I rewrote some of it.

The prose from the last post. I re-wrote the beginning into something that is half decent. I didn't proof read it, I just re-wrote it into something better. Do I think it's publish-worthy? No. But it's sure as hell a better read that what it used to be.

For the record, credit still goes to the original writer.



Through some unfortunate twist of events, I never got to meet my mother or father.

The start of my life was an all-too-common story, finding me abandoned in the streets one stormy winter night, left to fend for myself on an unlit doorstep. By a miracle, the family residing in the household I laid before heard my piteous cries and brought me into their home. By that time, they’d often told me, I had almost frozen to death.

I grew up ignorant of myself. The family that had brought me into this world had left me nothing; I had not a name, not a home, not even a birthday. All I had of a life long gone was an old golden locket that my adopted parents kept “safe” in a cabinet full of other things they’d rather not lose. I’d held the locket only once, when I was about five years old (by the family’s guess). Inside, there was only an old, crumpled photo, jammed in as tight as the locket could manage. The woman pictured, we assumed, had to be my mother.

It wasn’t exactly a horrid life, growing up with that family. They fed me, clothed me, and bought me expensive things. But it was all money. I never felt that they had any compassion for me; the little time they did spend at home they spent lecturing me on work not done, or avoiding any questions I ventured to put forth. To them, life was business. You worked hard and were rewarded with wealth, and that was that.

By fifteen, I was desperate. Watching the other children at school growing up and witnessing everything from a mother hugging her child as they left for a day of class to a father clapping his son on the back for a job well done was entirely infuriating. I wanted that support and couldn’t understand why my adopted family couldn’t do something so simple as comforting me when I needed it.

The problems didn’t lessen as I aged. The one time I thought to ask about finding my real family, my adopted father had fixed me with his blunt gaze and replied, “don’t bother. They didn’t want you to begin with.”

And with that, my will broke. I didn’t want to remain in the flat, lifeless existence my life had come to be. I wanted out, anything would have been better in my mind. It was time to act. Holding that thought in my immediate conscience, I made the decision that would forever change my life.

At some point in their life, almost everyone thinks of running away. Few go through with it. I did.

That night, I packed what few things I deemed valuable enough to take with me and left my room for what I hoped would be the final time.