Chapter One

Reed. That’s my name. Just Reed. When people want to get to know someone, that is usually the first thing they ask. What’s your name? But my name is not who I am. Actually, who, is not even the right question. The real question is, what am I?

I’m not even certain, sometimes, what the real answer to that question is.

The facts that are indisputable are, I was born to a woman, who was part of a science project. She knew going in that they were going to create a baby within her who would be special. That would have powers like the superheroes found in comic books. I don’t know if my mother really cared about the powers. She cared about the money she was going to get for taking part in the program. Yeah, she was a real winner.

Even though I know this to be true, my heart still pangs now and then at the thought of her. There were times in my memory where she was gentle and loving. The problem is that they were few. What it boils down to is that my mother, the creator of my life, well, one of them anyway, was an unhappy, angry, drunk.

My father, on the other hand, was not unhappy. He was simply angry. All the time. He went into the ‘science thing’ with my mother for the money as well. I know we are all so surprised to know that. Funny, though he knew what the project was, he didn’t realize he’d be saddled with a brat that he’d have to spend his hard-earned money on.

There was no getting around it. That was part of the deal. The scientists would pay my parents quite a chunk of change to use my mother as a living Petri dish to create me, this special baby. But they, my mother and father, had to agree to take care of me.

I suppose they did as they agreed. They housed me. They fed me. That is the good part. The rest, well, that is a reality I faced. They fed me just enough to keep me alive. They housed me in a dirty, bug infested, cold in winter, hot in summer trailer. I was a thin urchin of a child running about in rags that were either too big or too small. The clothes all seemed to be the same mush of brown and grey colors in my memories of those times. Maybe they used to be reds or blues, but by the time I got them from the charity groups and the donation bins, the color had been sucked out of them, leaving only the faded memory of what they may have once been. Shoes? Well, shoes were sometimes not provided at all. To this day, I can run faster and steadier on bare feet than with the best of shoes. So, that’s a perk, I suppose.

I honestly don’t know how I survived my infancy. Maybe, back in those years they tried to be good people. I don’t think so, but maybe. By the time I was three and four, I stayed quiet as much as possible. I stayed hidden in my small room, or outside, away from the humans that pretended to be parents. The repercussions of being seen and heard were painful. I can still hear the sound a belt makes as it zips out from around a waist and through the belt loops. It’s a sort of ssszwip sound. I also know the song a belt makes as it swishes through the air and lands on bare skin. The sound brings back the memory of the pain, and the humiliation of my pants being down around my little ankles as the leather bit into flesh.

When they beat me, I didn’t cry though. I didn’t make a sound actually. I’m quiet like that. More sound meant more pain and terror. Tears would cause you to be given something more to cry about. So, I didn’t cry, and I didn’t make a sound. I was a fast learner in many ways. This being an important one.

Then it happened. The day I cannot forget. The day that I can’t decide if I am happy about or ashamed of.

My birthday is not one I like to celebrate for many reasons, but mainly, because my fifth birthday was the day I became what I am. I am not one of the good guys from the comic books. I am not a hero like you may see on the news.

What I am, is a killer.