Tell Tale Hearts.

prologue.

     I had a rough start to begin with. When I was an infant, my biological mother surrendered me to the fire department during a terrible storm. This was an act I seem as selfless. Whoever she was, she knew she wasn't fit to raise me. No one  knows who she is, or even remembers what she looks like. I was placed with foster parents almost immediately, and then three years later they were incarcerated for using the government stipend, that was to be used for my care, to buy loads of cocaine.
     For the years following, I was passed around like a blunt at a campfire. Seven families in just four years. The last family I endured had determined that I was the perfect outlet for their rage. I was slapped, punched, spat on and even burned. No one would have ever known until one day, the old man threw an empty beer bottle at my head during his drunken anger. He gifted me with a deep permenant scar across my left eye. I don't remember anything about that day besides what the social worker told me. I fled the house, and just down the street, a policeman watched as I collapsed on the pavement.
     It was after this incident that I finally received a decent home. Natalie and Frank Pond, the people I would eventually call "mom and dad." Natalie was a sweet woman; kind hearted with a gentle voice, soft smile, and curl red hair. Frank, God rest his soul, was a gentleman and embodied the word "love." He was patient, kind, and slow to anger. Shortly after they adopted me, Frank was involved in a horrible car accident that resulted in his placement into a medically induced coma, of which he never recovered.
     By the time of my twelve years, I began experiencing terrible symptoms. Night terrors, panic attacks, occasional insomnia, and overwhelming and crushing thoughts that I will never amount to anything better than my situation. I had received assistance by councilors for weeks on end, sometimes going four and five times a week.  Severe and unparalleled anxiety was the diagnosis I had received from everyone of them. One night in April during my fourteenth year, I had decided that I had enough time in the earthly hell that was my mind.
     Percocet. An entire bottle, chased by an entire bottle of Robitussin with Codeine. I wanted to die, but for some reason I woke up a month later, chained to a bed in the psych ward at St. Anthony's. I never learned who or why someone saved me, and to be entirely candid I don't want to. It was only then that a real doctor diagnosed me, but the writing was the same. Anxiety. The only difference is this time, they had a solution. A real solution, chemical. I was started on an antidepressant, which releived the severe, however I still found myself believing all the thoughts in my head from time to time.
     That was how I chose my career. I wanted to embody the people that saved my life. I wanted to become a psychiatrist. I pushed myself and graduated high school at just sixteen, and started at the local university immediately.
    That's when I began experiencing my "other" symptoms. I could feel when others were hurting. Once I sat next to a young girl in class, and I could feel the weight of her crushing depression. I reached out and touched her shoulder during a lecture to offer my support and immediately felt a wave of greif wash over me, and she lightened up almost immediately. The crushing feeling lingered with me until I finally fell asleep that night. I awoke to a message from the girl thanking me and letting me know that I made her feel better just by being there for her. I didn't think much of it at first, but now I know better. That's also the story of how I met Meagan, my favorite person in the world and the love of my life.
     Eventually pre-med ended, and I had to move on to the next adventure in my life. Deciding on a doctoral program. I knew I wanted to attend the best in the nation, so I applied to Anderson's Teaching Hospital for the Mentally Ill. And here I am, moving into my dorm just three short months later.
     I am Walker Quil, 21, of Homestead, Florida and this is not my story. This is simply the prologue.