Possessed Soul

Prologue

Prologue

Sage Foster

I vaguely remember fainting in assembly, but not much after that. It's like my mind had cloaked the incident of a couple of hours ago, keeping me from accessing the memories of what had actually happened. It comes back to me in little snippets here and there. Like now I remember my best friend telling me I looked pale. But accessing the memories only works when I'm not thinking about the incident. So that's what I try to do now: not think about it. Easier said than done when there's a tube attached to my wrist and a plastic bag pumping fluid into my veins.

She caught my eye, the brat across from me. I had no clue why she was here; she seemed perfectly fine. There she was, stuffing sweets in her mouth and here I was fighting to remember exactly how I had gotten here. I would have liked to remember the drive here. I've always wanted to drive in an ambulance and I had a feeling that my dream had come true. But what was the use if I couldn't remember any of it?

The girl continued to munch loudly, so that I could hear each squelch of the sticky caramels. She thought I cared that she had sweets and I didn't, but I really couldn't care less. I wouldn't have been able to keep it down anyway, and if I could my mother would have bought me something. Something better than sweets, perhaps chocolate cake. Usually, my mouth salivated at the thought of anything sweet, but not this time. I was too sick to even think of food. I had tried to eat French fries, but the minute a single piece made its way down my throat, it was brought back up in the form of bile and phlegm. I had gotten used to holding a plastic bowl in my lap, just in case.

The boy next to me was driving me nuts with his constant coughing and gasping. I suddenly felt guilty; it wasn't his fault he was coughing, nor was it his fault that he was attached to a giant tent that seemed to be helping him breathe.

I drove thoughts of he boy and girl out of my head and chose to focus on the drip-drip sound of the fluid bag, but it wasn't long before the clicking of heels drove all other sounds out of my head and became my sole focus.

"How are you feeling?" My mother entered the room with a doctor close on her heels.

She is a beautiful woman, and I'm not only saying that because she's my mother. I often hear people compliment her looks. She is tall and lean, and completely dwarfed the doctor behind her. She was blocking him from my view, just the way I preferred it.

I shrugged in reply to her question. I was feeling better, but not better enough to want to get rid of all the attention that was on me. I was quite liking the nurses fluffing my pillow and seeing to my every need.

My mother sat down next to me, causing the bed to tilt downwards. Her long black hair was piled on top of her head and stuck through with a pencil in a very hurried manner. She gently laid the back of her hand on my forehead and used her other hand to sweep my hair out of my face.

"Her fever's gone down," my mother observed.

The doctor pushed his spectacles onto the bridge of his nose and surveyed my mother with an air of superiority. "We have equipment to tell us that," he replied.

"Well," my mother started, and I could tell from the way she squared her shoulders that she was irritated, "do you think you could get some of your equipment out of my daughter?" She stressed the word equipment.

The bald doctor muttered something unintelligible under his breath and called one of the nurses to him, instructing her to remove the various pipes and tubes from my body. And as she took each bit out it looked like they were unravelling an Egyptian Mommy, only the Mummy was wrapped in plastic instead of paper. The doctor examined me quickly, not wanting to test my mother's patience anymore. It wasn't a thorough check-up, just a few pokes here and there and asking if I was hurting anywhere or if I was feeling faint.

"Ready to leave, baby?" My mother smoothed my hair back and looked at me from under her long lashes.

Kaden Blythe

My father's funeral was small and intimate. Not many people came. I liked to think it was because they were busy, and not because they didn't care about what had happened to him. When my father died it felt like a large part of me was ripped out and trampled on by a stampede of elephants. And I couldn't stop crying. Just as clouds weep for the loss of the sun, I wept for the loss of the one person in the world who cared for me.

I was seated in a chair and my short legs dangled over the grass not able to reach down far enough to touch it. I couldn't help thinking that this was just like how I now wouldn't be able to touch happiness.

I wasn't sure what was going to happen to me now. What did happen to an eleven-year-old boy when his only parent died? Either he gets adopted by a relative or he ends up in the Orphan Asylum. The Orphan Asylum was a fancy name for a factory that ran on child labour. I had already decided that if I did end up in the Orphan Asylum, which was highly likely, I'd make a plan to run away and survive on the streets. I could polish shoes for a living; lots of businessmen needed their shoes polished.

The pastor said the last words and my father's coffin was slowly lowered into the ground. I recognised the face of my aunt as she threw a pile of dirt onto the coffin. She was a slight woman with a stern face. Her eyes were grey, and they always seemed lifeless. Maybe she would adopt me since she had no children of her own. I never liked her. But being with someone you don't like would be better than living in the Orphan Asylum.

"Sorry about your father." A gentleman with a black umbrella over his head sat next to me. I had thought rain and funerals were a thing for the movies. Well, guess I was wrong. I wish I had brought an umbrella with me. My hair was dripping, and it was plastered to my cheeks. My clothes had become uncomfortable and I found myself constantly squirming. "He was a good man," the man continued.

"How did you know my father?" I asked, not having seen this man before.

"He was a friend of mine," came the reply. My father's friend was a large man. I could see the lines of muscles through his black coat and his eyes were the deepest blue. He looked like a version of James Bond. I wanted to ask him if he was a secret agent, but I held my tongue. I didn't want anyone to laugh at me, not on this sorrowful day. "With whom are you going to live with now?" he inquired.

I shrugged as more tears gathered in my eyes.

***

I winced as the whip came into contact with my bare back. I didn't dare look up at his face, because I knew he was just waiting for some reaction out of me.

"Faster, boy!" Mr Frits shouted, bringing his whip down again.

I hauled another sack of rice onto the conveyor belt, well aware of the blood trickling down my back. Blood had become a normal part of my everyday life.

I sometimes escaped the pain by thinking of my father. If I concentrated hard enough, I could see the outline of his face in my head; but my memories of him were slowly slipping away. I guess that was the point of the Asylum: they made you forget who you were and turned you into a machine. In this place I was just a number without a name, without an identity. I worried that if this went on much longer, I might forget my name.

"Kaden," someone called out to me. I initially thought that the voice was in my head, reminding me what my name was. That is until I saw him, the man from my father's funeral that had taken place nearly a year ago. The one I had thought was a James Bond.

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