Prolog

Here is a question for you. do you think yourself to be interesting? I myself have thought about this question a few times and I have to answer the same at every turn. the answer is no. not the slightest bit. the only one who would disagree with this assessment was my grandfather. he was generally a very positive guy and I rarely saw him without a smile on his face.

Exactly the opposite of the attitude my father had. he was raised mainly by my grandmother. I never knew her, but I was told she was a competitive and strict woman. from all the stories I've heard about her I really don't get how grandma and grandpa ended up together. what's less surprising is that their marriage didn't hold for very long. my father was an only child back then and grandma got the custody for him. Generally, I think it was a mistake.

Comparing my father and my grandfather is practically Like comparing apples and quinces. At a first glance they're just similar enough to confuse them for each other but every single impression you get after that confirms that they're completely different. I have literally never seen my father with an honest smile. he is smiling a lot but, in his case, it would be more fitting to describe it as Moving the edges of his lips upwards. My mother is very similar to him but in her case, she doesn't even bother to smile.

I also have two siblings. John and Maria are twins. I'm the older one but to be honest there is nothing that would indicate that. they are four years younger than me, but I am practically the same height as them. I also have health issues which makes me put on a lot more body weight, so I actually look even smaller than I am. Now some would say that growing up in such a family environment would really suck and you have probably no idea how right you are with this statement. I would have suffered a great deal more if it weren't for one simple fact. my grades were absolutely trash.

With all this added together my parents quickly got sick of being around me and basically forced grandpa to take me in. he wasn't really wealthy, but he had a nice enough house at the outskirts of the city we lived in. he didn't have any complaints and looked after me for a while. He was too old to still work so we basically lived off his pension. which wasn't very much. We had to cut down on a lot of expenses, but we made do pretty well.

Now back to my question from the start. Some might argue that my life, while unfortunate, is interesting from a certain perspective. but having interesting circumstances doesn't necessarily mean that you as a person can call yourself interesting. Being interesting basically means that people take an interest in you as a person. The only human that ever genuinely made me feel like he cared was, as already stated, my grandfather.

My parents gave me the name Damian with the hope that I would get far in life, but they dropped me as soon as they realized that wasn't going to happen. They even changed my surname officially to that of my grandfather which I preferred anyway.

From then on, I was Damien Hartell. A short, overweight, 17-year-old boy who was neglected by his parents, with no friends, to pour to effort a hobby and with grades that were worse than my face looked.

I'd like you to tell me that there is any kind of Intriguing element to be found in my life.

*sigh* Please don't pity me. pity without any following action is one of the most useless emotions there is. I just want to set the scene and prepare you for what is to come.

Now that that's established, onto our next subject. I believe that you have picked up this story to be entertained or maybe just because there was nothing better to do.

In any case, I will give the Task of narrating to someone who is less biased towards the upcoming events. I sincerely hope you can enjoy yourselves.