Chapter 9: Grendel

He had a name, but it was forgotten long ago. He knew he had a name, because he remembered he had a family and all members of a family had names did they not? Unlike now, he had been small for his age; small and prone to sickness. What little he remembered from his memories were fragments of him waking up in bed. The room would always be the same. Everything was white, from the walls to the bed to the smock that he wore. If he weren't alive, if he didn't have blood running through his veins, he could easily have blended into his surroundings like a ghost.

Mother, father, brother, sister... Mother, father, brother... Mother, brother... Mother... And then, the room was empty. It remained empty for a long time. Near the end stopped hoping, kept his eyes closed, not wanting to face his loneliness.

And then he heard voices. In his excitement he opened eyes which hadn't been opened in years. The light blinded him, and he winced in pain as his eyes adjusted to colors, shapes, and movement. It went on for minutes, and then the pain ceased, he could make out the outlines of people. "They're back! My family is back!" He thought in excitement.

"Dad!? Mom!?" his head moved from shape to shape, the bodies still blurred shapes and shadows.

"Yes dear, we're here, we came back, everything is going to be fine now." The woman spoke in a cautious whisper.

"Sorry, I ever doubted you. It's just that..."

This time the man spoke. "Now, there my boy." It hasn't been that long. "You've been sick... I bet it's seemed like decades..."

"It... has... But now you're here..."

"Yes son we are." He felt a sharp prick on his shoulder, and the world went black again.

It wouldn't be years later that he would find out the truth. They would tell him that his family had been murdered. That the people he was talking to were their killers and were attempting to kill him, before they got to him. Only half of the poison had been injected, which left him mute. It also woke something within him -hatred for everything around him.

He found out the people who were responsible for killing his family and the families of others and vowed revenge, no matter what the cost. He accepted to be part of the program wholeheartedly since he couldn't do much with the physical body that God had given him. Afterwards, much like many of the other orphans, he became their assassin. Taking on job after job until what little ounce of humanity which remained within him was buried underneath the blood of hundreds. He felt no compassion. He had no problem killing a woman and crushing her child's skull. He was a monster and they called him Grendel.