Prologue

Moving was always tough, but my parents decided it was best if I just lived by myself throughout high school. I’m still not sure what the legal age for living by your self is, I’d have to look that up later, but my parents both doubted the authorities would check. It took a long time for them to drill that into my head, after all, I would be living half-way across the world from my parents. Their jobs made them move around a lot, but it always traced back to China or Japan. We lived in the west coast of the United States, but with my parents always away, it was up to my grandparents to raise me. They were really nice to me, and I was relatively happy. Then they both passed away in a car accident when I was 10 and my parents were away at the time. I managed, but just barely.

When I was 6 I was diagnosed with a disease called ESP (Emotionally Stimulated Paranoia). It was a rare incurable disease that pretty much messed up the way I perceived certain things. Perceiving is a very broad topic though: vision, interpretation of words, hearing, touch and momentary psychosis. The symptoms were so inconsistent that I had about 20 different pills, each for a different scenario. However, one thing always stayed the same every second of my life no matter what. That symptom was the ability to read other people’s emotions, as well as sometimes feel them alongside the holder. It wasn’t like telepathy or anything, it worked by my mind memorizing how certain people look or talk when they’re feeling a certain emotion. If someone furrows their eyebrows and they tell me they’re tired, next time they furrow their eyebrows my mind screams he’s tired over and over. I’m not sure why I feel their emotions with them, that is yet to be figured out by doctors. However, multiply those conflicting sensations by the class capacity of 34 kids, and it could be quite overwhelming.

When people feel too much of the same emotion, it hurts. If everyone in the room is happy, my head starts spinning and my vision gets blurry. When I went to school the day after my grandparents died, everyone in the classroom heard of the accident on the news. They all felt bad for me, they wanted to comfort me. It didn’t help though, everyone’s sympathy, the emotions all the same towards me. I was still in tears about my grandparents and the pounding I’m sorry for your loss. I’m sorry for your loss, was the equivalent of 34 knives scratching across my back. I passed out from the pain, and woke up on a hospital bed.

The doctors said enough is enough, and told the teachers of my disease against my will. The teacher just had to explain to the class about how they need to be more careful around me because the classification of my disease was considered “potentially psychotic”. Alright, maybe she didn’t phrase it that way but that’s what is sounded like to me. My classmates started avoiding me, I didn’t care. My teachers who were forced to keep a “special eye” on me noticed this go on for years; kids backing away from me and me just staring emptily out the window.Friends don’t matter. In the end they’re only going to hurt you even if they don’t mean to. This progressed from 4th to 8th grade.

Yesterday, I hugged both my parents and waved goodbye, not knowing when I would see them again. They promised that they would visit on Thanksgiving, but with their schedules, I didn’t believe them for a single second. They said they already paid for the apartment for the first 2 months, but after that I would need a job to keep up with the rent. It wasn’t a fancy apartment or anything so it didn’t require a job more high-class than being a waiter or a cashier. I assumed I would spend the first 2months making a resume as well as getting accustomed to the new town. Today was my first day, well, actually night, here in the town of Lock Borough County. I had all the documentation and periodic instructions to follow from my paranoiac parents about what to do once I had gotten here. Well, here I go.