Andrei & Rhian

It was two hundred and fourteen years prior to the Divide, and it was a much different time. Industry was booming, technology was advancing rapidly, and the economy was ripe and ready for the next generation. Jakob Adler came into the world at a healthy weight, with strong lungs, and with a full head of pitch black hair. Just like his mother. A beautiful baby boy, and the possibilities for his future were endless. If only he hadn't inherited that one terrible flaw. His eyes were bright grey, as if without pigment. An exceedingly rare, physical anomaly his uncle Sebastian had been forced to conceal all his life. Cursed, they said.

Avis Adler loved her son, maybe, but what would the neighbours say if they saw him looking like he did? What would she say? "It was a stillbirth," she decided, sniffling when they appeared shocked or sad. Because never mind the eyes. Jakob was born with something else, too. Her son was doubly cursed with the weird fucking eyes and a vice-like grip. When he was about three weeks old, her baby boy broke her pinky finger. Never did quite heal all the way.

The woman raised her son in secret for years, not a nanny to her name. Fortunately, her profession as an illustrator of children's books enabled the hermit lifestyle, and her success contributed significantly to the bloated Vonsinfonie fortune. Her son had everything he could ever need in his room, endless entertainment through books and toys, written and fabricated by her two dearest friends and business partners. "For my nephew," she told them.

As is the way when holding someone prisoner, Avis Adler bolted shut the windows and locked the front door from the inside. She kept her special key locked away in a special place, and she kept the special key for the special place locked up in another special place. Her boy would never have to see how cruel the world could be. Not if she could help it. She'd heard the stories from Zacharias, don't you know, and all the reasons his parents kept a young Sebastian locked away.

On and on the cycle of shame and illusion went. Uncle Sebastian was Jakob's favourite visitor, though he only ever had two. But his uncle came to see him more frequently than his father, and together, they sang songs, and from the legend himself, Jakob learned to play the cello. A prodigy, like his father, and like his favourite uncle. "One day, I'll convince your mother to let you come on tour with us. We'll wear matching masks."

Jakob Adler had everything, but he also had next to nothing. He liked the days when his mum would leave the front door open, let him sit around the corner. Two days a week when the staff weren't in and he could catch a whiff of fresh air. Then it occurred to him: he was strong. Really strong. One day, Jakob tried prying away the bolts. It didn't work, mind you, and his mother only added more bolts. He tried kicking down the door, but she'd reinforced that, too.

One summer day when Jakob was fourteen, Avis Adler hosted a charity brunch, as she often did. Halfway through the festivities, she delivered her son some lunch, as she always did, but this time, she was acting strangely in the way she wobbled and slurred her words. Notably, she was acting strangely in the way she forgot to lock his door on her way out.

The kid knew his mother never locked the front door during a fancy shindig, that's why she always locked his instead. He was strong, but he also had excellent hearing. The last time the front door opened and closed, there was no lock clicking afterward. If he made a run for it, he might make it. He'd finally be free.

Jakob bolted out of his room, down the front stairs, and out the main entrance. The way the wind felt against his face as he ran, and he ran, and he ran. His eyes closed, and his arms outstretched, squealing with joy. But then he opened his eyes to the beaming sun. Like hot coals pressed against his face. Practically blind, he shot through the streets of Amsteg with his eyes closed, and his arms outstretched, squealing in agony.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

But one considerate gentleman stopped Jakob in his tracks. He pulled him out of the road and into the shade, and asked, "You all right, lad?" and Jakob opened his watery eyes and said, "I think so." 'Course, that's about all it took for the considerate gentleman to show his arsehole. "Freak! He's cursed!" And everybody turned and looked. Tears streaming down Jakob's face, the angry mob was closing in.

He fought them off as well as he could. He was strong, but they were many. The boy broke a few noses and bruised a few egos, which served only to prove a point and intensify the rage in retaliation. I could relate to that, and to what would happen next: the street brawl was the last thing he remembered before the pain. The variety of pain that ceased his stomach and played with his balance. No, they didn't kill him, but they'd destroyed the primary source of his curse, and they left him blinded in the street as an example to all other abominations who dared exist.

It wasn't until one of Avis's fashionably late guests showed up for brunch closer to dinner time. "Did you hear the news?" she asked, and Avis Adler obviously hadn't. But when she finally did, she ran into town under the cover of night and collected her son. This time, you best be sure she locked all the doors behind her. He was fading fast, the bleeding was still bad, but it was too dangerous to call the doctor. What if she was one of them? What if she was the goddess-be-damned monster who hurt her son?

Jakob seemed to be healing well under his mother's care, but he soon took a turn. Days, weeks. He remembered his uncle visiting often, he remembered arguing. People banging on the door at all hours. Fever ravaged his body and tore at his spirit. He missed the light. He missed the darkness. He missed colours most of all. Now he had nothing. And why did his stomach hurt? And what was that awful smell? He remembered his father visiting, too. And Uncle Sebastian? He remembered them all shouting, and then he remembered… nothing.

When Jake finally woke up, not only was he feeling proper hungry again, but he was feeling better all around. His body felt different. His mind felt different. Even his mother seemed different, somehow. Not the least bit because she put on some old, ugly clothes, packed up a small box of their things (but none of his favourite books or toys), and disappeared them to the city. She found a one-room home away from the traffic. Private, tucked away from prying eyes.

But Jakob ran away for the second time not fourteen days after they moved into their one-room home in the mountain. He hadn't eaten in days—weeks?—not since he woke up feeling powerful. Since then, he'd been able to perform all manner of feats he couldn't before. But why was she starving him? It wasn't right, and he knew what he had to do. He wasn't sure how, but he knew where he had to go. And he wasn't sure how he got there, but he did.

Next thing he knew it, our boy found himself back in Amsteg. One by one, he slipped into their homes. The ones who took his sight and left him disfigured and helpless. They didn't have to bolt their windows and doors, did they? But maybe they bloody well should have, he thought. He could move almost silently now, so he pressed his hands against their chests while they slept, and second by second, he made them pay. He didn't want to, but he did, actually, even if he knew it was wrong. At least he wasn't hungry anymore.

All the same as he'd arrived in Amsteg starving and confused, Jakob couldn't recall how he'd managed to find his way home, fulfilled and bewildered. It would be almost two days before they'd get the news. "A dozen dead! Mystery sickness strikes Amsteg!" But Avis knew better than that. She could feel the fear and smell the death upon her boy.

She loved her son, maybe, but he was a liability now. A risk to public safety, a risk to himself. So she commissioned a special stone door to replace their regular door, built with a special lock that required a special key. Quietly, she commissioned two sets of silver shackles. One for the ankles, and one for the wrists. "It's for your own good," she said. But he didn't have his books, or his favourite toys. And he was tired of feeling helpless. He liked it better when he felt strong and not hungry. And why was he so itchy?

Jakob Adler would ask himself that same question for over a thousand years while held captive behind the keyhole in the mountain. Uncle Sebastian never visited anymore, but at least he had his mother—sometimes—and his father—less often. After a few centuries, even he'd stopped visiting altogether. Avis unlocked his wrists on occasion, to let him play the cello. "You've earned it," she'd say, and he hoped his song would make her happy again. But then even she stopped coming. For over a thousand years, Jakob Adler existed in a void, and for most of it, he slept. Only fifteen years before we'd first met each other, he was finally rescued, and five days after that, he woke up in a cage at the lair.

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