Chapter Text
I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to.
“P-please stop! What did I do to you to deserve this?” the boy says, pleading with his bullies as he lies on the school playground. The warm mulch gets into his clothes as his nose profusely bleeds.
“Oh, don’t give me that crap. You know what you are, you monster.”
His other friends chime in with insults like “monster” and “freak,” but one statement sticks with him:
“People are gonna experiment on you because of how much of a weirdo you are with those powers.”
The boy’s body hurts all over. Every time they strike him, the pain worsens. He just wants it to be over. This physical and verbal assault has been happening for the past five years since he was five. His body begins to weaken, and eventually, he falls unconscious.
When he awakens, he looks around. Blood. Blood is splattered all over him. The people who were just beating him up for being a “monster” are dead. They have claw marks on them… and are those scales? His own blue scales?
He looks around for help, but a teacher passing by while leading children out for recess notices the scene. The younger kids look curious, while others understand what happened much faster.
The boy reaches out his bloody hands toward the teacher.
“Ms… please help ”
She looks horrified.
“Children, stay back! There’s a monster! We need to get back inside!”
She quickly shuts the doors, and the school is put into an emergency lockdown. The people inside don’t know what’s going on. He doesn’t know what to do.
After a few minutes of standing there, the boy hears sirens. He thinks people are going to come experiment on him like the bullies said. Using every ounce of strength he has left, he runs for it.
He zigzags through the forest behind his school. He doesn’t want to be caught. He doesn’t even know how his parents would feel if they found out he might have done this to people. He’s terrified of what others will think, and deep down, he starts believing what they said about him is true. He truly thinks he’s a freak who doesn’t deserve to be loved.
He keeps running.
By the time he reaches home, he knows his parents aren’t there. His dad is at a restaurant cooking, and his mom works for a government agency, so even if one of them received a call about what happened, it would still take at least twenty to thirty minutes for them to get home and see what the school was talking about.
He unlocks the door and rushes inside, grabbing a backpack. He runs throughout the house, stuffing it with food, water, loose change, money, a safe with unknown contents inside, a small pillow, and a piece of paper.
Grabbing a pen, he writes in sloppy handwriting:
“Dear Mom and Dad,
It’s your son, Pomu. I’m sorry, but I have to leave. I don’t know what happened at school, but I did something bad. It wasn’t my fault, though. They were hurting me, and nobody helped. I’m sorry I couldn’t tough it out for a little longer.”
With tears in his eyes, Pomu leaves the note as it is and rushes out of the house.
His legs ache, but with the backpack slung over his shoulders, he starts running. He focuses on getting as far away as possible. The only way Pomu can do that is by flying, even though his parents always told him not to fly until he was properly trained. Still, he practiced in secret. At first, he only wanted to impress people so he could make friends, but now, escaping with what little he has means he has no other choice.
He launches into the air. His wings flap whenever he needs altitude, but otherwise, he glides through the wind. After flying for three miles, he spots a railroad track and a moving cargo train.
Taking his chance, he searches for an open cart and dive-bombs into it. Pomu rolls across the floor of the cart, unable to cushion his landing.
He rides the train for what feels like hours. The only thing keeping him company is his thoughts. Eventually, his eyes begin to droop until he feels the train slowing down.
He quickly sits up, his head pounding slightly from his recent injuries. Peeking his head out carefully, he sees nobody nearby yet. He grabs his bag and flies low to the ground. His wings are strong. Slowly ascending, he continues onward.
Flying through the night feels freeing to Pomu, even while his body is still splattered with dried blood. The memories of being beaten black and blue are shoved into the back of his mind, his brain locking them away for later.
Still, he knows the money he has won’t be enough for a hotel.
His eyes dart across the rooftops of different buildings before he crash-lands onto one with a small awning bolted into the roof. Slowly getting up, he rubs his head in pain. He pulls the pillow from his bag and places it down. His wings slowly fold back into place as he tries to relax in the cold evening air.
His stomach growls with hunger, but Pomu knows he has to ration his food. He only nibbles on a few snacks he grabbed.
Looking down at his hands, he notices the blood has dried completely. He needs to wash it off before people start looking at him like he’s insane.
He lies on the rooftop floor, thinking, until an idea suddenly comes to him.
Slowly opening the rooftop door so he won’t make noise, he creeps down the stairs and peeks around the corner. Luckily, he finds himself inside an office cubicle building. The fluorescent lights flicker slightly overhead. Every sound he makes keeps him on edge.
He slips into a bathroom and splashes water onto his face. Looking into the mirror sends goosebumps across his body. Pomu is horrified by his own appearance, and he hates it. Shutting his eyes tightly, he desperately scrubs away the blood wherever he can reach.
He grabs extra paper towels, drying himself off before taking more to use as a makeshift blanket.
Pomu quietly returns to the rooftop, his body partially wrapped in paper towels. Sitting down, he begins fiddling with the safe inside his bag. He keeps fumbling with the combination until he notices a number carved into one side. Searching further, he discovers two more numbers hidden elsewhere on the safe.
Finally, he cracks it open.
To his surprise, there’s a pistol inside.
He doesn’t know what to do with it.
Carefully grabbing it with a paper towel, he examines it for nearly an hour under the dim stairwell light. Slowly, he figures out how it works. He learns how to reload it, cock the chamber, and switch the safety on and off.
Taking the gun with him, Pomu quietly enters the stairwell again, leaving the rooftop door slightly propped open with the safe.
He slowly walks through the empty streets until he finds a 24/7 convenience store. As he enters, the automatic doors slide open with a cheerful little jingle.
Still tense, Pomu grips the gun hidden in his pocket, but when he notices nobody standing at the counter, he relaxes slightly. The cashier is passed out cold behind the register.
Pomu realizes this is his chance.
He starts stocking up on water bottles, a quart of milk, bread, beef jerky, juice, almonds, medicine, and cigarettes. His parents always told him never to smoke, but he figures he could probably sell them later.
Back at the counter, a ski mask catches his attention. It doesn’t completely hide his face, but it’s better than nothing.
He hops over the counter, opens the register, and stuffs the money inside into his bag before making a quick escape.
The thrill of stealing that much feels unbelievable to Pomu.
He flies back to his rooftop hiding spot, removes the safe from the door, and quietly shuts it behind him.
For dinner, Pomu makes a jerky sandwich with almonds and the quart of milk he stole. He lies back down on the pillow, his back aching from the uncomfortable rooftop, but he forces himself to endure it.
Sleep barely comes. He wakes every couple of hours, feeling miserable.
Finally sitting up, Pomu tries to process everything that happened. Then reality crashes back into him.
This is real.
He isn’t going to wake up safely back at home or in the nurse’s office waiting for his parents to ask what happened.
“I’m so tired… Why did I have to be born as a monster? I wish I was never born at all. They lied to me for ten years, saying I wasn’t a monster,” Pomu mumbles to himself.
He scratches his head, peeling away bits of dried blood he missed, before staring up at the sky.
“If people see me as this monster, then I’ll do what I must. I’ll make people rise up against me and stop me in my tracks… so somebody else can be called a knight in shining armor for slaying the dragon.”