A/N: This is Bengal’s story. It will be told in four parts. Review!! Reviewreviewreviewreviewreview!!

Part 1: Helpless Newborn

“You fucking bastard child! Get out of my sight, you worthless piece of shit!” Paulo, a Spanish man in his early forties, hauled a thirteen-year-old child off the floor and threw him across the room.

“Paulo! Stop!! Please, stop it Paulo!” A younger woman of the same ethnics was cowering in the corner.

“Shut up Maria, you fucking whore!” Yelled Paulo as he advanced on the now-wailing child again. He punched the boy in the face, ignoring his cries.

“Shut your shit-filled mouth or I’ll shut it for you, you insignificant son-of-a-bitch!” Benvenuto winced under his father’s blows, licking his bleeding lip as he desperately tried to crawl away. The boy was extremely thin, but that was because he was starved. He had bronze skin, and hair that was a sort of dark sable. His eyes were a brown that looked almost orange, and he had sharp, Spanish features.

“Father!” He cried in anguish. “What was that I doing!?” Benvenuto’s English was exceedingly bad, thanks to his abusive father and completely cowed mother.

Paulo didn’t answer. Benvenuto tried to bite back tears, willing the pain to stop, but it was useless. His last thoughts before he finally blacked out were prayers that he would die.

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When the young boy woke, his head was very fuzzy and his whole body was an endless throb of pain. Unfortunately (in his opinion, anyways) he was very much alive. He felt hot bile rise in his throat, and just got strength to roll onto his side in time to keep from choking. He began to cry again, tears cutting their wet paths down his cheeks. His limbs felt heavy. He thought he wouldn’t be able to stand, but after a few moments effort, proved himself wrong.

He noticed he had been lying in the same place he had started out in. Using the wall to support himself, he limped to the next room in the filthy apartment. What he saw made him double over and vomit again.

Benvenuto’s mother, Maria, was lying dead on the ground in a pool of blood. Her eyes, so like her son’s, were blank and staring, blood blossomed from her breast where the handle of a carving knife protruded. The tip stuck out of her back.

Benvenuto fell to his knees, shaking with sobs. His mother was the only person who had ever cared about him, ever loved him. His grief overtook him. That was the moment he gave up on life. Not on survival, but on life.

He knew then that he had to leave, to run, hard and fast. He had to move on to different things. Certainly different, but by no means better.