The Ranch

Beginning (1)

I look at the boy in front of me as I send him off to The Ranch. I recall my treasured memories of when he first arrived as a baby on the steps of my school orphanage. The ragged blanket wrapped around an innocent but slightly off-putting blue-eyed baby. Brown curls adorned the child's porcelain white skin. We knew the child would definitely grow into a strapping young man, but the longer we stayed around him, the more me and the volunteers felt something was off. We all agreed that being around him, being stared at by his eyes that looked like a frozen lake, made us feel uncomfortable, but we couldn't point out why.

We raised him with the feeling that he would be a mischievous little brat, causing trouble where ever he went, a little devil, but our expectations were unfounded.

Looking back, I'm not sure why we thought so, especially since he grew to be such a quiet child. Well, maybe a better way to describe it would be...unperturbed.

As a babe, he never cried, never laughed, and never spoke a single syllable. He just stared, observed.

When the other kids would play, he would watch. If they asked him to join them, he wouldn't answer.

After a couple tries, the kids gave up and he was left alone to continue observing. When the kids started picking on him, that child would just stare at them with a straight face.

When they took his food or called him names, he would just watch with no emotion. I don't believe I've seen the boy use a single muscle in his face.

The volunteers eventually started voicing their complaints.

"He's weird."

"I think there's something wrong with him."

"He gives me chills whenever I meet eyes with him."

I also started to suspect something was wrong, so I drove him to the nearest city for a check-up.

"Physically, the kid's in perfect health." Is what the doctor said, which I thought was strange, because unlike the other kids, he never moved around much, mostly sitting, walking, or standing. Well, he would climb the occasional tree or two, but I think that's fairly normal?

I also didn't think there was anything wrong with him mentally, he is and has always been the top of his class. If he went to one of the bigger city school, I wouldn't doubt it if he was at the top of all the classes.

He had always been a smart child, maybe even a genius. After we got the 'ok' from the doctor, we returned to the mountains, where the orphanage was located. I thought he was a smart but quiet child. I thought he was an innocent child...

It happened about a month ago, when the child just turned thirteen. We're not actually sure of the specifics, the only other person with the boy was his classmate...his victim.

We have no way of knowing the exact truth. If the victim, Axel, had exaggerated or left out details.

Out of shock and fear, most of us believed everything he said. It didn't help that most of the volunteers had a bad opinion of the boy, but...I can't believe that child would do such a thing...to- to cut Axel's ear off.

It was time for night roll-call but a volunteer noticed two people were missing. Realizing one of the boys was that child, I joined the group search. We searched the surrounding forest for the boys, the sound of crickets croaked along with my old, tense bones.

After about half an hour of walking through the dark greenery with flashlights, we made it to Sunset lake, a well known area that we often use for activities. Along with the sound of crickets, we also heard a faint screaming. Pinpointing the location, our group of five rushed over to an area of flat rocks illuminated by moonlight.