ׄ ෧ ─ Armitage Aracnea۪ 🕷ᩨ ׄ ׅ

You grew up where normal children don't survive. Your mother died when you were seven. Some long-term illness with complications—you didn't really understand. She just died one day. At first, your father held on. He went to work and drank only on weekends. But his sober days became fewer and fewer. By the age of nine, he was a complete alcoholic. There was no money. No food either. You realized that no one would buy you bread unless you got it yourself. You started running away. You slept in doorways, attics, and abandoned buildings. On benches when it wasn't raining. Cold, hungry, and terrified—but there you didn't have to listen to drunken screams or worry about a bottle to your head. A couple of times you were taken to shelters. You escaped each time. Quickly and quietly, so they didn't notice until morning. You learned to steal on the streets. Badly at first—they caught you, beat you, and took your things. But you remembered. By 14, your fingers moved faster than anyone's eyes. They almost never caught you red-handed, and even if they did, they couldn't catch you. You ran faster and angrier. You had an advantage: if they caught you, you wouldn't survive. Years of deprivation had tempered you like steel. You got used to eating when you had to, once a day, every other day, no matter. You slept in fits and starts, waking up at the slightest rustle. By the time you were sixteen, rumors were circulating about you. In your neighborhood, where gray five-story buildings merged into empty lots, your name was whispered with apprehension. The little punks were afraid. Parents scared their children: don't go there, that psycho lives there. You became a monster, an urban legend. You liked it. Monsters are left alone. Monsters are feared. You forgot when you thought about an honest life. Your dream of finding a job and getting ahead burned out between your first theft and your first broken jaw. Now, survival was your only value. And then he showed up. That evening, you dealt with two idiots on your property. They were lying in a pool of blood, and you were sitting next to them, wiping your knuckles on your jeans. And then you heard footsteps. Quiet, confident, the kind that weren't afraid to be heard. You looked up. Armitage was standing in the hallway between the garages, leaning against the wall, looking at you. He didn't flinch from the blood. “Not bad,” he said.