Hey!

It is I!

The wish-they-were-non-existent fangirl!

So, this is just a story I wrong for advanced honers ELA and I thought I may as well put it on here.

I may expand it at some point *shrug*

Enjoy!!

Tom hated bunk beds. 

They were possibly the worst things invented. Topped only by clear legos and alarm clocks. You either had the fear of being smashed or the fear of doing the smashing. The latter of which was worse than one might think.

Someone would be coming in to adopt a child today. 

He knew from the bustling going on downstairs. 

From the bangs and commotion that came with cleaning the old house on 747 drive. 

He didn't care though, he was never chosen. 

He was cursed after all. 

At least, that's what people said about him. 

Any time he was adopted the people who had taken custody of him would either die or suffer an injury that rendered them in-able to continue daily activities without the assistance of a machine or a caretaker.

"Whatever, its not like I liked any of them anyways"

He knew that wasn't true, but he had resigned himself to the life of an orphan boy. 

The one no one would take. 

The one destined to sit in silence on his creaky old bed until the day he turned 18 and would be forced out of that place.

However, fate had another road in mind for him on that rainy winter afternoon.

Footsteps sounded at the stairwell and the next thing he knew he was being nudged into a black car by a man he didn't recognize.

The only thing he could pull through the haze that filled the last few hours to examen was that the man who came to adopt, Mr. Barns, had requested him specifically and already had everything in place to take Tom as his own.

The next time Tom was able to fully focus on what was going on he was sitting on a for poster bed in a large room within a large dark house in the richest part of town. 

He didn't particularly enjoy the immense darkness and silence that fell like a dark blanket over the house.

The next few weeks were the best Tom had ever had. 

Mr. Barns was kind and funny. He knew all Tom's favorite things and enjoyed his presence immensely. 

It seemed too good to be true. Mr. Barns also, like any adult, had to see that he could trust Tom with different things before allowing him to them himself.

While Tom was at the orphanage he had loved going on walks in the pre-rain air.

It had become his way of letting go, and expelling all the feelings he had bottled up.

On one particular day, rather like the day he was adopted, Mr. Barns allowed him to go for a short walk around the block.

"Come right back," he had said, "Don't get sidetracked. I'm making tarts to celebrate your birthday"

Tom had wanted to help but his father had insisted that he should take the time to relieve himself of post-adoption anxiety.

A storm gathering a few blocks away and a thousand feet high. Walking down the street, his shoes slapping the pavement Tom thought of how lucky he was to have finally gotten a home, to have a father. 

He would be starting school soon and his hope was that maybe people would see that he wasn't cursed after all. 

Maybe they would see that he just had an episode of bad luck but that truly, he was a good person. 

Then, the people who had turned their nose up at him and refused to be associated, would come back with apologies for all the late night tears they had caused back at the orphanage.

He smiled at the thought of Mr. Barns, waiting for him at the house, with a hug and a plate of sweets. 

He couldn't wait for them to ditch the old mansion and move to the seaside. A small cottage for them both. He hated it there and wished that it were destroyed. 

Now it would not matter, the plan was set, the land purchased, the house packed and they were going to move out the next week! Tom couldn't be happier, not even the impending rainfall could dampen his mood.

Except.

The rain looked strange. 

Smelled strange. 

The air, instead of being filled with the clean and clear that came with the clouds, was hot, and suffocating, like boiling mist. 

Searing fireflies glided to and fro, swaying with the pungent wind. One landed on his arm and sucked his air through his teeth, jumping back and swatting at the singed sleeve of his jacket.

This gave Tom's feet wings. He practically flew around the corner before he stopped dead, horrified at what stood in front of him.

Gazing at it, he realized that he would not be going to the sea with Mr. Barns. His hopes of a good future burned to a crisp. Much like the old, dark house that collapsed before him.

Two years passed since the fire and Tom was given food, water and two hundred dollars and cast of into the world.

Two years since he had last been adopted.

He had reached his 18th birthday.

He was no longer welcome.

He sometimes his thoughts wandered to his 16th year. 

The lost hope of anything good ever happening to him to meeting the father of his life.

It had all seemed too good to be true back then.

And it was.

Ty for reading!!

- TheForbiddenFangirl