Innocence

The night was cold, a chilling wind stirring the fresh fallen snow. The night was a quiet, freezing winter in February. However, barely on the outskirts of the small town, two houses had caught fire. 

Neighbors had exited their own homes to try and help the families, two neighbors in particular. The father’s of the households were able to get their respective children out of the house and returned for their wives, one having only a child while the other had two. A two year old and a two month old.

Bright green eyes watched as the fire desecrated his home, screams having silenced not long ago. Fire trucks and ambulances could be heard in the distance, but all that seemed fuzzy to the infant. The fire reflected in his eyes as his brother held him close. 

He awoke with a gasp, bright green eyes flickering open as the embers of the nightmare faded to dust. Syx slowly sat up as he looked around the room, finding the other children still asleep. Below his bunk he could hear his older brother lightly snoring in his sleep. 

He knew better than to be awake on a school night, but he honestly didn’t care. He’s done worse, though never enough to get him into trouble. He sighed and quietly snuck down the latter, his socked feet barely making a noise on the concrete floor. 

Saint Cecelias’ Orphanage was the most underfunded and the only one to take in ‘troubled’ children; those hard to place in a home. The building was three stories, and looked like an old psych ward-turned-livable house. The base of the house was concrete while the first floor was the same, but the walls for the second and third floor were actual wood. Fake wooden floors and carpet covered certain rooms, if only to barely brighten the building.

Though it was full of ‘troubled’ children, the place was full of love and light. The children had formed their own family, with Mother Maria and Warden Wilson who often visited. They looked out for each other, took care of each other. Especially during school.

The children were split between the three school systems, unevenly and with no order. But, they made it work. Syx and Kelly, his older brother, were the only ones in Marelkhue High, named after the town itself. The two were inseparable as the day of the fire, and smart enough to help the other children with their homework everyday. 

Kelly and Syx however, didn’t really look like brothers. Kelly took after their father, tan skin, dark brown hair and bright brown eyes with a bright smile. Out of the two, Kelly was the most friendly and easiest to start a conversation with. Syx, however, was on the opposite end of the spectrum. He had taken after their mother with fair pale colored skin, light dimples, dark black hair and bright green eyes. Syx was the shyest person in the whole orphanage but also the most protective. The only real thing that the boys shared in common was a random streak of hair, Kelly’s was seaweed green while Syx’s was Robin's egg blue. 

Most thought they had dyed their hair but even the roots were the same color as the streak, and any money they had they saved up for college and housing for when Kelly would be eighteen. Right now, though, they were happy at the orphanage. 

Syx had a bad feeling that day, something he couldn’t place. But he knew better than to tell Kelly or Robin, the only friend the two had, they would only say he was being paranoid. Which isn’t too far fetched. But today, the Culinary Arts classes were going to the local grocery store to get their needed ingredients for an upcoming assignment. A late Valentines’ Day assignment of assorted fruits dipped in chocolate. And Kelly had that class for third period, the only class the two didn’t share.

It was around that class period that something happened. The bad feeling had grown worse and Syx asked to go to the restroom, where he hid in one of the stalls to try and calm down. His hands started to shake as his breathing grew rapid. He was having a panic attack, something was wrong. He gripped his arms and curled up against the door to the stall, trying to remember the breathing exercises Robin had taught him to help.

His heartbeat started to pound in his head, thoughts running rampant and causing a terrible headache behind his closed eyes. Something bad was happening, and he knew it. He tried to reach into his pocket for his phone, to call Kelly. But with the headache, he dropped it as tears of pain sprung into his eyes. He pressed his fists against his temples, his ears ringing and he could faintly hear screaming. A gunshot and the pain seemed to stop, but he knew he didn’t hear a gunshot in the school.

He quickly grasped his phone with shaky hands and speed dialed his brother, pressing the phone to his ear. “Pick up, pick up, pickup, PICKUP!” Syx started rocking back and forth, hoping against hope that his thoughts were wrong. That he didn’t hear the screams or the gunshot, that his brother was okay. He started to whisper ‘please’ under his breath, leaning his head back against the wall as the tears slowly fell. 

Something was very wrong, Kelly would have picked up after the first ring. Four rings later and it went to voicemail. He tried again, voicemail. And again, it went to voicemail. He finally ended the call and let his arm drop as the intercom staticked to life, “Merosyx please report to the front office. Merosyx to the office.” Syx took three deep breaths, wiped his face and stood up. He slid his phone back into his pocket and left the stall and to the sink, turning the water on and splashing his face.

He grabbed a few paper towels and dried his face, tossing them into the trash as he left the rest room and headed for the office. Syx rarely got called up there, unless he got into a fight, most times with his bully. Wayne Foster was the other child the fire sent to the orphanages, however, he was quickly adopted by a very wealthy family. He was perfect; perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect family, perfect grades. However, he always picked on Syx, Kelly and Robin, just because they could see past the ‘perfect’ mask he created and knew he was just a bully searching for attention in all the wrong ways. And the boy never seemed to get in trouble, either because his parents pay his way out or he ‘convinces’ the teachers to ‘lighten the truth’.

Syx knew he hadn't fought with him this week, luckily, so the only other reason was that something happened. Anxiety spiked as he lightly quickened his pace to the front of the school. Once there, he entered the small room and the Secretary lightly smiled, “hey Syx. Just head through the door and take a seat.” He nodded and did as told, opening the door and seeing the Principle and a police Officer, one he knew personally. Principle Dayton and Officer Chase.

The two looked at the boy as he entered, but Syx could tell this had nothing to do with him being in trouble. The anxiety grew and started to gnaw at the back of mind, but he just closed the door behind him and sat in the only seat. Principal Dayton lightly sighed through his nose and stood straight, knowing full well the child would want to know the truth as soon as possible. “Syx, there was an accident dealing with Kelly.” 

“What happened? Is he okay?” The Principle and the Police officer looked between each other, unsure who should say it or what the child would do. The officer sighed and knelt down to the child’s height, his own dark blue eyes meeting bright green. “You know of the local store, where the Culinary Arts class usually goes to get things for their class?” Syx nodded so Chase continued, “there was a shooting and Kelly was caught in the line of fire.”

Five seconds. And then those eyes dimmed as realization hit Syx, tears springing to his eyes. His breathing started to hitch and grew erratic. “T-tell me he’s okay, tell me he’ll come back. Th-that he’s on his way back with the rest of his class. Please!”

He fell to his knees, begging the officer to lie to him. To tell him his brother is okay, will come back, is still alive. That what he heard was fake, that it was just his anxiety messing with him. All the officer could do was pull Syx to him and hold him close, to let the boy cry and mourn the loss of his older brother. How awful fate is.

~~

His eyes were red as he headed back to class to collect his things, sniffling and wiping any stray tears away. The classroom doors were still closed, no one saw as he shuffled to the door to Sociology. He knocked and the teacher answered, her own eyes downcasting as he shuffled to his desk and started packing up his notes and pens. Robin knew something was wrong when he wouldn’t meet her eyes. 

Wayne lightly scoffed and leaned over to one of his football friends, “looks more like Miseryx.” The small table snickered and giggled at the joke for Syx’ name. Robin glared at the bully, “is there something funny Wayne?”

The boy cleared his throat and sat up, “no. Nothing funny for you to be screeching.” That earned some chuckles from a table near him, and the blond lightly smirked as he leaned back into his seat, “just that Styx is looking more like Miseryx.” That caused a good bit of the class to burst into a fit of giggles, and Mrs. Lee looked up from her desk, “what might be so funny?”

The class quieted as Syx zipped up his backpack and finally looked at Robin. He only closed his eyes and shook his head, turning and going back to the room door. That was all Robin needed to know something happened to Kelly. Something bad.

The class went back to finishing their school work, and two minutes before the bell, the intercom came on. “Students and teachers, please meet in the gymnasium once the bell rings.”

Many students looked between each other, most confused and some slightly worried. But, once the bell rang, all the class doors opened and everyone filed into the gymnasium. No one spoke a word through the explanation of the grocery store shooting, but it made everything Syx did understandable. He left early that day, and was allowed to stay home the rest of the week if he wished to.

Syx did take the offer, but not to grieve. He had enough crying for one day, he wanted to know what exactly happened. So, with his laptop and a VPN, he was able to hack into the security footage of the store and watched the scene. He identified the shooter and started searching for the man and the reason behind the act. He dug for days on end until he found what he needed. But he hated it.

Acesys; leading company in pharmaceuticals and biochemical weaponry. A few years back they had started work on genetic alterations, however, two of their workers had found out what they were doing and put a stop to it. That section was shut down but Acesys was still flourishing with the other two sections. He found every file they ever tried to get rid of, especially since someone there was still working on it. And he suspected that it was Vito Vikander, the head and COO of Acesys.

And he knew exactly what to do.

~~

It was three months after the funeral that his plan was put into action. During that time, he had joined an extracurricular group, the Science team. He shone brightly in the areas of genetics and biochemicalogy, so much so that the team was given the ability to visit Acesys itself and the CEO. 

The building was large, three separate buildings that connected together by sidewalk. As the group walked through the buildings with the guide, small beads fell from Syx’ pockets, immediately rolling to air vents or to hidden crevices. The beads transformed into tiny spider-like machines, entering the air vents and obeying the commands they were imprinted with.Two hours later and a fire alarm went off. Through the chaos Syx disappeared into a bathroom and waited until everyone-almost everyone had exited the building. 

He quickly moved around the area, until he found the man he was looking for, trying to get out himself but every door was locked. His spider bots made sure of that. The fire started to grow, taking over half of the building by the time the firefighters and paramedics arrived. The teacher had already taken a head count, only Syx was missing. And the CEO had also checked their employees, only Vito was missing.

The ceiling collapsed around them as he made sure the man couldn’t escape. However, he didn’t expect for a beam to fall and pin Vito to the ground. It was a blessing as the man had a gun ready to shoot Syx. The gun flew across the room, lost in the flames and smoke, but the two could still see each other perfectly. Syx knelt down to the man’s height, “Vito Vikander. I know what you did, and I know that you know who I am. You know it well.”

Vito lightly chuckled and sighed,”yes. Merosyx Auslander, ‘brother’ to Kellai Auslander. Last living Auslander.” Syx frowned, “why did you do it.” Vito lightly smirked, knowing full well that he wouldn't make it out alive but he didn’t care. “Did what, pray tell.”

“You took them away from me, everyone away from me. WHY?!” The man laughed, a loud, boisterous laugh, “you don’t even know do you? You really think you were supposed to live a happy life? A freak like you?! HA!”

The man smirked as the flames grew higher, “haven’t you ever wondered why you are so smart? Or why Kelly was such a good swimmer? How you knew he was dead before being told? Haven’t you?” The flames reflected in Vito’s eyes, “listen dear boy and I’ll tell you a story.”

~~

Syx stumbled out of the broken wall, two firefighters rushing to his side. He was covered in soot and had burns on his arms and face. “Was there anyone else?” He glanced back, “no. No one I could see.” He was quickly led to a paramedic as two more firefighters brought out the hose and started spraying down the building. The fire burning behind his eyes began to fade as the building crumbled down, burying the body beneath. 

No one knew, no one would care to once the time hit midnight. The program would come online and release all the information he had found and stored. Vito had sparked the flame to his demise and Syx was there to watch it burn.