I tried out present tense. Ew, I know.

Part One-

It's cold in the room. Dry, stale air in a room with no windows and a fluorescent light glaring brazenly down on the unremarkable corpse white bed and the unremarkable copper brown boy who sits on it. He wears the thin blanket over his shoulder like a cape, unwilling to relinquish his only defense against the cold and unwilling to lay down. He never wants to lay down again. He stares at his right hand as though he can will his missing two fingers to grow back from the raw red stumps his knuckles once were. It does not work. He can, however, hear the footsteps that grow closer to his door. His heart speeds, his breath quickens and he moves back onto the bed until his back is pressed against the wall even as he curses his treacherous body. There's nowhere to run. He should be strong instead of scared, but he's not strong. He never was. Just stupid.

The door opens and there is a pale blonde man in the doorway. His eyes are light brown and almost forgettable except for the way they attempt to bore through the boy's skin to his heart. The boy tries to meet the man's gaze with his own green eyes, but instead finds himself intensely interested in the man's high gray collar instead. Any attempt to look higher and the boy finds himself staring right over the man's head. He wants to break the silence- to ask how long he must stay in this room, to demand food or water, to say anything to show the man he's not intimidated but he concentrates too hard on breathing to form words. It's all he can do to not wrap the blanket around his entire body like some sort of child. As though the man was a boogieman and thus incapable of getting him through a sheet's protective folds. As though there was anything that could keep him safe.

“It's time for school, Amadi.” The man says. Amadi releases the blanket and stands.

“Do I get a shirt?” Amadi forces the words out one by one, unable to shape them into anything more than a cracked whisper. Thin cotton pants, white of course, are all that he wears.

The man is silent, he studies the boy. Scars litter Amadi's body. Many are old and silver like starlight, many are new and red like regret. Letters are scattered on his right upper arm as tribute to failures he can never fix. There's a line clear across the boy's stomach that's puckered and raw, it details the path the scissors took across his skin as he screamed and pleaded. There's another one across the boy's face that's just as angry. That one the boy did to himself.

 The silence has stretched so long that the boy wishes he never spoke. He wants to grab the blanket as a shield against the man's gaze, but does not dare. He begins to wonder if he actually said anything at all, or if he should say something else to atone for whatever sin he has just committed. He tries to open his mouth, but his lips refuse to part. Finally, the man speaks.

“Let them see your scars.” With that, the man turns and exits without looking back. Barefoot and reluctant, Amadi follows.