Prologue
I hate him even though he’s my father and I could never say it to his face, I hate him. I hated him back then and I still hate him now. It wouldn’t even matter if I looked him dead in the eyes and told him, he would do everything in his power to avoid me now that I’m not on the threat of death. As far as he was concerned I’m still a freak, but really he’s the real freak. What kind of father abandons his own son and doesn’t look back?
Chapter One
A Cruel Beginning
It was a long 24 hours stuck in the hospital, his mother wasn’t taking it all well. She was tired, stressed and incredibly unwell, she looked faint and weak. Her husband remained by her side the whole time, telling her stories of their past together, trying his best not to cry out loud and to keep her awake.
“Stay with me honey you’re doing great” he’d repeat between stories, holding her hand tight.
The whole room stood still even as the doctors and nurses raced around, as the night went on time felt like it slowed down.
“He’s almost here, you’ve gotta stay with us honey, you’ve gotta see our beautiful baby boy!” his father tried not to sob, as his wife’s face became fainter and the light in her eyes began to fade away as she grew weaker by the minute.
The nurses rushed away with a tiny and not moving baby boy, devoid of sound and tears. The doctors explained that he was incredibly weak and they needed to take him out of the room to save the boy and the mother. His father looked at his wife with panic washing over his face, his thoughts raced ‘What if she doesn’t make it?’ ‘Will I have to raise our son alone?!’
His eyes darted to the different machines blaring and beeping loudly, doctors were yelling and racing around trying to keep his mother alive. His father squeezed his wife’s hand tightly as it began to feel weaker and more frail. She managed to barely open her eyes, she weakly turned her head to face him.
“Keep Miles safe my love” and with those final words all the beeping stopped, and the room fell into silence.
One doctor stepped forward with a notepad as another walked over and covered her face with a sheet. The first doctor to step forward and looked up at the clock on the wall “Time of death, 23:55” he paused and faced Miles’ dad “I’m sorry for your loss”.
The extra doctors that had come in to help funnelled out of the room one by one leaving Miles’ father alone with his dead wife, and racing thoughts.
…
After a moment he slowly straightened up looking around and coming back into reality.
“Where is my son?” He yelled, looking up from the bed he had been fixated on.
“We are taking care of him at the moment, but he’s still very weak. I’d suggest you try to get some sleep, he won’t be ready for visitors until at least tomorrow” the doctor explained. He gestured for other doctors to remove the patient's bed from the room.
…
No one got much sleep that night but that didn’t stop Miles’ father from pacing anxiously around the room early in the morning. At around 7:00 am a nurse walked into the room holding a small pale boy, with little spikes of white hair on top of his head, and small thin white eyelashes. Miles’ father stopped and stared at the nurse, she walked over and handed him the boy. He looked down at his son, the sorrow in his melted and crystallised into hatred and disgust.
“What’s wrong with him?!” he snapped angrily at the nurse, “why does he look like a freak!”.
The nurse froze in place and took a deep breath, “he has albinism sir, it means that he has less pigment in his skin, eyes and hair” she explained calmly.
“What a freak,” he muttered at his son.
Chapter Two
Reluctant Love
It was a surprise his father kept him at all, it might have just been because Miles was the only thing left of his mother, or maybe it was just to torture him. It was no surprise that Miles’ father blamed his own son for his wife’s passing, he didn’t even hide it sometimes but he still showed a small amount of care for Miles, mainly because he legally had to. His father managed to do the bare minimum at every corner of raising his son, it was enough that people wouldn’t bat an eye in public or suggest he was a bad father. Random mothers out in public would often give him sympathetic looks or even some tips when Miles’ father went for walks or just out to lunch. Some people adored a cute little baby, others questioned why Miles looked so weird or different, and then there were the few who looked scared or disgusted at such a freak of a child. What kind of baby has such pale skin or hair that was bright and naturally white, and heaven forbid the sweet little boy opened his eyes in public to reveal the horrifying pale red colour hiding away?
…
Around the age of 4 Miles would mainly spend his time in his room playing by himself. His father didn’t want to waste money or show off his freak son to the world earlier than he needed to at preschool so Miles stayed home all day. As any curious child wonders he would often try to imagine what his mother was like. However that question could never be answered, Miles, learnt that after that time he asked his father.
“Daddy” he called out entering the living room where his father sat on the couch reading the newspaper sipping on coffee that had gone cold. He grunted rolling his eyes to acknowledge his son’s presence in the room.
“What was mummy like?” Miles asked, he rocked back and forth on his feet looking up at his father with hope and curiosity shining in his eyes like a pile of red glitter.
His father stopped halfway through sipping his coffee, he swallowed his drink hard and lowered the cup down to the coffee table beside the couch. His face fell into shadow as he closed his paper and began rolling it up. Miles stopped rocking, still looking up at his father, his curiosity flipped to confusion. His father raised his arm up and swung backhanding Miles across the face with the paper, knocking him to the ground. Tears began to well up in Miles’ eyes as he held his face gently and slowly looked back up at his father.
“Don’t you dare speak of her you freak!” He shot up off the couch as he yelled. He pointed away from him and yelled “Go to your room and never speak of her again! Do you understand?!”.
Miles scrambled off the ground and before running away he sobbed “Yes Dad”.
Miles ran straight to his room, sliding past his doorway slightly from the momentum, he pushed himself forward into his room using his door frame and dived onto his bed, he hugged the one toy he had which was left for him by his mother, a small, soft light chocolate cow toy, the stuffing was uneven giving it a floppy neck from how much Miles squeezed it tight. He curled into a ball, hugging his little cow tight and cried. Hours went by, it was dark out when eventually his father came in without a word, he placed a plate of food and an ice pack on Miles’ bedside table and left again.
After that incident, Miles was careful about what he said to his father, but he’d prefer to keep his mouth shut which seemed to make his dad happier.
…
Eventually, when Miles turned 6 he had to start going to school. Miles was excited to meet new people and spend time away from his father.
His father dropped him off out front of the school, he was even kind enough to wave goodbye to his son. Miles walked into school the happiest he’d been since birth. He looked around at the friendly faces of all the school kids as their excitement faded. Some kids looked away, some kids stared in shock, some looked scared and others were confused by his weird look. There was one group of kids who pointed and laughed.
They called out the name that Miles was so used to hearing, “Freak!”.
Teachers rushed out of the classrooms to see what the commotion was all about, they saw as on the first day of school a poor kid who just looked different was ridiculed. As all the other teachers ushered kids to head to class one kind young lady came over, she bent down to Miles' level and gave him a hug. Miles had never been hugged before, it felt nice and warm. His body felt relaxed and his tears flowed away.
“You alright dear?” she asked, keeping her hands gently on top of his shoulders.
Miles just nodded in response, he had forgotten what he was upset about in the first place, how could he think of the horrible things that just happened after that warm embrace.
“Alright, let’s head to class then” She stood up and reached out her hand for him to hold.
Miles took a deep breath and grabbed her hand. As they both walked to class Miles felt his joy for school return. He was ready for the day!
…
At the end of the day, his father waited in his car in the same place he had dropped Miles off that morning. Miles jumped into the car just as happy as when he left.
His father started the car and began to drive home, “How was your first day of school?” he asked looking in the rear vision mirror to see Miles.
Miles’ eyes began to shine like gemstones in the sun as it clicked in his head that his father wanted to talk and hear about his day.
“It was great dad, we got to know everyone in our class and I was able to talk about my albinism, which made some kids less frightened by me which is nice since they all had bad reactions when I walked in” Miles spoke quickly he was so excited to tell his dad all about his day.
“Sounds fun. Was your teacher nice?” his father asked.
“Oh yeah, she cheered me up when a group of kids called me a freak” Miles was practically jumping in his seat going back and forth between looking out the window and towards his dad in the front seat.
“That's good,” he replied.
The rest of the car trip was silent but that didn’t bother Miles, he got to go to school for the first time and tell his dad all about it in one day, nothing could bring him down for a while.
Chapter Three
War
A couple of days after Miles’ 7th birthday his father's mood changed drastically, he focused less on Miles’ or rather focused less on ignoring him and more on the tv and newspaper. Miles didn’t know what was going on but he knew his father seemed nervous and even scared.
…
A week later very quiet and distant explosions could be heard from all over town. When the first one went off his father shot up from the couch he threw down his newspaper and rushed to the front windows, he lifted the window curtains up and peered outside, bobbing his head back and forth looking around. Miles stared up at his father from where he had been playing on the floor, he began to shake a little in fear.
“Dad?” Miles’ voice wobbled.
His dad put the curtains down and turned to his son. He sighed, slowing his breathing and patting his chest before speaking.
“Yeah?” His voice sounded less harsh than usual instead it was nervous sounding.
“What’s going on?” Miles asked, shakily standing up from the floor.
“Nothing, it’s fine, we’ll be fine” his father’s face did not reflect the emotions in his words.
Miles nodded looking down at the floor, he didn’t believe what his father said but he knew better than to try and push information out of him.
…
As the weeks went by more explosions could be heard each day, they sounded closer and closer each time they went off. For now everything was still fine until, the day they heard a man yelling and running down the streets outside.
“Evacuate the town, everybody get out now!” The man screamed repeatedly as he ran up and down the streets. As he went some words were cut out by the explosions and gunshots.
Miles’ father rushed up from his usual place on the couch and began to run around the house frantically grabbing necessities and everything of value to him. Miles tried to follow his father around carefully and from a distance trying not to get pushed out of the way.
“Dad, please tell me what’s going on?!” Miles stepped back into the living area and called out to his dad.
“Shit, F*ck, Shit-” was all his father said rushing around the house.
Miles began to cry, he sank down to the floor in the living room holding his hands over his ears, he was shaking in fear, the yelling and explosions boomed outside sounding closer and closer each time they went off. His father soon came rushing into the living room, he shoved Miles’ little cow toy into his arms. Miles looked up at his dad, tears streaming down his face scared out of his mind.
“Come on, let's go!” yelled his father grabbing Miles’ wrist and dragging him off the floor and out the front door. “F*ck, not my damn car!” his father exclaimed aloud.
The car was smoking under the hood, there were bullet holes lining the side closest to the road and blood splattered on the opposite side. Miles’ father loosened his death grip on his son’s wrist.
“We’ll have to go on foot” his father huffed, as he traipsed out the front door fully leaving his and his past wife’s home behind for good.
They walked with haste carefully through the town, looking around for friends or foes. Lining the streets were other families packing up their cars and dragging their screaming terrified children outside, there were others packing up shops trying to save what they could of their life's work. The building around was destroyed, the sky was shades of red, orange and grey from the fires and smoke. Rubble littered the streets and where there wasn’t rubble there were craters. Miles tried closing his eyes or just avoiding looking at the ground, because within the destruction and rubble were blood stains, body parts or the whole corpse left out to rot or be destroyed as the war continued.
…
As Miles and his father continued running through their town, what was originally distant yelling began to get closer. The yelling was foreign from hundreds of people running through the town streets. Gunshots rang out through the streets, loud explosions shook the earth. Heavy mechanical treads rumbled the ground.
“Shit” Miles’ father hissed through gritted teeth.
Miles looked up at his father's wide eyes, scared out of his mind. Tears began to reform in his eyes, and he began to shake even worse than before. Miles’ father re-grabbed his son’s wrist and began to run. Behind them were screams, gunshots and the occasional boom. As they were sprinting down the main road twisting in and out of side streets, they remained on the street next to the main road out of the main line of sight but still able to get to the other side of town. After a while of running the road turned to dirt and crumbled apart pieces of the original remains of the street. The building that lined each side of the road became scarce, fires spread between the shattered remains of the original rather sturdy buildings. As they ran for what felt like hours Miles began to slip out of his father’s grip, he stumbled and tripped on the uneven surfaces. Off in the dusty distance were bright flashing lights, they seemed further and further away as they continued to run through the broken town. As they ran and ran and ran eventually Miles’ hand slipped out of his father’s grasp, they were scared and tired so distant from reality that as Miles fell to the ground after tripping once more he looked up to see his father continue to run away never even noticing he had left his son behind.
…
Miles couldn’t move; he was so exhausted and scared, he was splattered with patches of dirt and dust from running through the destroyed streets. He hugged his toy tight and just cried quietly for a moment. He looked up from the ground once more and saw his father was no longer in sight.
“Dad,” he said in a hushed and panicked tone.
Miles looked around looking for the lights he had seen before, and after a quick look around he saw them ever so faintly, flashing in the distance. He picked himself up off the mucky ground, hugged his toy tight to the right of his chest and began to march towards the lights again. As he moved forward he went from a march to a jog back up to running again. His focus was set on the lights in front of him, he stumbled and tripped but he recovered as quickly as he could and kept running. The ruins of the building began to fade away, and the fragments of the shattered road disappeared, it was an uneven dirt path. Miles just ran and ran; he wanted so badly to catch up to his father and not be left behind, that every time he tripped or stumbled he never even bothered looking down, each time he just got up. This was until the final time he tripped.
Miles ran still clutching his toy in his right arm tightly when he tripped yet again, he caught himself on the ground using his left arm. He was so focused on getting to the lights he didn’t even hear the tiny click when he hit the ground. Miles pushed off the ground with his left arm when the dirt below him erupted, boo-... silence.
Chapter Four
It’s Different
Beep……beep…..beep….beep…beep…
Miles gasped as he shot up awake. He attempted to look around but his vision was scuffed, half of it seemed gone and the rest wasn’t as clear as usual. As he focused his vision a little more he realised that he was in a hospital room sitting on a comfy, white hospital bed. He looked up towards the sound of the door opening and what looked like a doctor walked in. The tall, slender man in a white coat was still looking at his clipboard as he closed the door. When he finally looked up he almost jumped out of his skin, he wasn’t expecting to see Miles awake and sitting up staring at him.
“I’ll go get your father, hang tight” he said making tiny fanning gestures at himself as if cooling down his heart.
The doctor turned quickly and left the room again. After a small amount of time, the door swung open almost slamming into the wall behind it if it wasn’t for the hinges holding it back. Miles’ dad raced over to the bedside. Miles followed his dad’s movement, his vision still not entirely full.
“How could you!?” his father paused and huffed, “You were supposed to be right behind me you idiotic child!” he yelled.
Miles’ eyes widened in fear and began to fill with tears. He finally saw his father again only to be yelled at about something completely out of his control. His father stepped back, turning away from Miles, calming himself down. When he turned back around to face his son, his eyes also began to well with sorrow. He said nothing as he threw his arms around his son. Miles’ expression softened to surprised happiness. He rested his head on his father’s shoulder and let his tears flow softly down his face. He was too weak and tired to move so they just stayed there for a while. After some time had passed Miles’ father moved back a bit, holding his son’s face carefully in his hand, rubbing his thumb on Miles’ cheek. Miles didn’t even notice the fact he couldn’t feel his father’s touch.
“I’m so sorry Miles” his father paused yet again, trying to hold back tears. “I can’t lose you too” his lip quivered and a couple of tears rolled down his face.
“Dad?” Miles weakly addressed his father.
“Yeah Miles?” he finally met his son’s gaze after avoiding it trying not to cry.
“What happened? Why is my vision weird, why do I feel so…” he paused for a moment words bouncing through his mind “...different?” Miles asked, trying to gesture with his hand but still too weak to move.
His father bit his lip and held a fist to his chin, his eyes danced around the room as he considered how to break the news to his son.
“The doctors said you landed on a landmine” his father began to explain the situation, he paused, watching Miles carefully for a reaction.
Miles' face fell in horror, his heart raced as his mind frantically pulled forward a memory from the past, he remembered learning about the dangers of a war ground in school after the new program was introduced, made to prepare the kids in case they had to evacuate during the war. Since their town was very out of the way of cities, they didn’t know if the ongoing war would hit them or not. He tried to remember back when he tripped, he only now realised that he had heard that click. Tears streamed down Miles’ face as he slowly closed his eyes to weep.
“I’m so sorry Miles, you lost your lower left arm and vision on the left side,” his father said with short breaths, tears began to slowly roll down his face while he still tried to hold it all back.
Miles’ eyes fluttered as tears continued to push past his glossy white eyelashes.
He looked up at his father slowly, “It’s okay Dad, we’ll be okay” he whispered his voice quivering as he spoke weakly.
Chapter five
Home?
A month had passed since Miles was released from the hospital. Him and his dad had to move into a new home in the city after their old home was destroyed and now that they needed to be closer to the doctors. Miles was still adjusting to his missing arm and loss of his eye. He’d often try to grab things or open and close doors often forgetting that his arm was gone or sometimes when he was laying on his back in bed he’d try to close one eye to imagine things on the roof but closing his right eye just turned out the lights and closing his left eye made no real change.
…
Miles yet again reached for a door to try and open it to leave the kitchen. He sighed sadly looking down at his stub.
“When will you learn?” his father half chuckled, half sighed, shaking his head.
“It’s weird” Miles replied, turning to look at his dad, “it feels like my arm is still there sometimes”.
“You’ll manage I’m sure” heading over to Miles and the door.
His dad strutted over and opened the door behind Miles. It felt like mockery as Miles watched his father open the door with ease using his left arm. He felt sad but knew there was nothing he could do about it.
…
As the new school year started, Miles was scared to enter this new school life. Besides being an albino freak he was now even more different from the other kids.
“Here we go, might as well cover that eye” his father said, pulling an eyepatch over Miles' head covering his left eye up.
“I don’t wanna go to school” Miles mumbled, looking down at the floor.
“You gotta get over it kid” he dad replied, he didn’t even sound like he cared.
Miles stared at the floor as his dad lugged over his school bag and plonked it on Miles back.
“Let’s go kid, don't wanna be late” his dad said, grabbing the top of Miles’ bag and dragging him backwards out the front door.
He gently pushed him towards the car as he turned to lock the front door. Miles remained hunched over and he drug his feet slowly to the car. He sat sadly in the backseat staring out the window.
“Lighten up kid, maybe you’ll make some friends finally” his father snickered to himself.
As they pulled up out front of the new big school Miles' stomach dropped hard, it felt like it broke through the bottom of the car and smashed through the dark, clean tar below.
“Well enjoy your first day Miles” his father said, a mocking tone to his voice that sounded like he rolled his eyes.
Miles didn’t look back as his father sped away, he was now stuck in this new school all alone. Miles gripped his back straps tight as he began to slow and scary trek into the front doors of school. As he walked in and looked around at all the new faces, there were so many kids you could barely see the floors or walls of the hallway. As he began to walk carefully down the hallway he looked around everyone passing by him rushing to class. The kids that looked at him as they walked past looked concerned, scared, disgusted or just looked away as quickly as they could. Miles tried to stay near the wall to find his classroom easier, he was looking up at the classroom doors and didn’t notice the group of kids standing next to one of the rooms. One kid who was leaning against the wall stuck out their foot so that Miles, who didn’t see it, tripped and fell hard. He stuck out both arms to catch himself but instead just fell onto his left side. He sat up slowly looking up at the kids who were laughing and high fiving each other.
Suddenly a kid with dark skin and black hair ran over, he had big red headphones on with little horns on top. He pushed himself between Miles and the bullies.
He stuck out his arms in a starfish shape “leave him alone Zach” he yelled.
The main boy of the group had light brown hair that was kinda curly, he stepped forward squaring up to this other boy.
“Why should I?” Zach spat, “He’s even more of a freak than you”.
The whole group of bullies laughed, Zach put his hands out to the side and received a high five on each side.
Miles was fully upright on his knees looking up at the boy between him and the bully group, he could see the boy’s heart begin to race, his breathing grew faster as he panicked for what to do next when a teacher raced over and shooed the bullies away.
“You boys alright?” the teacher asked, her voice was croaky with a snarky tone.
Miles and the other boy nodded, and the teacher turned away and followed the bullies down that hallway. Miles stood up off the ground and put his hand on the boy's shoulder, he watched him relax and turned to look at him.
“Thank you,” Miles said, smiling softly.
The boy fulling turned around to face Miles “It’s no problem” the boy smiled, showing off his missing front tooth within the big grin.
“Why did you help me, aren’t you scared?” Miles asked, carefully studying the boy's expression.
“Because us freaks gotta stay together” the boy’s expression didn’t change as he spoke, he was one happy kid.
“Huh” Miles pondered that statement, he had never thought of Freak as a good thing.
“I’m Archie by the way. What’s your name?” the boy dropped the big toothy grin to just a kind smile.
“My name is Miles, it’s nice to meet you Archie” Miles replied, he found himself mimicking Archie’s smile.
“Well I’ll see you at break Miles” Archie waved and rushed away as the school bell rang through the halls.
…
At the end of the day Miles' father was waiting out front of the school again. Miles spun around as he waved goodbye to Archie who stood just outside the school doors, standing up on his toes waving goodbye with his big toothy grin again. Miles jumped in the car and buckled himself in, a lot happier than the start of this day.
“So how was school?” his dad asked, starting up the car.
“It turned out alright, I even made a friend like you said” Miles replied sitting up in his seat looking back at Archie who was still waving frantically.
“Well that’s good he seems nice I guess” his dad chuckled sarcastically.
Miles smiled as he looked out the window, “yeah, I like him”.
The End