Chapter Text
~ Prologue ~
It would be time for him to be six soon.
The nurses would show their teeth at him as they did sometimes and tell him it was his birthday. He didn’t really know what a birthday was or why it would make him another number. All he knew was that it was special enough for them all to be given a piece of cake after they finished their dinner. At least, that’s what had happened when it had been time for him to be five. He remembered.
A month ago it had been time for one of the other boys to be six, an exact year from the time it had been time for him to be five. The cake had been chocolate.
He was fairly sure that it had been time for another one of the boys to be seven yesterday since it had been a year from when it had been him for him to be six.
This time, however, there had been no cake because now there were no other boys.
One of the nurses had placed a box on his bed and he was putting his clothes into it as he'd been told to do, carefully not looking at the other three beds in the small windowless room he’d slept in for as long as he could remember.
All his life he’d lived here with the other three boys. This place, with its white rooms within and the walled play area in the back was all the world he knew. He was a good reader and had read books that had such things as mothers, fathers and schools in them. But he didn’t really understand what they were or why they were important.
Sometimes there was another boy.
Simon lived somewhere else and a man he called ‘Dad’ would occasionally bring him to play. They always smiled. It was one of the things that made Simon and the Dad-man special. When they bared their teeth you knew they meant something nice by it. He’d been the only one who had ever wanted to play with Simon. The other boys said he wasn’t one of them and were mad when he played with Simon anyway. He hadn’t cared. He didn’t understand why Simon always seemed to be so happy but seeing the other boy smile had always made him happier.
Mostly, however, it was only the four of them and the nurses and doctors and guards who watched and did nothing when the other boys pushed him down and said he couldn’t play in the places they wanted to play. Sometimes they hit him, clawed at him or even bit him and the watchers would murmur words he didn’t know the meaning of. Words like hierarchy and outcast.
When the doctors weren’t there to hear, the nurses pinched and called them “little beasts.”
It wasn’t that he minded that they were gone, not really. It only meant that there was no one to push him down or take away the toys he wanted play with. He liked that they weren’t there any more, even if it was sometimes too quiet now.
He still didn’t look over at that part of the room, though, because it was in that corner that The Incident had happened. That was what the nurses and doctors called it when they talked together. The Incident.
Not long ago a younger nurse had come. She’d smiled, like Simon and the Dad-man, and told them stories about the world outside the walls of this place. She’d brought treats for them like candy bars and soda pop. She’d always smelled fresh, like she carried with her the smells of all those things beyond this place that he didn’t understand but wanted to know about. He’d liked her. He'd liked her stories and the way she smelled and the way she smiled, instead of just barring her teeth as the other nurses did. He’d never been hugged by anyone before she’d come and though they’d made him uncomfortable at first, he’d found that once he’d got used to them he liked hugs.
The other boys, however, had seen her only as a source of treats. Someone they could manipulate. Someone weak.
Then the other nurses had found out about the treats and told her she couldn't bring them anymore.
She’d come to them and told them she was sorry. That night she'd come into their room that night to "tuck them in" as she often did even though they were all old enough to get into bed by themselves. The other boys had thought that she'd bring them treats anyway. But there weren't any treats and she’d told them that there wouldn’t be any more ever. Then they got mad and stopped being nice, demanding their treats.
They had backed her into a corner and when she kept saying she couldn’t bring any more… He didn’t like to think about that. About the smell of fear and blood. The sound of her screaming as they’d hit and clawed and bitten as they had only ever done to him before.
He'd run to the door, which was locked as always, and banged on it until his hands were sore. He'd shouted and screamed and made more noise than he ever had before in his life.
The guards had come and they’d taken him to another room where the nurses gave him cookies and milk and told him he was a good boy, that he’d done the right thing. They told him they were proud of him. They hadn’t seemed proud though. Their eyes were hard and they smelled afraid.
He never saw that nurse again and when he’d been taken back to his room in the morning the other boys’ things were gone. No one said where they’d gone and he hadn’t asked. Questions had never been listened to or answered so it never occurred to him to ask.
After, he learned a new word. One they whispered to each other as they looked at him.
Dangerous.
Now the nurses seemed afraid whenever they came near him and never did so without a guard. He was a good boy, everyone said so. It didn’t stop them being afraid, though, and he didn’t know why.
Today the man Simon called ‘Dad’ had come to see him. He’d still smiled and had come into the room without a guard. He didn’t seem afraid at all. He’d brought a construction set for him that the box said had more two hundred and fifty pieces.
He often brought gifts, always brought smiles and never brought fear.
“How would you like to come home with me?” he’d asked.
“Home?” It was a word he’d read but he wasn’t entirely sure what it meant.
“Where I live. Away from here. With Simon. Now that the other boys are gone...” He had trailed off before starting again. “Dr. Banks has agreed to let you come live with us. Would you like that?”
It hadn’t required any thought at all. To live somewhere where there were smiles and no one was afraid sounded very nice. He’d got up from the table, construction set in his hand and had been ready to leave right then.
He couldn’t, though, he was told. First he had to put all his clothes into a box so he could take them with him. So, that was what he was doing.
“Almost done?” the Dad-man asked, coming into the room behind him.
He nodded, putting the last few shirts in and carefully placing his gift on top. He picked up his box, ready.
The man took the box and put it under one arm, taking the boy’s hand with his free one. It felt strange for someone to hold on to him like that. Except for that one, the doctors and nurses had never touched any of them if they could help it. Except sometimes, when the nurses slapped or pinched when no one was looking.
The two of them walked past the nurse’s station with the locked door that was the farthest from his room he had ever been and into corridors he’d never seen before.
Then there were big glass doors that opened all on their own as they approached and outside… There was a place with many cars in it and beyond that a road. He knew they were cars and what was past them was a road because he’d read about them and seen pictures in books. But he’d never guessed that the cars would be so big and shiny or that when they drove by on the road they would go so fast or be so noisy.
The only outside he’d known was the walled in playground but past the road were fields and trees and more buildings. He’d never in his few years been anywhere so open, so exposed.
The Dad-man squeezed his hand and suddenly the boy was very grateful indeed for the hand he held.
“It’s all right, Derek,” he said kindly. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
He started to tremble as he stepped beyond the doors and into the world outside but he trusted the man Simon called ‘Dad’. Trusted him even when he wanted him to get into one of those noisy cars and go fast down that road to the place he called ‘home’.