Mɪᴄʜᴀᴇʟ

MICHAEL ORIGIN STORY

Michael stared out the window, ignoring how his snout grew cold from the icy air. The glass panel was open only a tiny fraction to let a breeze in, no more no less. It didn't matter how hard Michael tried to close the gap, it didn't budge. So he stayed, staring out the window.

His parents thought it was cute. They liked how he'd run around his room all day and look out his single window for hours on end. The snowy air around him constantly rubbed raw against his nether resistant skin, irritating the rot around his empty eye socket. Michael didn't understand what would possibly possess them to think he actually enjoyed being trapped in their attic.

And when he complained about his boredom, about his itch to see the outside world, they gave him a chicken. A goddamn chicken that did nothing but run around as aimlessly as he did. A chicken that kept Michael from having a good nights rest due to its endless clucking. But it was a gift from his parents so he kept it, despite the instincts that urged him to rip its head off.

Michael had been out of the attic before. He had escaped downstairs a total of one time since he was 'imprisoned'. It still looked cozy, and the warmth it contained made him feel like he was back in the nether, where he belonged. In his awe of the forgotten world beyond his attic bedroom, he'd drowned out the panicked shouts from his parents and Fundy, whose visit allowed him to escape. Before he could protest, long, dual-coloured arms had wrapped themselves around his waist and pulled him back to his attic home.

After that, staying in his room had become harder and harder to bear. Each day he'd wake up, facing the same wall, flipping over to see the same ceiling and getting out of bed to walk across the same floor to the window. And at the window he'd stay, staring at the same view, hoping that just maybe something interesting would happen to entertain his dying mind.

Michael hated it.

He hated watching his parents leave every day to go run errands in places he'd only heard of by eavesdropping on whispered conversations.

He hated watching them talk to people he so desperately wanted to meet, but knowing he would never get the chance to introduce himself.

He hated the fact that he'd sit in his room alone, for days on end, waiting for his parents to visit him.

Michael hated this useless isolation that he didn't even understand the reason for.

He remembers being young, maybe two or three, being taken from the nether by two teenagers who said they were saving him. He remembers the first few nights where they fussed over him, making him feel a warmth inside him that the nether heat never did.

He remembers being four years old and asking about where he came from, why they took him away. Dad coming over to him and looking at Michael with those gentle heterochromatic eyes and saying it was because they loved him. Michael smiled and nodded, because there couldn't be a better reason.

Being five and having the freedom to open the attic door. Being able to climb into his parents bed and letting them scare away the monsters that his in the dark. Then turning six, having a small party where his Dad made infinite cake and Papa helped him blow out his candles. The soft, warm, familial fire of love burning above their little family.

When Michael turned seven something changed. He asked to go outside, play in the snow with the other Snowchester children. Throw snowballs and make snowmen like the people in his picture books did.

His parents said no, and he didn't question it.

It wasn't until every ask to go outside was denied when he started getting annoyed. Confused as to why he couldn't laugh and mingle with kids his age, the ones that didn't seem to know he existed. Dad said that others could be dangerous, Papa asked him why he wasn't content with the life he had here, inside the house?