Raven Flight

Chapter 1

Chapter One

The Start of it All

No matter how much I run, I'll never get away. My head screams in frustration every time I try to escape my fate. I guess that's just what happens; some days, the fates look down on a baby being born, see it's curling lock of blonde hair and it's big blue eyes smiling up at a beautiful mother and a proud father and the fates just can't help but cooing at it and giving it a wonderful life. Then, there's the nights when baby after baby is born, and they look down and see a small, frail, runt, and they say, “Who invited this freak into the world!? I've seen enough!” and just cast enough bad luck to last them a lifetime. But then, there always seems to be that fate that is the dreamer, the shy one, the one looking out for the rejects of life. The one that slips just enough magic into a child to sneak it past the others without them suspecting anything. The one who can see what the child will grow up to be, and equips it with possibilities. The fates were determined when it came to me; they were determined to give me the worse life possible, it was just one of those bad days. I was born into a lost family... They say my father was a criminal and my mother, just a poor girl. I grew up in an orphanage. In this, I ended up with the cruel humor of the world again. I shared a room with the biggest bully ever, and never got enough to eat, but that's how I discovered my abilities. I discovered the dreamer had been watching out for me, but sometimes, I wonder what insane fates actually planned the good and bad of my life; the twists and turns that not even the kid who's been on the roller coaster several times can expect.

I grew up in this orphanage. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. It is a dreary place where none can find hope; a place where no one ever gets adopted, not that I would ever hope to be... I might be making this seem a little too pessimistic. Let me start over. Every morning, we get out of our rock hard beds, wearing our makeshift clothes, and go downstairs to the dining room where we all get tiny morsels of food that barely last us through the day. The rest of the day we sit in drafty classrooms on splintery wooden benches and listen to the same lessons we have been listening to for the several past years. The education we receive is about equal to that of a third graders; we can read, write, add, subtract, and know the bare minimum of the multiplication tables.

Each day it seems there are less and less kids in my classes. They tell us they get adopted, or sometimes, put into different shelters. We know better. Some of them may have, but we entertain ourselves coming up with different stories of why and how they disappeared. Some got sent off to the jungles to become food for the cannibals, while others got abducted by aliens. One of the favorite stories is that the Headmaster is actually the head of an evil society who experiments on children. No one really knows who started that one, but if you ask around, everyone has a different version of their own. I have gotten in more trouble than you could imagine for talking and spreading the rumors in class. I'm one of the older kids, and the teachers have been putting up with me for so long, that it takes nothing for them to come swooping down to let out their anger on someone who can't fight back. Being malnourished, I never had the strength to do much more than let them bat me to the floor and whimper, as a teacher with bad breath and anger issues stood over me, letting loose a string of profanity in my face. What can I say? In their eyes, I'm nothing more than a pest and a nuisance, at best. I do admit that I like to meddle, but only with the lives of people that deserve it. Day after day, it seemed that the teachers seemed even more on edge than usual, and I found myself in disheartening situations more than I would have liked, but I just couldn't stop. I continued until the fateful day that I took it too far.

A nice couple walked through the door unexpectedly one afternoon with the warm sun pouring in all the towering windows, making the orphanage look somewhat inviting. They held hands tenderly, and looked inseparable because of their love for each other, which shone through their bright eyes. A timid smile graced the woman's face, and she nervously brushed her hair out of her eyes as she looked around at the inside of the orphanage. I had never really thought about what it looked like, but at that moment, my curiosity was stirred and I glanced at each detail before turning back to the lady's expression to see what she thought. Her face didn't tell much, and I could tell she wasn't as interested in the architecture as she first let on. I, however, was surprised at the cleanliness and detail put into the decorating. The rafters were engraved with swirls and complicated looking patterns. Wilted flowers sat in dull, but expertly crafted vases, painted with small, blue flowers along the rims. Before I could see any more, the wretched headmaster (which I later found out was named Mrs. Smith, I think she made us call her headmaster because “Mrs. Smith” is too normal for her) shooed us into each of our rooms; threatening unendurable things if we misbehaved in front of a “customer” as she called them. Plastering a smile onto her face that could have wooed a bear on a bad day, she traipsed lightly into the sitting room where the pleasant newlyweds waited.