or they just didn’t pay attention. Both are possible. But that was not my life. I was brought to an orphanage rather than abandoned on the streets, one of the lucky thousands out of the unlucky millions. They took me in and nurtured me to health, apparently I was half dead, and when I was old enough to understand, they told me what my tragic tale was.
Both of my parents were dead.
Not so tragic, not so uncommon. My mother died with me in her arms. Okay, that’s a bit stranger than most kids’ stories. My mother was murdered and spent the last of her time among the living bringing me to safety. Now we’re talking. When I was brought to said orphanage, I was carried in the arms of a woman who was out of breath, desperate for help, and losing blood quickly. As she ran up the stairs to the orphanage, she left a distinguished red trail behind her, her legs barely even strong enough to get her up the steps. She collapsed at the top, the head guy of the orphanage reaching her just in time to catch her before her head hit the stone steps. Her name was unknown. The name of the child in her arms was unknown. Just who had shot her and why was unknown.
All they knew was that on that night, a trail of blood was washed away by the pouring rain, never to be noted or missed or even commented on by anyone outside the orphanage. Not quite unlike the woman whose body was picked up and discarded of in the morning, without a word, never to be missed or remembered. Just like that, swept away in the rain, a human being disappeared. And no one even cared. It was just so . . . tragic.
But the world keeps moving.
The child that was held ever so tightly and safe in that woman’s arms was me. The woman, my mother. The only words she managed to spit out before croaking was “Take him away”. Such sweet parting words, dear mother. Though I suppose I can’t be too bitter; she did die saving me. And that’s the story of my mother. How I came to be at this orphanage. Though, as I said, I was not raised in that orphanage. There were far too many children being abandoned for orphanages to carry. When there’s a problem, who comes to the rescue?
The government, of course.
The government took note of the overwhelming numbers of abandoned children and the lack of the proper facilities to house and feed them. What few orphanages there were didn’t have enough beds or clothes or food for the entire homeless community. There were still the numerous street walkers that were unaccounted for. And every day, more and more children joined their ranks. So what did the government do? Did they take all those wonderful tax payers’ money and build more institutions for the homeless, strengthen the ones there were? Did they sweep in and save the day, carrying off the poor little children to bigger and better places where they could live happily?
Who the hell are you trying to fool?
They swept in, all right. They swept the streets for the wandering, went to every orphanage in the city to take away the unsightly plague on humanity. It was just like your modern day holocaust. These were kids with no parents, no form of family or care taker. They could die like rats in the sewers and no one would shed a tear. So when they were taken away, it was not in a courteous, kind fashion. They were hunted like animals, captured and thrown in the back of large trucks to be hauled away without argument. No one could fight them. No one wanted to. No one had the strength to. We began to wonder if we even had the right to.
The government officials were slightly more civilized when they went to the orphanages. They spoke with the care takers in order to be able to take the vermin off their hands, out of their care. And they didn’t take everyone from the orphanages. They were more scrupulous in their choosing of the orphans than they were with the street walkers. They would gather all the children between the ages of three to thirteen, separate the boys from the girls, the sick from the healthy, and then take the strongest of the group. They did not discriminate by race or gender, merely by whether or not their bodies would be suitable. Suitable for what?, you may ask.
The training facilities, they’d answer.
The government started underground, top secret training facilities to house the unwanted filth in the world. They weren’t exactly classified; the public knew about them but, just like everything else, they remained ignorant to it all. Because how can one worry about someone else when they had themselves to take care of? Even if they did care, which very few ever did, how could they admit to themselves that they stood by and watched as these helpless children were carried away by force? Be it guilt or greed, no one paid them any mind. They were free to take us as they pleased, do with us as they pleased. We lived in those facilities that were more like prisons, went through the works of militaristic training. We were designed and raised to kill. The perfect weapons for war, the perfect assassins for the CIA. We were anything they wanted us to be.
Their toy soldiers. And no one could stop them.
We were all children with no families. Children with no homes to miss let alone return to if we couldn’t take the heat. We were the abandoned children, born into families that had no room for waste, to people that didn’t have time to stop and smell the roses. We were the unwanted in an unwanted world. We were free for the taking and no one would ever raise a finger to oppose them. My parents were dead. My mother was a nameless woman washed away in the rain. My father?
They told me my father was dead. A couple months ago, that statement became true.
I killed him with my own hands.
I was raised an orphan though I did not grow up in the orphanage at which I was left. In those times, money was a rare commodity and most families had to make certain alterations to their lifestyle in order to live cheaper and save money. For most people, that meant getting rid of a kid or two. That abandoned child I mentioned, fighting for their life? That was not an uncommon sight in the back streets of our wonderful world. People either didn’t know about them or they just didn’t pay attention. Both are possible. But that was not my life. I was brought to an orphanage rather than abandoned on the streets, one of the lucky thousands out of the unlucky millions. They took me in and nurtured me to health, apparently I was half dead, and when I was old enough to understand, they told me what my tragic tale was.
Both of my parents were dead.
Not so tragic, not so uncommon. My mother died with me in her arms. Okay, that’s a bit stranger than most kids’ stories. My mother was murdered and spent the last of her time among the living bringing me to safety. Now we’re talking. When I was brought to said orphanage, I was carried in the arms of a woman who was out of breath, desperate for help, and losing blood quickly. As she ran up the stairs to the orphanage, she left a distinguished red trail behind her, her legs barely even strong enough to get her up the steps. She collapsed at the top, the head guy of the orphanage reaching her just in time to catch her before her head hit the stone steps. Her name was unknown. The name of the child in her arms was unknown. Just who had shot her and why was unknown.
All they knew was that on that night, a trail of blood was washed away by the pouring rain, never to be noted or missed or even commented on by anyone outside the orphanage. Not quite unlike the woman whose body was picked up and discarded of in the morning, without a word, never to be missed or remembered. Just like that, swept away in the rain, a human being disappeared. And no one even cared. It was just so . . . tragic.
But the world keeps moving.
The child that was held ever so tightly and safe in that woman’s arms was me. The woman, my mother. The only words she managed to spit out before croaking was “Take him away”. Such sweet parting words, dear mother. Though I suppose I can’t be too bitter; she did die saving me. And that’s the story of my mother. How I came to be at this orphanage. Though, as I said, I was not raised in that orphanage. There were far too many children being abandoned for orphanages to carry. When there’s a problem, who comes to the rescue?
The government, of course.
The government took note of the overwhelming numbers of abandoned children and the lack of the proper facilities to house and feed them. What few orphanages there were didn’t have enough beds or clothes or food for the entire homeless community. There were still the numerous street walkers that were unaccounted for. And every day, more and more children joined their ranks. So what did the government do? Did they take all those wonderful tax payers’ money and build more institutions for the homeless, strengthen the ones there were? Did they sweep in and save the day, carrying off the poor little children to bigger and better places where they could live happily?
Who the hell are you trying to fool?
They swept in, all right. They swept the streets for the wandering, went to every orphanage in the city to take away the unsightly plague on humanity. It was just like your modern day holocaust. These were kids with no parents, no form of family or care taker. They could die like rats in the sewers and no one would shed a tear. So when they were taken away, it was not in a courteous, kind fashion. They were hunted like animals, captured and thrown in the back of large trucks to be hauled away without argument. No one could fight them. No one wanted to. No one had the strength to. We began to wonder if we even had the right to.
The government officials were slightly more civilized when they went to the orphanages. They spoke with the care takers in order to be able to take the vermin off their hands, out of their care. And they didn’t take everyone from the orphanages. They were more scrupulous in their choosing of the orphans than they were with the street walkers. They would gather all the children between the ages of three to thirteen, separate the boys from the girls, the sick from the healthy, and then take the strongest of the group. They did not discriminate by race or gender, merely by whether or not their bodies would be suitable. Suitable for what?, you may ask.
The training facilities, they’d answer.
The government started underground, top secret training facilities to house the unwanted filth in the world. They weren’t exactly classified; the public knew about them but, just like everything else, they remained ignorant to it all. Because how can one worry about someone else when they had themselves to take care of? Even if they did care, which very few ever did, how could they admit to themselves that they stood by and watched as these helpless children were carried away by force? Be it guilt or greed, no one paid them any mind. They were free to take us as they pleased, do with us as they pleased. We lived in those facilities that were more like prisons, went through the works of militaristic training. We were designed and raised to kill. The perfect weapons for war, the perfect assassins for the CIA. We were anything they wanted us to be.
Their toy soldiers. And no one could stop them.
We were all children with no families. Children with no homes to miss let alone return to if we couldn’t take the heat. We were the abandoned children, born into families that had no room for waste, to people that didn’t have time to stop and smell the roses. We were the unwanted in an unwanted world. We were free for the taking and no one would ever raise a finger to oppose them. My parents were dead. My mother was a nameless woman washed away in the rain. My father?
They told me my father was dead. A couple months ago, that statement became true.
I killed him with my own hands.