Life at the orphanage
Harry was sitting on his bed staring at the wall reminiscing of the past week. He hated the orphanage it was dark, dusty, mean and cold. All the kids and ‘caretakers’ where mean, they beat him and called him names like the “Devil”. But what he hated most was Church, they made all the kids go there every Sunday while the pastor preached about internal happiness if they were good followers of God. Harry found these people hypercritical; he saw his caretakers being called “good people” even though they beat him and all the children for the smallest inconvenience. Harry all of a sudden became aware of the burning feeling on his back. All he did was steal a muffin, apparently that earns 20 lashes on his back with a belt. Scowling to himself he got up and left to head to the library.
The one thing Harry like about the orphanage was the library. It was small but was full of books, he spent most of his time in the library when he wasn’t in his room. He was peeved that he couldn’t bring books to his room, but it made sense. On his way there a few kids saw him and decided that he would be easy target. Harry inwardly groaned, there was allot of other kids in the hallway too, he hated attention.
“Hey freak!” Said the tall, older kid Harry assumed he was the leader of the group. Some of the kids in the crowd turned over to them.
“What is it?” Harry asked attempting to keep his voice calm, even though he was inwardly screaming. Harry learned that showing emotions was weak, and people would take advantage it.
The kid didn’t respond but had pushed him on the ground, at this point the majority of kids were looking at them. Before he could get up the kid was on top of him, pinning him down. This kid than had the audacity to punch him of his face. Anger filled in his veins. He hated these kids, he wished that they could just disappear. Harry wanted to leave this place forever and be free and powerful. A second later the pressure he was feeling on his body seized, and he was hearing screaming. ‘Had I been screaming?’ Harry thought to himself, until he looked around to see the horror in everyone’s face. Then he saw it. The kid who had been punching him was now on the floor. Screaming. He was shaking and contorting, this lasted for a few pleasurable seconds until a caretaker grabbed him and shoved him into a wall.
Harry was beat to the point of falling out of consciousness. It took him five days to heal, unlike the usual two days. Harry learned he could heal faster then the average kid.
For the next month all the kids just looked at him with fear, Harry didn’t blame them. The six-year-old boy now just spent all of his time in his room, he ‘ borrowed’ the books he wanted to read. Though in all reality he knew he wouldn’t return them. Harry was now practicing his power was much as he possibly could, he couldn’t have the incident happen again, no matter how much he wanted to do it again. Practicing his power was hard though, no matter how hard he tried he wasn’t improving very fast on controlling it. If anything, it made his accidental power happen more. Or at least it felt like that. The only thing he managed to learn is willingly making himself warm, but he feels exhausted after it, so he only practices it when it super cold.
when all the shock died down everything seemed to have gone back to normal, other than some anxious looks passing when he walked in the halls. The other kids never hit him again, mainly just insults and empty promises to assault him. but his ‘caretakers’ have only gotten crueler, other than one. Sister Abbot. She seemed to have taken to liking to him, she always made sure he had a chance to eat. She even lent some ‘big kid’ books to him, only with the promise he would give them back once he was done. He gladly agreed. It made the other kids jealous and as a result the bullying got worse, but he couldn’t care less he was so happy to have made a friend.
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Harry had just turned seven, when his caretakers said that they would be going to the zoo to get ‘fresh air’. Harry was so excited; he’d never been to the zoo! An hour later they had arrived at the destination, they were going to be in pairs. His favorite caretaker, (Sister Abbot) had paired up with him and two other kids. Thomas Thatcher, an average height, but was skinny for his age, he was thirteen. Which wasn’t too surprising, you’ll be lucky if you get a sandwich with cheese in it. As for the other person, she was small and skinny, she was four. Sister Abbot was short, plump, and had straight fiery red hair.
The zoo trip was fairly normal, he was having fun. Harry had begged Sister Abbot to see the reptiles and snakes, she was hesitant because they were ‘evil’ she agreed though. When they arrived, the other kids ran to the Komodo dragons, as for Harry he walked over to a king cobra. Sister Abbot seemed distracted with the other kids, so he turned over to snake and whispered,
“Hello?” Harry asked cautiously
The snake turned over to him, confused, and surprised before it hesitantly answering the curious boy. “You can talk to snakes?”
“Yes. Can I ask you some questions? I’m very curious on what its like to live in the zoo.” Harry states practically beaming. ‘This is the first time I actually got to have a decent conversation in a while’ Harry thinks to himself while staring at the befuddled snake.
“Ah, yes. It’s quite annoying actually, at least my keepers are decent. Most of the time though its just brats making fun of me for being ‘scary’” The Cobra sneers. The Cobra observes the boy, he’s cute. He has unruly raven black hair, piercing green eyes, and he looks to be five or six years old. Much to his surprise the raven hair looked angry.
“Well, that’s certainly not true! Your very beautiful, or uh handsome. Anyway, what is your name?” Harry asked looking at the creature. He wasn’t lying it has elegant black scales on the top, and a yellowish belly. The snake was just staring at him in shock before it finally replied,
“Thank you. I am a female no worries my name is-“ They were interrupted when he heard footsteps running towards him. It was Thomas Thatcher. He pushed Harry to the side before pressing himself against the glass wall staring at the snake in awe. Harry knew little of the thirteen-year-old, but he knew he hated him already. All of a sudden, the glass disappeared, and Thomas had fell in with the snake. It wasn’t for long though as the snake left the cage and said thanks. When the boy finally got up the glass had returned, trapping him in the enclosure. He looked over to see Sister Abbot heading towards them with an angry expression, she was holding the other kids hand tightly as she dragged her towards them.
In the end they had to leave early, as Thomas was in a state of shock and a Kind Cobra escaped and was running loose. Sister Abbot ignored him from then on. She knew he did it, there was just no proof.
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It has been a week since that incident. Today was a special day, someone would get adopted. Harry was so excited, he was a little older, most people wanted four- or six-year old’s but he was seven not too much of a difference. He put on his best clothes and put more effort into taming his hair. He wore a black pants, and a emerald green button up shirt, his hair was short and sleeked to the side. Harry quickly walked downstairs and lined up with the rest of the twelve kids.
Two minutes later the couple had arrived. It was two women; they both were fairly tall and pale, one had bright blonde hair, and the other one had curly black hair. Harry assumed that they were adopting because they couldn’t have kids and didn’t feel comfortable with having someone else impregnant them. They immediately walked over to him with warm smiling faces, Harry beamed at them. He was sent to his room so they could have more of a private conversation. This was one of the few times Harry was happy that he didn’t have to share a room like the other kids, usually they were sent to a meeting room. They didn’t come and see him, after ten minutes of waiting he realized that. His ‘caretakers’ typically spend a couple of minutes talking about mental, and physical issues that the child might have. Fifteen minutes later his least favorite ‘caretaker’, Sister Prouse, she was mean but was fairly attractive. She was the main person to beat him, and she was vicious compared to the other Nuns, she was convinced that Harry was the Devil incarnate. She looked at Harry with a mean and ugly smile.
“They didn’t want you.” She said bluntly and left without giving him room to respond. Harry walked up to his window, tears streaming down his face and that’s when he saw them. They were holding the hand of the little four-year-old girl that he met at the zoo. His tears quickly faded away, leaving him feeling cold and numb. He wasn’t mad at the couple, Sister Prouse probably told him on how much of a freak he is. Anger shot up in his body, he could feel his powers boiling under his skin.
Sister Prouse was found with lashes on her back that morning.