Chapter 1: what the people saw

Umbra's very first life started on a small, insignificant planet called Earth. He had always, for as long as he had remembered, been hated. Not just disliked, not just avoided, but sincerely hated by almost anybody around him. When he was only seven years old, he had already been taught how brutal people could be.

The other kids would never leave him be. Kids in his class tripped him up in the halls, shoved him into lockers, and stole his lunch. The teachers looked the other way-or worse, joined in. "Why can't you be more like the others?" one teacher had said, scolding him for being late to class after getting ambushed on the playground. The townspeople treated him like an outcast.

I don't want you playing near my house," a neighbor once said, glaring at him through her window.

"What's wrong with that boy? He's strange," whispered another as he passed, clutching her purse tighter.