His Sour Lemon #2.1

Part 6: Sensory Overload

CHAPTER 6: Sensory Overload

April 18th, 2028.
11:05 pm, Outskirts of New York City, America.
Fitzgerald Orphanage, Range Recruitment Centre.

I heard life outside of a single, narrow mind is outside of dreaming and thinking reality has it's one path, discouragement and disappointed not are...well, they're normal. There is no normal when fighting for one's life and that's just what I've been doing since I was born. Skinny with my skin not lagging, I had muscle the longer time passed and I was still alive. It was a strange discouragement for the people who believe leaving a child chained in a basement against the snow with no warmth or comfort possibly seen, no warmth reachable to touch with my bare hands.

And boy, did I want to touch a sliver of warmth before the day I breathe my last breath.

I think they believed I should have...died at some point, perhaps when I was six years old and had to watch another girl, beaten to death and Brough to the room to see my eyes, or hear my voice before they past. It was a haunting sense that still lingered around me, as if I bid their souls farewell, while I waited for mine to leave my body everyday I stay locked in this freaking orphanage they call home.

What is 'home'?

Some says it's a place where you stop running.

This place is not home for me.

For any child.

Considering all anyone wants to do is run from it.

You'd think the adults in place here would grow sick of hitting children, grow sick of starving them, of dealing with their cries, their screams and their quick deaths. I don't know many others who have survived as long as I have. Maybe it's in my blood to keep running, to keep think that if I could just get out and survive...there would be warmth for me in the end.

I am eight years old...at least I think. I don't know.

I've never had a birthday.

I've never celebrated a certain date I was supposedly brought to this earth. I only know the year and for now, it's enough to tell me I'm either eight or nine years old and I had enough strength, enough anger and fight in my bones to beat this, to fight this.

I wouldn't stay in this.

I wouldn't force myself to conjure any more of this bullshit. Any more deaths, any more screams or tears that haunt my vision and steal my wish to dream happy dreams...whatever those are anyway.

I needed to do something and this time, it was my time too.

This time, I wouldn't stop like the idiot six year old I was. I won't raise my hand.

I won't alert the rest.

I'll only do what I can.

And that will be to run.

Because this time, I had no choice.

I was running.

I was fighting.

I was going to survive.

*******

March 15th, 2042.
9:18 pm, London, United Kingdom.
Advanced Business Engagements Academy (Private Business Institution), Sylvan Lakeshore.

I roll my fingers around the gauze and snap my biceps back, drilling it straight into the punching bag. I knew Melanie had avoided me once again like the plague all week and I find myself punching the bag harder, kicking it with a stronger momentum. I spent all of afternoon working out and by the time I look at my watch to see it's half past nine in the evening, I clench my jaw.