The Old Café: The Monster In Room 23

Chapter 1

I'm working on the colored version of the cover, but it's taking a while.  I decided to use the black and white  one until I finish it.  Don't judge.  First time drawing Hugo and Nuru (though I like how she turned out) and I've barely drawn the other characters besides Varian and Cass.  And it's been a long time since I've drawn them too so... you know.  Idk, Eugene, Rapunzel and Hugo bother me.  They just didn't turn out how I wanted them to.

Anyways, please enjoy!

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Varian slumped in the back seat of the car.  If it had been just a normal car or just a cab, he'd have nothing to look suspicious of.  But no.  He was in the back of a police car, and the police man was talking to his foster parents.  Again.

His last foster parents were decent people.  They treated him well enough, but they couldn't handle his habit of somehow always getting in some sort of trouble.  They didn't even last a month before they sent him back to the orphan home.

He had been staying with William and Patunia Daylight (he thought it was an of name, but who was he to judge?).  For once, they were one of his few foster parents who kept him longer than a month or two.  That was also to his dismay.  Varian had no idea why they chose to foster when they didn't even like teenagers, or even kids.  He did know how they were even legally allowed to take care of foster children.

Varian thought he did great with staying out of trouble this time, and honestly tried his hardest to be at least a decent teen.  One that wouldn't drive them up the wall, so he only kept to himself and his homework.  However, they began to yell at him for stupid things that wasn't his doing or responsiblity.  Varian ignored it, it wasn't something that he wasn't used to, so it was easy to drown it out.

When Varian brought back his report card, he had straight A's except for English, which was a C.  Still passable. He convinced himself that it was because he kept switching schools, and he was just unable to keep up with the English.  William didn't seem to think that was the reason though and yelled at him for not doing his job.

Getting irritated and fed up with William's illogical anger, Varian snapped.  He said that it was a better grade card than William ever got and ever will.  Varian knew it was wrong to say that and that two wrongs didn't create a right, but he was tired of the lectures and yelling over a stupid grade.  That comment was when things really went down hill.  It was also the first time the man slapped him.

That alone was not the cause why Varian had ran off, hence the reason why he was in the police car.  The punishments only got worse, and Varian wasn't going to put up with it.  After William went as far as putting Varian in a choke hold, slamming him against the wall.  That was all Varian was going to take, so he ran off.

The boy knew that he wasn't entirely out of fault, but he couldn't help it.  Snapping and back talking was just his reaction.  It wasn't like he had someone he could really look up to that could teach him differently, because he was never, ever in the same place longer than six months.  Typically, if he was staying anywhere that long, it was at one of the children's homes.  Though, the people there were typically nice, they weren't able to give Varian the proper attention to help him.

They tried multiple psychologists in hopes of getting him some sort of help, but typically ended with Varian getting lost in his temper and the psychologists fleeing.  No, Varian was aware of just how messed up he was, and maybe William and Petunia were in the right, but he didn't want to deal with another abusive parent.

Of course, he didn't remember his real parents, but he had already been adopted once when he was little.  He liked to blame his issues from his younger years.  Those days had really been messed up and his adoptive mother and father ended up both being jailed.  He wasn't going to give William and Patunia a chance to become the next.

After the officer and his foster parents discussed the issue and signed papers or something, Varian was released.  The officers left, driving off.  The husband and wife quickly brought Varian inside.  The door hardly had anytime to shut before William was pulling the strap out of the closet.  Varian said nothing, and only pressed his lips tightly together.

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So, this chapter all in a nutshell: Varian has a messed up life, he's got serious issues that haven't exactly been talked about yet, and the Daylight Theives are his foster parents at the moment.  Though, they aren't thieves in this story.

Btw, I think of this as a movie, so this was kind of the opening scene in a way.