Sentiment of a Witness

𝚂𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝙾𝚕𝚍... 𝚂𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝙾𝚕𝚍?

Another month went by, and nothing got better, not that I had expected it would – by the age of nine, I should have surely known how this would go. I certainly do now, fifteen years later.

My life fell into yet another routine – get up, get breakfast, stay in my room to avoid everyone, go to lunch, participate in whatever horrid group activity was planned for the day, escape everyone again by going to my room before dinner was served. And then, depending on what day it was and how lucky I was, either go back to my room and wash up and sleep or get caught up with Todd and have some ridiculous consequence because I was the so-called 'problem child.'

Yeah, forget what I said in the last chapter about being lucky to have a roof over my head and shit – it really sucked. No child deserved a shelter like this. I was just too naïve to see it. Too full of hope, somehow. Or maybe of false hop installed by my parents. Either way, it's been dead for many years.

The Larommi Orphanage had started taking visitors on Thursday afternoons after a report was filed about the lack of healthcare for the children living there. The visitors were typically doctors and psychologists, most graduates of the exclusive Wundrous Society. I hated it – my parents had often talked about it, about friends who'd learnt there and so on and so forth. I guess I was afraid. Afraid of meeting more people like my parents, or worse – being recognised and sent back to them.

Those Thursday afternoons were the only time the orphanage actually seemed welcoming, fun and friendly. The only time it ever felt humane – no kids were screaming at each other, no kids locked in cupboards, no sheepwun called Trollis Trotters telling you that if you don't stay out of trouble, you'll be sent to Mr Wevil.

I had come to really look forward to these afternoons, just to escape. Of course, I would try to avoid the workers if possible, but when I couldn't, I didn't really mind – they were rather nice. And they brought a new light in on the Gossamer. They were like candles in a cellar, the stars in the sky.

One of my favourite Society workers was an extremely ginger man whose name I didn't find out for quite a while. But he was up to something. So I followed him one day, and he was inspecting the walls, visiting and revisiting particular parts of the orphanage and making a note – mentally, of course – of where the doors and windows were located.

Despite this strange thing he did every time he visited Larommi, I really liked the odd ginger man with sparkling blue eyes. Something about him just made me feel like I wasn't what my parents thought I was, that I could belong somewhere. But that place was not Larommi; I knew that much.

When the Society members were not there, everything was nearly worse than usual. I felt like I was trapped back in my room in the Forest of Somerher, terrified to leave because I didn't want to be hit or scratched or accused of anything. I didn't want to be locked up or chained. And I especially didn't want to be sent to Mr Wevil – he was like the dean of torture for children.

It really was awful. Mr Clive Wevil had been there since most of the other adult workers had been kids there – no one had ever escaped the psychopathic sheepwun's jail for kids. They were purely mad, power-hungry and possibly torn up inside from a past traumatic incident, as the Gossamer would read, but I tried not to think about that – Witnesses equal trouble and nosiness. Nobody likes trouble or nosiness.

But I had a feeling that everything was going to change soon, for better and not for worse. And I also had a feeling that it had something to do with the mysterious ginger-headed Society member whose name is Jupiter North.

Written: 2 + 5 August, 2021

Published: 5 August, 2021

See? I told you it's getting better! :D