The Orb: Hell on Earth for Unwanted Kids

The Orb, Book 1

Chapter 1: Hell on Earth for Unwanted Kids

         MAX BERGER lay tangled in sheets beneath his cot on the fourth floor of Helpren Foster Care Facility – otherwise known as just Hell. Sore all over and sweating, he felt like he'd been battling demons, which in a way, he had.

"Not again..." he moaned.

Third night in a row, each night worse than the last. If he kept doing this, they would find him dead one day. The headlines would read: Crazy Orphan Strangles Himself in Sleep.

Nice.

Limb by limb, Max freed himself from the serpents of sheets wrapped around him, crawled out from under the cot and stood up in a rectangle of moonlight. Five thirteen year-old boys slept on rusty cots nearby, all snoring loudly and drooling onto their pillows. A dozen cockroaches scurried through the shadows along the baseboard at Max's feet. He took a deep breath to clear his mind. A pungent smell like urine mixed with body odor and a splash of dead-something nearly made him gag. A clock on a metal shelf next to his bed throbbed 12:15 in red dots.

Another glorious day in Hell had just begun.

If his dreams didn't kill him, staying here much longer certainly would. Food unfit for a rat. Sleep a rarity. No exercise other than running from goons. Daily beatings and fights. Helpren had a way of draining the life out of its inhabitants. They ended up as brain-dead Jackals, as numb as a brick or, well, just plain dead. Those were the only choices.

"Well, mabye this will be the day it all changes," Max whispered. Then he laughed. He said that everday, just so he could laugh. Most days, that was it for funny.

A perfect round moon glowed through the window at the other end of the room. Its light blanketed Max from head to toe, sinking deep inside to a place where only moonlight ever reached. A single question filled his mind: "Why is the moon always shining on me when I dream of her?" The sensation of holding her hand tingled within his palm and she came clearly into mind -- golden blond hair, bubbling laughter, and sparkling sapphire eyes. Max sighed. Truly the most amazing girl ever, even if she only lived in his dreams.

Each night, the dream about her started out wonderfully before turning into a nightmare. The two of them ran hand-in-hand along a pristine beach on a perfect, blue-sky day. Turqoise water glistened and sea spray scented the air of salt and seaweed. Her laughter broke joyfully over the top of the cresting waves.

But then everything changed quickly. They came upon a cave set into jagged cliffs. Max's stomach clenched at the sight of it -- ominous, ancient, and evil. He tried to hold her back, but off she ran, through the opening, quickly disappearing into the blackness. He stayed put, unable to follow, unable to move.

A second later, her scream ripped through the shadows.

Stirred to action, Max ran, trying to get to her, but the sand rose against him. With great effort, he battled his way to the edge of the cave where the shadows came alive and clawed at him, struck him, coiled around him -- a tangle of serpents defending their lair. He fought with all his strength but ended up defeated and engulfed in utter blackness.

Fearful for the the girl, he called out to her. As if in response, the shadows melted away, replaced by vivid nightmarish scenes. Giant tidal waves toppling skyscrapers and pulling screaming people out to sea. Fires raging across open lands blackening the earth and killing everything in their path. Enormous thunderstorms churning out tornadoes that spun like black devils chewing on the surface of the world. It was as if Max were on a cliff as tall as the clouds watching the world coming to an end. While he stared down in horror, the girl's hand, cold and dead now, pressed against his back.

"This is all your fault," she said, her voice the hiss of a snake.

Max's body froze into stone, and despite trying, he could not turn or speak. Without another word, she shoved him hard, and over the edge he toppled, descending rapidly into nothingness, screaming.

And that's when he always woke up.

"Oghnshnnn...no way...I'll hurt you back..." a kid nearby muttered in his sleep before rolling over and resuming his drooling almost immediately.

Max sat staring at his feet, wishing he knew what the dream meant, wishing he could just go back to sleep like that boy, but he wasn't tired at all. The dream left him wide awake. He stood up and stretched, going up high on his toes, which unfortunately broke the bandage on his thigh loose. He pressed it back in place and his finger came away bloody. Not the worst injury he'd sufferred here in Hell - just a puncture wound -- but it bled a lot since it was deep. Ronald Spazinski, aka "Spaz," had stuck him with a corndog skewer at dinner earlier. Why? Because there was a sharp stick, and there was Max's thigh, and well, that's just what Spaz did. No real reason for it. Spaz was six three and two hundred fifty pounds. In a lawless place like Helpren, that meant he did what he pleased.

"Spaz, you ass," Max hissed as he wiped a crimson smear on the tail of his orange Property of Helpren t-shirt.

Carefully, Max pressed the bandage back in place. It had to last for a week, even though he would be healed in a day or two. He healed fast. Abnormally fast. The doctors in the hospital where he spent a few months before coming to Helpren had been amazed by his healing ability. He was careful to keep it a secret at Helpren. What a nightmare it would be if the other kids knew. He would be like a butterfly that regrew it's wings after they were pulled off. Fun everlasting. No thanks.

Movement outside the window caught Max's eye. Two odd objects passed in front of the moon. All the boys stopped snoring at once and the room dropped into eerie silence. A shiver ran up Max's spine. Not birds. Not planes. Too upright, too elongated. They passed out of sight, and the snoring resumed all at once, leaving Max shaken. What the hell had just happened?

Moving slowly on shaky legs, Max made his way to the window. The slums of Warwick spread out before him. A thousand rectangles topped with smaller rectangles, antennas, wires, and decorated with clothes lines and a few scraggly container gardens. In the distance, steel and glass skyscrapers in down town rose from the horizon like many-eyed monsters. Directly below was the back lot of Helpren, cracked pavement, trash, barbed wire, and a green dumpster. No sign of the flying things. Owls maybe? Herons? No, he hadn't seen any wings. Weather baloons? Probably something boring like that.

His fear subsiding, Max found a new feeling arising, a desire to be out there, watching the moon from atop that dumpster, tasting just a tiny bit of adventure and freedom. Dangerous idea, of course – if he got caught outside at night, he'd get bathroom duty for a month. Nothing to sneeze at in a place populated by teenage boys. Despite the risk, Max carefully lifted the sash and climbed out onto the shaky old fire escape. Step by step, he climbed down the metal structure, hating every ounce of noise it produced.

The last platform ended ten feet from the ground, and Max lowered himself and then dropped a few feet into a roll, which he managed well despite complaints from the wound in his thigh. Limping toward the dumpster, he felt proud that was somewhat of a monkey. It had saved his ass many times here before.

Up on the dumpster, he stood tall. Shivering in the cool fall air, the sour smell of the dumpster wafting around him, he took it all in, good and bad. Shouts, sirens, and screams rang out from the streets and crumbling buildings all around. A white plastic shopping bag danced lonely circles in a breeze at the edge of Broadway Street. A black alley cat licked gore from its paws on top of a grease barrel. A convoy of rats raced along the edge of fence. Ugly and beautiful at the same time. Magical.

The silver full moon hung poised above a skyscraper, and Max turned his face up to it, never before having felt it as being so large, so close. It's light stirred up memories within him. Images of the girl from his dreams filled his mind, so real he felt like he could reach out and take her hand.

"Who are you?" he asked.

Had he known her for real at one point? Perhaps before the accident a year ago that left him unable to recall anything of his past? Off in the distance, the clock tower in Post Office Square chimed a half tune. 12:30A.M. Max sighed. Thinking about his missing past always depressed him. Where had he been before? His life felt truncated, cut off at age twelve. Everything before that was a dark void. The doctors had called it the worst case of amnesia they had ever seen. His history up to that point had been totally wiped out. Even odder - no-one knew him. Nobody. No family. No friends. No-one. It was as if the reason he couldn't remember his past was that he hadn't had any. How sad and scared all of that made him feel, as if he wasn't real. It didn't help that his home was literally hell.

He glanced back at the six stories of cement that was Helpren. "Hell on earth for unwanted kids," that's what his frustrated case worker, Mr. Braun, had called it when he gave Max the bad news about the court's decision to send him here. Max remembered with sadness that there had been talk of a foster home in the suburbs - parents, siblings, friends, a house, actual school, birthday parties, and all that good stuff. Apparently nobody had wanted a boy with no past and no future, so he ended up here instead. Mr. Braun said hope still existed, but Max felt sure that had been a kind lie.

Movement to his right startled him, and out of pure instinct, his fists shot up. "I'll hurt you back!"

The official greeting of Helpren -- I'll hurt you back.

Max relaxed. It was only a cat, a mangy looking black alley cat picking at an old tuna can on the ground. It pulled back and stared at him with eyes that had seen too many pointless attacks.

"I won't hurt you," Max said, certain other kids at Helpren had tried. The cat ran off anyway, making its way through a gap in the fence and then sliping and sliding like a black ghost down the alley. Max found his escape inspiring -- at least some creatures left this place in one piece. That meant there was some hope.

Thinking he would be wise to head back in soon, Max closed his eyes and let the moonlight glow through his lids, deciding to enjoy the last few moments of stolen freedom as much as he could. Perhaps they would be the last he ever got.

A shadow passed over him. He looked, but nothing was there. A bird? He closed his eyes, settled back into enjoying the aloneness, but then there came a few flashes of light. Again, he looked. Nothing. What was going on? He scanned Helpren, expecting to see some idiot with a flashlight playing a trick on him, but the windows were empty and dark. Hesitantly, he closed his eyes again, and all was still until a minute later. This time the light returned, bright and flickering, along with the sound of metal on metal. His spine tightened, sensing danger. Fearfully, he lifted his eye lids.

Crash!

Clang!

Max let out a long, slow gasp, as if the last dregs of sanity were draining from his system. Up in the air about one hundred feet, under the full moon, two glowing creatures were fighting with swords made of light. His whole world seemed to melt into a nightmare. What was taking place before him made no sense, couldn't be real. He must still be asleep? He pressed on his bandage, hard. His knees nearly gave out, but the pain didn't change anything. Was this a hallucination of some sort? No, this was real. All his senses told him so, even if his mind refused to believe. Still, it couldn't be real, could it?

Clang!

Their swords came together and a spray of silver sparks shot out into the night. As Max watched, frozen with fear, they drifted closer. He wanted to run, but couldn't seem to move. Glowing swords sliced through the air. A volley of blows filled the night with fireworks. They flew closer, to about two hundred feet away, and now Max could see the two combatants were a strange lizard-like creature, sort of an alligator with long arms and wings, and a girl. A beautiful girl with long flowing hair and dazzling sapphire eyes. She wore a flowing dress and glowed like moonlight.

Max felt his blood drain out through his feet.

It was the girl from his dream.

Letting out a growl that shook the moon, the lizard struck out with a powerful blow. Max lurched forward, wishing he could block it some how. The girl got her sword in it's path in time it to save herself, and she struck back, but her turn was too slow, her thrust two weak. Sparks flew. The lizard blocked her attack easily and almost skewered her with a responding jab.

It was obvious that she was moments from being cut in two. The lizard was much more skilled and powerful. Her parries were barely in time and her strikes not as forceful. If the battle continued much longer, she was a goner. Max had to help her, but what could he do? Flying up there wasn't an option, obviously.

Nothing else coming to mind, he picked up a half-empty pickle jar resting against the back hinge of the dumpster. Judging it's heft for a moment first, he took aim and he threw it as hard as he could, visualizing the path he wanted it to take. Great shot. The jar struck the lizard's head, well, actually it passed right through, but that was enough. The creature startled and then whirled its head toward Max with eyes flashing red death. Max felt the stare like daggers and feared he'd just done a very stupid thing.

Fortunately, the girl took advantage of her opponent's momentary distraction. In a motion spanning only a fraction of a second, she flipped like a dolphin in water and brought her sword around hard, right through her opponent's skull. Instantly, the creature shattered into a cloud of dust like a sack of flour sliced wide open with a chainsaw.

Max recoiled and covered his eyes. When he looked back a second later, the girl was floating toward him. Her eyes were just as he had seen in his dream, only set into a face that was pristine, radiant and pure white -- two sparkling sapphires on snow.