Life and Death {Enoch O'Connor}

4

Sometimes Enoch wished he was a normal kid.

On the occasion he found himself leaving the children's home to visit the town of Cairnholm, he always watched the people go about their daily lives.

They had no clue what he could do - or that peculiars even existed at all. To them, the most peculiar happening was when a local drunkard didn't visit the pub one day.

Their lives were completely ordinary - and Enoch was jealous of that.

If he was normal, he'd probably still be living in his village in Scotland. He may be finishing school, or working at his parents funeral parlor, which was surely busy the past few years. Maybe he would even be fighting in the war, himself.

If he were normal, he wouldn't have had to deal with being an outcast back home. He would have had friends - maybe even a relationship. He would have great memories of joking around in school, playing football in the fields, or drinking too much with his mates.

But he wasn't normal.

Instead, he got stuck with a power that no one really desired. He was seen as a freak by his classmates and grew up alone. He was terrorized by monsters and forced to leave his parents - and his sister.

Everything would have been much better for him if he weren't born with the ability to raise the dead - Or if he weren't born in the first place.

But here he was, peculiarity and all.

Today, Enoch had been sent by Miss Peregrine to purchase some pork for dinner, but he took the visit as a chance to get some time alone. He was always surrounded by children at the home and sometimes longed to get some time away from them all.

Taking his time as he trekked down to the village, he passed fields of sheep, farmers toting their wares on horse and cart, and a small group of kids playing rugby in a muddy clearing.

He often found himself watching the kids on the island. There weren't many, other than those living in the children's home, but there were still a fair few that he often saw around the town. Some appeared to be around his age but he had never once talked to them. Most of the island kids avoided the children living in the home. They knew that the children were different - they just didn't know how.

Sometimes, as he passed by small groups of them, he wished they would come talk to him. Maybe ask him to join them in a game of football or go to a party. But that was never the case. Usually, he just got stared down by the Welsh natives until he left to go back to the children's home.

Entering the main part of town, few people seemed to pay him any mind. They either recognized him as one of the kids who lived in the home, or just didn't bother enough to care who he was. They went about with their shopping, chatted with their neighbors, or stumbled back from the pub.

A bell chimed as he entered the butcher shop.

The butcher, a heavy older man with a scruffy black beard, emerged from the back room, wiping his bloody hands on the already stained apron.

"Chicken blood," he assured the patron who he'd come to help.

But Enoch wasn't bothered by the blood. It wasn't something that he hadn't seen before.

If he weren't peculiar and fated to live in a loop all his life, maybe he would have been a butcher. That is if he didn't decide to follow in his parent's footsteps as an undertaker. He already knew most of the skill required to butcher animals, it wouldn't be too difficult. Maybe, if he reached his 18th birthday before Miss Peregrine made the loop, he would ask to get a job.