reese lachance, district seven | finished

Growing up, I never had a mother or father to tuck me in and chase the monsters away; I was a soldier on my own, a child lost. I grew up in the LaChance Orphanage, and as bad as it hurt as a little boy, I refused to think of the parents that never were.  Sure, I was just as alone as ever in the house full of broken smiles and hollow faces, but at least there were walking ghosts and crying souls to keep me awake at night. I was alone, alone, alone, alone - but I could hear the breathing of the other unwanted children echo through the walls in the silence of a slowing breaking dawn, and it was  the sweetest lullaby I'd ever known.

I kept to myself, coloring pages of ripped books and never bothering to stay within the lines. Why should fucked up people make perfect things, why not make mirrors? The other kids would avoid me, my distant eyes and gaunt features and pessimistic attitude too much for them to comprehend, and no pair of hopeful parents would ever take a second glance at me.

("What's wrong with that one?" "Ah, Reese? Well, he's always been an odd one." "How so?" "He doesn't have hope.")

I was the creepy boy who played alone, tossing balls at sturdy surfaces and catching them as they pounced right back - over and over and over and over, like a heart that just refused to give up and die. I was the ghost of a boy, the boy who didn't know what in Ripred's name 'love' was, and the boy who didn't take the time to believe it could ever be a part of his life.

It wasn't until I was around seven that I think I smiled one genuine smile. I was tossing a ball around, face blank as the echoes of the giggling, gleeful children from within the house shook my bones. I had tossed the ball too high, it soaring over the fence around the orphanage, and I had found myself blinking with a slight wince. There was no way I could climb that thing, though maybe falling and breaking into a million little pieces of a child that should have never been wouldn't be that bad. I was about to damn the cause and scale the structure when I heard a tiny voice slither through the poles of the fence. 

"Hello? Hello? Did someone lose their ball?" the voice called, my hands peeling apart a row of straggly vines and finding my eyes locked onto that of a young boy around my age, hair black like the alcohol in Mr. LaChance's bottles, skin like the untouched dirt of our foul, corrupted earth. "Is this yours?" he asked, a smile dancing across his features as he reached the ball out, squeezing it through the gate. My hands reached outwards, my fingertips colliding with his in an explosion of something that I doubt  I'd ever be able to describe, and I took the ball with a small grin.

"Yeah, thank you," I whispered, looking down and kicking at the ground. "Um, I'm Reese," I went on, sticking a frail hand through the jagged structure between us. He took my hand in his own, his smile so bright that I swear it burnt, and nodded. 

"I'm  Nico," he greeted, releasing my hand. "It's nice to meet ya," he went on, stepping back just a bit and gulping. "You live here? It's, uh-...," he stammered, scratching the back of his neck. "Well, uh, it's creepy." He shot me an awkward grin, and for some reason I didn't want to understand, I had found my grin stretching wider in return. 

"Yeah, I do," I went on, tilting my head and looking at back at the old orphanage. "Ever heard of kids that nobody wants? The ones that no one love, the ones that have no friends?" I went on, blunt in every way. "I'm on of those kids; I'm unwanted."

Nico's face had been blank, and I half expected him to dart away like everyone else, but instead, I watched as his trademark grin plastered itself right back onto his face. "Well, that's not fun!" he shouted, sending a fist through the gate and onto my shoulder. "I'm gonna be your friend, okay?"

I blinked, throat growing parched all at once. "You-... You want to be my friend?"

"Heck yeah! Who doesn't want to be friends with a cool kid from a haunted house?"

"Oh, well, I-..."

"Can I come back tomorrow?"

"I, um, I-..."

"Come on! Spit it out!"

"I'd love that."

---

Nico and I grew up to be thicker than thieves, and he'd visit me everyday as the other kids played inside, whilst we talked through the fence that kept us separated. He had a mom, that much I knew, and instead of jealously, I only grew to admire the boy. He was everything I wasn't. Hopeful, brave, kind, selfless. He could have the world if he asked for it, but instead, he seemed content with me.

Though everyone noticed the glow that was radiating off my form that came with my interaction with the young hero, they couldn't help but notice something worse - I'd cough up blood, I'd shake and I'd sputter, and some days I'd be too tired to wait for Nico at our little haven, leaving nothing but notes to say how sorry I was. I had finally found joy, but I was falling apart more and more with each passing day, so much that I eventually became bedridden, no time to even write a single letter. So much that I eventually found myself signed off from the orphanage under the surname 'LaChance', shipped away to the local hospital where I was bound to die. 

They locked me away, running test after test, and each night I couldn't help but peer out the small window above my tiny bed -

(Nico. Nico. Nico. Find me, please, find me. Want me, find me, save me. Hold me. Break me free.)

-,  but no matter how much I tried to spark courage within my heart, I wasn't stupid. I was too smart, too wise for my age. I was unloved, unwanted , unneeded, and I was dying. I had a disease of the heart, and I found the years passing by with nothing but the sound of squeaking shoes down hallways  and the sting of shots to comfort me.

I was Reese LaChance, seventeen years of age and the boy that no mother or father wanted, the boy who couldn't fight off the monsters in the night. I was the boy who learned how the world worked before my time, the boy who met a boy who showed him how to smile. I was the boy who lost his balance and learned his fate instead of it coming as a surprise -

My name is Reese LaChance, seventeen years of age, and though I'm dying, I'm still waiting for my knight to save me.