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For an rp. I really really want people to read this, but if you don't read Parts 1 & 2 first, then you will be hopelessly and utterly lost.

Just letting you know, the poem Adriyan 'wrote' and the tune Valentine 'concieved' belongs to The Greatest Show Unearthed, by Creature Feature. If you haven't heard it, then you need to. (One of the videos on my profile features this song!)


~~~


And it was they who looked forward to their thirteenth birthdays, when they would officially be teenagers and have lived thirteen years. But this was not to be.


~~~


A few day’s before Adriyan’s thirteenth birthday, one of the caretakers came in to the room Adriyan and Valentine shared with three other boys. The two were sprawled on Valentine’s bed, peering over a poem Adriyan had written. It was about a carnival; one that they would love to be part of.

“I can almost hear a tune to it~.” Valentine giggled. He began to hum an eerie tune, waving his finger like he was directing.

”Welcome to the lower berth, the Greatest Show Unearthed. We appear without a sound, the darkest show around,” Adriyan nodded eagerly, putting a few of the word’s to the tune.

Valentine echoed, ”We will leave you in a daze, madness, murder, dismay.”

Glancing down at the poem once more, the two grinned ear to ear and sang two lines together. ”We will disappear at night with blood on the concrete!” The two exploded in giggles.

The caretaker had a skeptical look on her face, used to this type of behavior, yet still weirded out. “Boys, I have good news. Once you reach thirteen, your chances of being adopted are extremely low-“

“Yes!” Adriyan shouted enthusiastically, punching a fist into the air. “I’m tired of this place! No one wants me anyways, so maybe then you’ll let me out of this hellhole!”

Of course, Valentine erupted into giggles again, falling backwards on the bed. He grasped his stomach, and tears pricked at his eyes, he was laughing so hard.

Annoyed, the caretaker raised an eyebrow and sighed. “That isn’t the good news. The good news is, we’ve been fishing for families to look at the older children, to try and get them to good homes.” She looked straight at Adriyan. “You are one of the oldest children here. And we have a family who said they would take whichever of the older children we want- we pick. That poor family has no idea what they’re in for, but I need you to come with me and meet them.”

Adriyan’s jaw dropped. “What?!”

Valentine’s giggling cut off suddenly, and he sat bolt upright. Unfortunately, this action caused him to slip and fall into the floor with a thud. He immediately popped his head up over the edge of the bed. “Y-you’re kidding, right old hag?”

“No, I’m not. Adriyan.” She beckoned him with her finger, and he numbly stood.

“Old lady?” Valentine stared after the two as they left the room.


~~~


The family met with Adriyan, and he did his best to scare them off, but to no avail.

“We’ll take him.” The man said to the headmaster. “He seems… intriguing. He would be quite a project.”

Adriyan paled, listening to the words with his ear pressed on the door. Numbly, he walked back to his room.

“So…?” Valentine ventured. “How loud did they scream? Did you scare them good? How fast did they run?” Despite his grin, Adriyan could tell he was worried.

The older boy sat on the bed stiffly. “… They want me. Valentine, how could this happen? I bragged about my unwanted birth, biting my mother, that girl I stabbed… All of that! But that made them more determined!” Adriyan turned to look at Valentine, paler than usual and wide eyed. “What do I do? I don’t want to go with them!”

The headmaster walked into the room. The three other boys silenced their loud play in the middle of the room as he passed them and went over to the two boys in the corner.

“Adriyan, I am pleased to inform you that you have been adopted.”

The three boys gasped and began whispering to each other. Valentine and Adriyan just stared coldly at the man.

“I don’t want to be. Tell them they have to find someone else.”

“Its too late, Adriyan. Pack up your bags. Legally, you are now their son-“

Adriyan jumped to his feet, slipping his hands under the mattress and whipping out the butcher knife. Holding it out in front of him, he threatened the headmaster. “I am not their son! I am nobody’s son but Audrei Vynce-Patrik, and I never will be!”

The headmaster set his jaw. “Adriyan. Put that away now.” He crossed his arms angrily. “I want to see you with all of your belongings in my office in twenty minutes. If you are not there, then your new father has volunteered to use brute force if necessary.”

Sharp silence filled the room, then the boy sighed, allowing the knife to slip through his fingers and clatter to the ground.

All too soon, twenty minutes had passed. Adriyan threw his light bag over his shoulder, and picked up Patches, who curled tightly against his chest. He paused in the doorway, looking back at his best friend sorrowfully.

Valentine ran to his friend and the two hugged tightly. “I’ll miss you.”

“Be careful, Valentine. People don’t like people like us, who are different from them.” Adriyan let go of his friend, and trudged away. He stared at his feet, trying to shield his face from view as tears welled in his eyes. A few stray gems slipped gently down his porcelain cheek, only to plummet to his black shirt and vanish, each leaving only a tiny, darkened damp blot.

Behind him was Valentine, staring forlornly as the only friend he had ever had walked away.


~~~


Adriyan’s life became a living hell. His ‘new parents’ were determined to change him into a picture-perfect clone of his new ‘father’, a perfect picture of society. However, he was very different from average children- a nonconformist by nature.

When they tried to make him dress colorfully, he refused to touch those clothes. He would wear nothing but black and white, no matter what they tried. He wore his hair much longer than they wanted him to, and he dyed all of his hair but his bangs white. He wore thick eyeliner around his eyes. He continued to wear all of his piercings. He kept Patches in his room until one horrible day; his ‘mother’ kicked her out.

The now-seventeen year old Adriyan walked into the room he lived in that afternoon. Usually, Patches would come to him immediately when he unlocked and opened the door, even though she was getting up in years. Today, however, she was nowhere in sight.

“Patches?” Adriyan locked the door behind him, then dumped his backpack full of schoolbooks onto his bed. He began to look around his room. “Where are you?”

He looked in the closet.

Behind the shelves.

Under the bed.

Everywhere.

But she was nowhere to be seen.

Adriyan stormed out of the room, worry etched into his every feature. “Kathryn! Where’s Patches?!” he addressed his adopted mother.

The woman rolled her eyes. “Ugh. That filthy creature? You know we told you not to keep her inside. Your father is allergic-“

“My father’s dead.” The teenager hissed, eyes narrowing.

Kathryn chose to ignore Adriyan’s angry comment. “I found it in your room, so I put it outside.”

Adriyan’s heart dropped into his stomach. “You… you didn’t….!” He turned abruptly and stormed to the front door. “I lock the door for a reason! I don’t want you nosy snoops going through my stuff!”

He was trying not to panic. Patches wasn’t really outdoor-cat material; she had always been fed by him, even if it was table scraps saved from his own meals. She didn’t know how to defend herself, or know to climb trees. Sweat broke out on the black-clad seventeen-year-old’s palms.

“Patches? Patches!” He called frantically, searching the yard.

“Mrow?” Adriyan turned quickly, hearing the familiar meow. Patches hadn’t gotten all that big, but she had grown since Audrei had saved her from that fire. She scuttled from the neighbor’s bushes across the street, her bright eyes intent on her Adriyan.

The boy stood, and began going towards the cat, a smile of relief on his face. “You had me so worried! Don’t worry, Patches, I won’t let that mean woman get you again.”

That’s when it happened. It turned onto the side road going past the house, speeding recklessly. Tires screeched turning on the road. Adriyan’s face fell, everything seeming to go into slow motion.

She didn’t feel it, of that he was certain. The car sped off into the distance, without so much as slowing down. Adriyan dashed towards his Patches’ limp, broken body, tears pouring from his eyes as he fell to his knees on the black pavement. “No…” His lip trembled. She had been the last thing he had from his father, the last thing that had mattered.

And now she was gone.

He turned back to the house when he heard the door open. There stood Kathryn, a cold and uncaring look on her face.

“Adriyan, get out of the road. Don’t touch that animal, you’ll get filthy.”

“Filthy… filthy?!” Adriyan hissed, his eyes flashing. He stood, keeping his back to Patches’ body. “The only thing that’s filthy around here it you, you and that man who tries to take the title ‘father’! I hate you, I always have! Just leave me the hell alone!” The teenager picked up Patches defiantly, then took her to the back yard and buried her, all the while with his adoptive mother’s disapproving eyes following him.

That night wasn’t the first time he took the blade to his thin, pale arms. He had done it many times before, the times that if he had still been in the orphanage he would have gone to Valentine. Over time, the pain had begun to give him something like a dark pleasure, seeing the blood would make him want to see more. Yet he had always restrained himself before. After all, he had to take care of Patches.

But now he had no one to take care of. Adriyan pressed deeply with the razor, dragging it across his arm repeatedly. In a short time, the bleeding cuts crisscrossed from wrist to elbow.

After careless bandaging, he walked out of the house, carrying nothing but Patches’ small collar and several kitchen knives. He had no idea what he would use those for- to kill someone?

To kill himself?