They dropped me here when I was a few days old. That's what the records say—if you can trust anything in this place.
My name's Ash. That's not what they called me when I was born. That name's long gone—along with whoever left me screaming in a basket at the gates of Orphanage 17.
They say this is normal now. No one wants kids anymore. Not in this world. We're mouths to feed. Waste to manage. The system is bloated with unwanted children, and Orphanages like mine are more common than schools. They're not for care. They're for storage.
And like anything forgotten long enough, we rot.
I once overheard from the nuns talking with each other that - "only Royals are allowed to carry their bloodline are you crazy....", wondered what that meant.
I'm twelve today, though no one knows for sure. You don't get a cake or a candle—just an extra scoop of grey paste and maybe fewer slaps from the staff. If you're lucky. I don't care. The others might dream of being adopted, but I know better.
No one gets adopted.
That's just a lie they tell the smaller ones to keep them quiet at night.
What really happens is different.
Every so often, men in black coats come through the gates. They don't talk. They don't smile. They walk the halls like shadows, stop at a bed, point to a kid… and leave with them.
That kid never comes back.
The caretakers pretend not to notice. We pretend harder. No one asks where they go. We've learned better. Questions don't get answers here—they get consequences.
Still… I've watched. I've waited. I've counted.
Ten kids gone in the last year.
Tonight, the air is different. Heavier.
It's almost midnight when the lights go out.
A long car engine hums outside. I hear footsteps in the hallway—slow, steady, deliberate. I sit up in my bunk. No one else moves. They all know. Or maybe they're hoping it's not their turn.
The door opens.
Two men. Black coats. No names.
One raises a finger.
Points at me.
And just like that, everything I've known... ends.