Star Rising: Heartless Read Free Page B

his silver and black hair. As if he wasn’t strange enough already. All the years of hard work had caused him to develop a muscular physique. He unsuccessfully tried to pat down his unruly hair, and then slipped on a pair of pants and shirt.
    Absolute silence. That was all that he heard as he stepped foot into the hallway. Which wasn’t at all surprising. It was early dawn. The boys and girls were still deep in sleep.
    He went into the boy’s room, a windowless large hall with dozens of beds set in uneven rows.
    Xalen tiptoed down the cold tiles, careful not to disrupt the soft snores that surrounded him. Soon the kids would wake, and the cruel reality that they were unwanted orphans would wash over them in a thick wave of despair. But now, in their dreams, there was no such reality. In their dreams they had families. Dads carried them in their arms on the way to the park. Mothers whispered sweet words of love as they tucked them to sleep. Crazy uncles showed up unexpectedly, bringing with them all sorts of treats and toys.
    He knew that they dreamt like this, because he himself had dreamt of a family for many years. He had yearned for the touch of a mother, and the strong hand of a father. He’d given up on those childish dreams long ago. Nobody wanted a freak. Xalen still held hopes, however, that some of the kids at the orphanage would find the family he’d never found.
    He reached Rund’s bed, and shook him awake.
    After much whining and flailing, Rund finally got up and dragged his feet behind Xalen. He hopped on one leg, evidently still in pain from the long day of work he’d endured the day before.
    “What are we going to make today?” asked his friend as they walked into the kitchen. It was a small room with a table in one corner, and a few nearly empty cupboards.
    Xalen examined the crates of wheat. “Barley cereal it is.”
    “Barley again?” whined Rund. “We’ve had that everyday for the past two weeks. When are we getting some meat?”
    “Did you have some hidden stash of sausages, bacon, or Lits that I know nothing about?”
    Rund did not bother to answer. There was no need. The mere thought that Agnes would spend money on meat for anyone but herself was laughable.
    From the corner of his eye, Xalen examined his friend as he reached into the crate and took out the wheat. Like himself, Rund was different. He had a condition that caused his eyes to be crooked. He could be staring right at you and you wouldn’t even know it. It was this simple twist in genetics that had drove all potential adoptive families away.
    “What is that?” they would ask. Or, “That thing is hideous.” Xalen had even overheard a woman suggest to the headmistress that she throw Rund off of a nearby cliff to rid the world of his ugliness. To which Agnes replied that she would gladly do it, if it wasn’t for the fact that Rund was so good at fixing things around the orphanage.
    If the lights went out, it was Rund who would fix the power converters. The communicator malfunctioning? No worries, with a box of scrap metal, Rund would quickly fix it, leaving it in an even better condition than it was before. Xalen was certain that his friend had some sort of innate connection with engines that allowed him to understand them on a deeper, almost spiritual level. It was things like this that Xalen hoped the adoptive families would see. But no. They saw his thick lips, oversized stomach, sun-burned skin, and wild, charcoal hair and immediately labeled him a monster.
    Two hours later, as the two red suns drifted over the mountains to the east, the two boys finally finished the food.
    “It would be much better with some meat,” whined Rund, stirring the large gray pot once more. He reached in with a small spoon, tasting it a final time.
    “C’mon. Everyone is waiting for us.”
    The boys took the pot by the handles, and together, grunted as they carried it out into the cafeteria. Two lines, one of boys and the other of girls, was