Escape artistry

1. Izuna's magic rooftop (then)

Most, if not all, people went through their lives with several turning points along the way.

Izuna was no different. One of those time, maybe the first major one, was when he turned thirteen. The turning point in itself wasn't a major occurrence. It was just the simple fact that his favourite time of day changed from morning to night. It was the reason behind that change that was.

Since as long as he could remember, he had loved mornings. Especially the time of day that was so early, none of the other children of the orphanage had yet woken.

Izuna's internal clock always woke him up at around five in the morning. In the winter, the Russian sun would not yet have risen, while in the summer, it wouldn't even have set. He would tip-toe over the wooden floors of the bedroom, carefully avoiding the floorboard he knew creaked so as not to wake up the other boys he shared bedroom with, and open the window.

He would climb out into the grid landing below. It was located several stories up, but he had started his morning adventures when he was too little for fear, and so he didn't mind the height now, either. 

He would clamber up the fire ladder, the red bricks of the orphanage that had been his home for as long as he had memories providing the backdrop, until he reached the roof. There, he would sit down and hug his knees, look out over the lower roofs of the village below and just breathe.

He would let his mind wander to wherever it needed to go in order to deal with a life that was much too rough for such a young child. Sometimes, it was a particularly daunting book the orphanage teacher, an elderly man who was a retired professor who now volunteered his time here, had bestowed on him, his star pupil. Sometimes, it was a simple math question, a language Izuna struggled to speak, as opposed to the written one. Sometimes, he counted his miseries, because God knew they were many. But just as many were his blessings, so he sometimes counted them, too.

He sat until he heard the seven o'clock toll of the village church. Then, he quietly crept back down the stairs, through the window, around the squeaky floorboard and into his bed before all the alarms of the orphanage rang fifteen minutes later, all at once.

But the bliss of mornings would soon be exchanged for the bliss of night when a new boy came to the orphanage. 

Izuna loved books and he loved reading. Fantasy, romance, autobiographies, good books, bad books... He would devour everything.

The mistress of the boy's orphanage was adamant about the young boys' education. No woman would ever marry an orphan if that orphan didn't owe up to what he lacked in social status by what he had gained in education, she would rally. And so they were forcefully schooled from a young age to excel.

Most boys didn't excel, however, just as people in the wide world didn't excel. Not that Izuna knew much about that; he didn't even know who his parents had been or how they had died, much less did he know about how the world outside worked. But Izuna had been remarkable in that he could read from a very young age. The mistress had been delighted to discover him reading complex classics at the age of four, while most children just tore apart simple alphabet books.

"Just you wait!" the stern mistress had said in a rare display of affection. "You'll be adopted in no time!"

But Izuna didn't get adopted. Turned out the couples who came every Saturday to gaze at the children as if they were animals on zoo, to then pick out the lucky one to follow them home, wanted either sweet girls they could dress up in pink lace and ribbons, or playful boys they could teach to play ball. Izuna, with his sweet demeanour and feminine appearance, was neither. Although Izuna didn't mind much. He was happy as long as he had his books. 

The mistress, however, was not happy. Her eyes when she looked at little Izuna went from starry-eyes to uncomfortable. When his true schooling began at the age of six, and it was discovered how much difficulty he had with maths, it went from uncomfortable to pure disgust.

So Izuna started to escape to his magical morning roof with his thoughts and his magical books to prepare for a day of nasty looks for the mistress, as a way of balancing the discomfort it caused him with some happiness in his life. The years passed, and Izuna turned thirteen. Most of his friends had gotten adopted. Those who weren't were enjoying the luxury of growing from scrawny boys to strong young men, which would mean a second wave of families who were ready to adopt would come and grab them, desiring a helping hand at home. But Izuna remained undesired, still unable to calculate, but still in love with the magic of his roof and the magic of his books.

Then, one day, they lost one of the boys in the bedroom.

It wasn't unusual that a boy died in the orphanage. This was Russia at war-time, and infectious diseases spread easily in the quite poorly sanitary situation. This boy got pneumonia and died.

And all of the boys knew that an empty bed meant a bed that could be filled. They all waited for the toddler who would inevitably come.

But it wasn't a toddler.