The Orphan (A Dice Changer Short Story)

I hate it when people say "I wish we could go back to the good old days". I hate it because I think people want to go back to when they were ignorant of how awful the world is. They want to escape the chaos of life by going back to their cozy childhood homes. yet they forget that if such a power was possible people would be even worse. Freed people would go back to being slaves, and many would go back to reliving their traumas. Only the privileged and spoiled think such things, but I, and many other freed people would cry at the idea of going back to the darkness of our childhoods. The only time I think about my past is to help me remember just how lucky I was to escape and how my life is better now. I came from a family where everyone was vying for power and respect. I didn't want to be a part of that corrupted system, yet I was used as ammo, a currency to get whatever family member wanted from another. I was stuck, I was treated like a pet rather than a person. My mother used her pregnancy to force my dad to stay. My dad used me to prove why he was the best person in the family. My grandparents used me to brag about how great and big their way was. My uncle used me as the kid he lost. I think that is why I have a visceral reaction whenever someone compliments me. Why I was so content with being alone. It might also be why I never tried dating in middle or high school because I thought they were just going to use me until they were satisfied. It also didn't help that I wasn't allowed to have friends over unless they were somehow tied to some politician, private school board, or wealth of some kind. I was a prisoner in my home. I spent days thinking about running away or calling the police. I wished someone could save me from this torment. Then it happened, one day I came home from school and there were bodies on the floor. Several family members lay dead in pools of blood. I don't remember much but I do remember the police coming and interrogating me. They weren't the ones who did this and I was too tiny, stupid, and scared to commit a massacre like this. I don't even think they found a potential suspect to this day. Anyway, I was then taken into the adoption system. I stayed there are years making friends, and going to school. It was the first time I felt like I was home. I spent my first real Christmas, and birthday there (Since my family thought the holidays were nothing more than glorified cash grabs.). I saw many of my friends get adopted and leave but we still went to the same schools and places. Throughout my time there I began going to an actual church. This was where I first heard the truth. I never really realized how much orphan imagery there was in the Bible, but I understood those verses and stories because I lived through them. It felt like the God of the Universe saw the patterns of humanity and made men write about them so that someone like me could feel like they weren't alone. I became saved and baptized after spending almost a year there. I worked as a volunteer there to make some money. When I turned 18 I began working for the agency; to make sure people like me were saved from their horrible families. I helped many children learn to read, write, and do basic math. I continued to help out at the church with the coffee team and children's ministry. I never went to college but since I spent so much time learning how the adoption system worked, shadowing older people, and being their assistant I didn't need one. I met the love of my life soon after, and now I have kids. I have tried giving them the life I never had, I try to spoil them even when they reject it because I want to show them the love I was never shown. That is why I hate it when people say they wish they go back to the good old days, because to me I'm living in them, and I don't ever want to go back, and I know I shouldn't wish it either because other people are like me. Slaves to terrible families, playthings to spouses, and wallets to neighbors or friends. For the longest time, I never found out who actually killed my family. But whoever did I wish I could thank them, because the blood saved me, and now I am helping others. Then one day, I heard on the news that another family was killed. They were abusive and had somehow adopted several children but now they were free. I helped those kids deal with their traumas. I asked them what happened, and one of them said that they had been in their room when they heard fighting and were curious as to what was happening. When they got downstairs they saw a man in shiny armor and a sword stabbing one of the abusive parents while the other one was already dead. The man in armor then pulled out a rag and cleaned the blood off his sword. The whole time the man was silent, he never looked away or toward the kid. Then the other kids came and huddled around the stairs looking at the armored man as he left. There was no note, no sign, no gesture, no nothing. The police didn't believe their story, but I did. I started doing some digging on my own, and with the help of my new family, we managed to find more stories of an armored man, more dead abusive families, and more surviving orphaned kids. Our findings lead us to a web of people who seem to be responsible. They were some kind of cult who have been trying to purge the city from abusive families, sex traffickers, and other criminals who run free. I don't know how the police never made these connections but we did and we sought after them. It took a while and we managed to find them. They were kind people, who had a yearning to see justice prevail. I learned that they had dice that held magical beings. Which allowed them to become the beings. With these powers, they made it their job to bring justice if the judicial system couldn't, or refused to. The cult had been doing this for almost a decade and never caught. I felt their passion, I respected them, and soon I was helping them. Anytime they pulled an operation I would be one of the first to make sure the children weren't traumatized. Our plans worked, we freed so many kids and teens. Many people in the agency were either getting jealous of me or were amazed by my work. That is until a couple of men with similar abilities came and brought the cult to its knees. I wasn't there. I only saw the aftermath. I guess I didn't see how hypocritical and zealous they really were. Now I'm here helping some of the survivors get on their feet. We've been tracking the group that attacked and found that they call themselves Dice Changers. We don't know what they're doing or who they really are, but we will find them, and hopefully bring hope and freedom to abused kids, and bring hope to victims of this cruel world.