Chapter 1: The strange child in the orphanage

Gideon

New York, 2017

I had never liked to be inside that orphanage. It was always silent there, no music around. They had strict rules about everything in there. There should be no reading, no music or not anything that could be considered as fun. There was nothing inside there for me. I had been here for eleven years two months and seven days. I had counted every day, hoping that my parents would come get me. I had dreamed about them; she had wavy long brown hair and bluest eyes you could ever see. I knew that she loved me, there was no way she didn't. I didn't know why I was here alone and not with her. She must have her reasons, I thought.
I didn't know how my father would look. For some reason, I always thought of mom. I saw an image of her in every dream. My dad was different; he was a shadow of a dream. A blurry picture, someone whom I couldn't recognize. He was like sand that slipped through my fingers.
When I woke up that morning, I stared from the window. Outside everything was dark. The orphanage was in the heart, New York. It was a large dark building in Victorian style. Everything was old and was ready to be replaced. I slept in a room with 11 other boys. We all slept in bunk beds. I had the only bed near the window. There was never anything nice outside. As the sun rose above the streets of New York, I turned in my bed. When I looked again, people were running down the street. Everyone had somewhere they needed to go. Someone they needed to see, I only wanted to meet two people. Only two. The only ones that mattered.
There were times that I thought I could hear my mother's voice. Singing a song to me, it was a fragmented memory. Bits and pieces, yet I always recognized her voice. I knew her voice, and I could recognize it anywhere.
I thought if I could learn to play music, they would be able to find me. I believe music was something magical. It brought people together. So I felt that it would bring my parents to me. Some people thought I was crazy because I believed this. I hadn't even dared to tell any of my friends that I heard my mother.
"Look who's awake…" A voice came from behind me. "It's Gid… Gid… Eon."
There were a group of boys that always made fun of me. There was nothing I could do to stop it. They took everything I did and turned it into a weapon.
"Do you hear your mommy?" The boy named Clark stepped closer to me. He was twice my size, and I could see him from the bunk bed. How did he know it? I must have said something about it in my sleep. I looked at him. I knew there was fear in my eyes. I wanted to get from the bed and ran to the door.
Another boy stepped from behind him. I knew his name was Adam. He was not as tall as Clark. Yet he was ten times as scary.
"Your mother didn't want you." He had a mean smile on his face. "She looked at you once and realized she didn't want to know anyone like you. You can't hear them."
"I can…" I looked them in the eyes as if I was unafraid. Yet fear was moving through my body; it made me unable to move. They pulled me from the bed. Clark pulled me to his eyesight.
"Say it; you don't hear them."

"I do." A punch was released in my stomach. He asked me again if I could hurt mother. I kept saying the same thing. I was not weak; my mom would have told me to be strong. She would have said I should I needed to be brave.
"He can't hear her." They dropped me to the floor. When I turned around, I could see my friend Emma. She was the same age as me. She had lost her parents too; she knew less about her mother than I did about mine.

"You shouldn't say something like this…" Emma stared at him. "People like them are too small minded; they can never understand dreams. I have them too, about my parents."
"How do we find them?"
"That's it; we don't find them." She stared at me. "They find us."
"Maybe we should go find them."

I thought about it; I turned to her. She seemed to be thinking about what I just said. She only needed a second to think. She took a bag from under her bed and started to put everything in it. I did the same. Together we walked through the orphanage. Almost everyone was getting ready; everyone was getting ready for breakfast. Most people needed to do chores. We ran, it was now or never. We needed to be fast if we didn't get out now. We would never escape.