Chapter #5Start of a journey. by: Unknown I am The Hidden.
My real name? Unimportant. You'll just forget it anyways. But if you must call me something, call me Reiter. It means Raptor in English. It's what my 'friends' in the orphanage called me in which I was raised. It was the children's way of degrading me. To make me seem by name less than human. Less than what they were...
Names stick. You never lose them. People would always called me 'Reiter' from then on. It was an evil thing to call a young child. But I suppose, people being as petty as they are, will always feel themselves empowered, if they denounce others.
Age? I sincerely do not know. Precisely how old I am is a mystery to myself. My parents had abandoned me in a gutter. I have no birth certificate to show you.
By any sane standard, I've had a cruel and abusive childhood. By law, it was the orphanage's duty to take me in from the starvation of the streets. But the kids there and the Matron would do anything in their power to make my live a misery in order to kick me out. But I was stubborn. I stayed despite the bullying. Despite the beatings of the Matron. The rest of that backwash, piece of #### rathole town in which I lived wasn't any better.
The community had no reservations when it came to make example of me. I survived being stoned no less than 3 times over the period of a decade. In all three times, they had stopped only when they thought I had been dead, because I had been buried so deep beneath rocks and pebbles that I was completely submerged in earth. 3 times the Constable, the only soul to have pity on me, and then only because it was his duty to uphold the law, unearthed me and nursed me back into a semblance of living.
You see: I am an albino. Something considered akin to an abomination. A freak, a monster. Oh was very human back then. I...WAS very human back then...
But of course being human still didn't prevent the hatred against someone like me. I was certainly NOT a sight for sore eyes. My hair was the colour of ashes and my sickly pale translucent skin that of virgin-snow. My lips were purple from malnutrition and my nails fell out. My skin was wrapped tightly against my skeleton, like ducktape applied too firmly on a present, as a result of starvation and hunger. My bony jaws, shoulders and ribs shone from beneath the tatters which I called my clothing.
The most intimidating of all: my eyes. They were pink-red. Something quite natural for albino's; merely something to do with a lack of pigmentation I would later learn. But I was a foolish child. I believed it when people started whispering that they were the eyes of a demon...
They shone like paraffin lamps out of a cabin against my fair pale skin.
One day my tormentors, 3 large bullies, succeeded in cornering me. They had beaten me to a bloody pulp for 10 minutes, and I still hadn't so much as lifted a finger to save myself. I wouldn't have minded if they had killed me then and there. I didn't have much aspirations to live for, other than the next stolen loath of bread...
But then came a little girl; she couldn't have been more than 8 years of age. Her name was Marta...I think(names are meaningless to me). A fellow orphan.
She rushed and stood in from of me, shielding me from my tormentors with her body. It was rather pathetic.
"Stop hurting Reiter!"
The lead bully made his greatest mistake when he swung the led pipe in his hand against her petite face, sending her sprawling.
For some reason that, THAT, sent me over the edge. One could mutilate and torture me for as much as one likes, but for some reason seeing someone else, seeing that little girl abused as I had been, filled me with molten anger.
I felt rejuvenated. Filled with energy. Or maybe it was just adrenaline. I changed. Transformed. Before my own shocked eyes and their own. My nails grew. Out of my fingers and into razor claws. My toes grew into talons, gleaming silver. Out of my back 2 rods shot from the shoulder-blades. These rods lengthened and slendered. They turned into massive batlike wings. Wings which I flapped wildly and amateurishly.
My sight reddened as if someone had held a crimson tinted vizor in front of my face. With the reddening hazy vision it felt as if someone had packed ice all around my skin; goosebumps covered my entire exterior.
I could see myself clearly in the frames of some broken windows in a shop next to me. It was an intimidating sight. The original me was still there. Somewhat. But I had claws sprouting from my hands, talons from my feet, and wings that fluttered from the torn clothing of my back. Other than that, all was the same as before. I stared agape at myself as you could expect.
What I didn't expect, was the bullies's next words: "Where'd he go?!" asked the lead shakily.
What did he mean? I was standing right before the idiot. But they all stared through me, past me.
"Oh man, I don't like this! That demon-freak looked like he was melting the one moment and the next he just disappeared!"
"I say we get out of here! I can't see Reiter anymore."
"Forget it!" said the lead arrogantly. "I'm not leaving till that freak is scrap beneath my boots! Come out little Reiter!"
Then I understood. I was invisible. I waved to attract their attention, but they remained oblivious to me. I was invisible...
"If you don't come out where we can see you, Reiter, I'm going to start beating this brat!" said the lead and held up Marta by her pigtails. She wailed, begging me to save her.
I didn't keep her waiting for long. The first bully was sent hurling across the plaza to smash like a ragdoll through the window.
"Holy- Where'd that come from?!" I answered him by holding him by the front of his collar into the air; there she swung, drunkenly kicking for air. I was surprisingly strong for my small form.
"Help! Help! A ghost!" he shouted feebly in a shrill voice.
"No! Just Reiter!" I answered with venom.
His eyes widened to saucers and his pupils shrunk to pips. I sent him following the same fate as bully #1.
I turned to the lead. He had a knife out and held it against Marta's neck. How quiant.
"I'm warning you demon-freak! Just come closer; I dare you to see what happens! I knew! I knew you were a monster!" he called out uncertainly to the empty plaza, clearly not knowing where I was.
I dared not speak to reveal my presence, my only hope to resolve this for Marta's safety.
I snuck up on the lead from behind, him still cat-calling to me and gripped the knife's edge with my bare hand. It cost me a hole through the palm, but it ensured Marta's safety. I wrenched his hand backwards and pulled Marta from his reach.
The redness faded from my eyes and I felt as if being remolded like candle wax again, the ice-cold sensation left my skin. I saw my claws retract and my wings regress back into me. The lead bully's scowl unmistakably indicated that he saw me now. I wasn't invisible any longer.
He charged at me, but I just broke his nose as easily as one would push in the lid of a paper coffee-cup. He sank to his knees and I kicked him into the dreamworld...
Tiny Marta screamed at me. Sighing, I let her down.
"You...you really are a monster!" she said pointing at me fearfully. I didn't answer; just stood rock stiff. So she ran and I never saw her again.
I inspected myself. All traces of the shocking transformation was gone. I was the normal unhandsome me. Was it something I could control? I didn't waste time figuring it out here, for I was in great danger as it was.
I stole the clothes from the 3 incapacitated bullies; for I would need them in the cold of winter. I could no longer stay here. I was done with this rotten place and its inhabitants; they would only come to stone me the moment they had found out about what I had done. I neither knew nor cared where I was going.
So I walked. Never looking back on the orphanage.
I was going to find out how to replicate that transformation. How do I become invisible again? Could those wings really fly? I would find out somehow. The invisibility intrigued me most. It was a good thing not to be seen, and I would never make myself seen again.
I had a new name for myself: the Hidden.  | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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