Guardians

 He hated his life. He didn't like where he was. He didn't like what happened to him. He didn't like what he had to do to live. The only thing keeping him from suicide was Lucky. Lucky was his closest friend. Of course, that meant he was his only friend. Lucky had kept him alive. Lucky was it. Nothing else mattered to him.

He lived in an orphanage called the New Children's Home for New Lives. Despite the friendly name, the place was horrible. The halls reeked of mold and flood damage. The floors were once bright white, but where now so dirty and muddy, they were solid brown. Flood lines decorated every wall in the god forsaken place. A nice chaperone would have made the experience that much better, but of course he got the most hideous, deformed, smelly, old, and small creature in existence.

Her name was Ms. Fluff. So ironic, because she didn't have a single hair on her head or arms. Her voice was like a knife running down a chalk board. Her eyes, other children joked, could see into your soul. He believed them. She didn't like children, and she hated him.

He had just came back from a punishment dealt by her. She called him a cursed child, cussed at him, and then locked him in the cellar for a week. He didn't mind the cellar. His friend lived there.

He called out to his friend. "Lucky, come out. It's only me." He heard a slight scuttling from behind the wall. Out of a small hole in the floor came a rat. His only friend was a rat. The rat ran to him. He grabbed it and put it up on his shoulder. At least his only friend was warm. The rat kept him company in the all too familiarly cold and empty cellar. He mustered a slight laugh. It was hollow, nothing to fuel it. No good experiences nor friends to give it life. It died out as fast as it came.

The boy sat in the cellar, waiting for Ms. Fluff to come and get him. He would be here a while, sitting with nothing to do but stare at his only friend, Lucky the rat.

Ms. Fluff

On saturday the 17th, Ms. Fluff went to fetch her least favorite child. She didn't like him at all. He had arrived the day after his parents went missing. Everyone knew they had been dragged off by wolves or bears or some other wild animal, and that there bones would be found soon, but the boy argued that a "strange being got them, not quite human." Rubbish! She had disliked him from the minute he told her that. She didn't like children, and ones that lied were worse. He never told them his name, so they called him Wrong. This was not a joke, as her and the other employees of the orphanage didn't have any sense of humor. She despised Wrong with every cell in her body. Note:(A cell was a new discovery in science. They make up every living body. Ms. Fluff hated Science.) She opened the cellar door and saw the boy. He looked as he always did, the frown on his face, brown eyes, hair as black as night. He only wore one set of clothes, as they were the only pair he had. Around his neck was the necklace he always had on, with the little angel on it. "He isn't an angel," she thought to herself. "Get up," she shouted at him. He got up immediately, without saying anything. He rarely spoke. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement. She turned towards the wall, but whatever it was had disappeared into a hole in the wall. Another rat for her to deal with later. She looked at the dirty, ragged child, staring at her with brown eyes. His eyes had always made her nervous. Your time in isolation is up," she yelled at him. He looked at the floor. "Come along then. You are a week behind everyone else in work," she said, her voice hiding a small amount of pleasure. She liked that this horrible child worked hard to live.

Even though he was the worst child in the whole home, he worked hard. She didn't understand him. He was the one who stole, hurt other children, and attacked the staff, yet he worked hard. The work suited them. They were all bad children that had gotten their parents killed, injured other people, or did other crimes of similar magnitude. They deserved to hunt for gold hundreds of meters underground. They had only lost twenty-seven of the kids to the mine. She grabbed the child's hand and led him down the halls. They were forgotten. The carpet, once beautiful, was now ugly, and ripped in spots. In one hallway, the carpet had been ripped out completely by floodwater and bratty children.