1831. Recalling that day- I was handed over into the fragile arms of an old lady with sores and freckles, and a woman, a cliff below us, calling out to me- remained lodged in between the two halves of my brain like a burning headache. The long black strands of her hair whipped from side to side, getting in the way of her teary eyes. Her arms outstretched, her fingers curling and then releasing, and she was begging with her eyes. From above, the gods frowned down with tears of dissatisfaction and roared with sparks of rage. I curled my fingers into the old woman's turban and yanked at her hair.

I cried for her, calling her Mama.

The old woman grabbed my hands and she hugged me close to her body by the small of my back. A man, mowing through the crowd, hollered at the old woman. He grabbed her and tossed her into a wagon stuffed with people. She covered my head with a cap and I buried my face in the crook of her shoulder and wailed.

This old woman, Dutchess; I stuck to her like she was my life. She was a strong woman, despite her crooked back and thin bones, and she was my big strong tree. She led us through mountain passes men feared, and she fought through jungles infested with dangers. Her head never bowed when we walked through thick masses, and she kept to herself more than a woman should. She was Dutchess, the woman to rival god himself.

Sadly, throughout the impossible years, I saw her end slip through my fingers. The small cup I held for her, she sipped from. The bitter, starchy texture threw her into a fit of coughs. She had the opportunity to choke out some last words, and I grabbed onto them like they were tangible, and stored them away.

I reported her death and the authorities came and lugged her body to the back of an old truck. They drenched our belongings and set our tiny cabin aflame.

"It is cursed with the death of an immigrant."

With the looks they gave me, and their dark hair and brown eyes, I could tell they were not fond of the blue eyes and blond hair. I was left there in the ashes of my home, and was patient for the fire to cool down before I went scouting for any remains. I found a couple of not-completely-destroyed objects; Dutchess' golden compass, a spoon, and a couple of silver pieces sandwiched in between my mattress and the charred floor.

Finding a replacement home for the next thirty days was reduced to huddling in sewage-filled alleys, and I begged my way into a factory. I worked from before the sun rose to after the midnight bell toned. The air was putrid with residue particles and I often cut myself on the machines, but the pay kept my stomach full.

I had bought myself a rent in a one room apartment, and I climbed from there. I moved to the railroads, and the hours were less and the pay was more, and the dangers followed. I blended in with the sea of blond hair and blue eyes, and the men atop the horses glowered at us with dark eyes. No one ever spoke, just like in the factory. Anyone who rested outside of work time was whipped awake, and sent back to work.

Again, I switched jobs. An old man took me in after eyeing me from a distance for a good year, and he sent me into a field of education. He said he would pay for everything, as long as I got an education. And I did. I graduated and went into Business and Law.

On the day of my celebration, he approached me and grabbed my elbow. "For the longest of times, the thought of seeing you before stabbed me, I finally recognized you! You are the son of Dutchess, right?"

"I was her son." I replied.

My words clicked and he turned solemn, "I am sorry," He sighed, "I knew her since we were young, and I was infatuated with her- still am!- but she moved on from me. She got herself married and had a kid, a beautiful baby girl. She came to me smiling, and all I could do was act like a fool. I don't remember what happened after that, but just a couple years ago, I saw her again, and you were with her! Just a little boy at the time, but I was too nervous to approach her." He laughed dryly and then cleared his throat, "I am willing to take you in, the son of a long lost friend. How 'bout it, would you be the heir of Strife Law?"

This man was a friend of Dutchess, and that sealed the deal. I couldn't track the times after that meeting, but I found myself sitting in luxury. I was on my own; Mr. Strife passed away and handed his will to me, and the business was basically running itself.

The luxury was getting boring, and the daily walks on the city streets were becoming filthier and more rotten with the working class littering wherever they stepped.

I passed by a niche in between Sally's Burgers and a factory, and I heard something I thought I would never forget. High pitched whining noises drawled out with something solid making some sort of gross contact with something else that had to be wet or squishy. I heard crunching noises and a sickening crack before a person, (I was assuming it was), shrieked in some sort of jubilant glee. It was beyond my, or any human's ability to describe with words or gestures, or to even reenact the sounds.

I stepped backwards and peered into the sheathed obscurity, and I squinted. A small- er- something, was crouched over the decaying, clothed body of a man. The thing had its fingers in the man's right eye socket, and it slowly applied pressure. I saw its knuckles bend before the ball popped out of its socket. The crouched over thing whined before leaning forward and attaching its mouth to the man's face and it hollowed its cheeks before clamping down and slowly pulling its head back. The string of tissue attaching the ball to its owner stretched, and would not give up.

I watched from around the wall as the thing pulled out a piece of glass shrapnel from its angle in the dirt, and it cut the eye free. My stomach lurched forward and the distant sound of the rotting eye being chewed put thoughts into my head. I jumped without thinking and grabbed the shoulder of whatever was committing such an act, and I smacked away the glass.

"What is wrong with you?!" I shouted.

The thing released a shrill scream and my blood froze in my veins and my heart dropped to my stomach, and it spun around and raised its hands to strike. We both froze when our eyes met. His blue eyes matched my blue eyes, and from under the grime I saw the little rays of sunlight sprouting from his skull. The dirt was caked on his face and lined his eyes. My fingers reached up and chipped away some of the mud and I gasped.

I followed the hideous line from the bottom of his cheek to below his left brow, and that blank eye blinked at me.

The sudden shriek of, "Ack!-Aieee!" smacked me hard and the creature, which I had now determined was a boy, pushed me and I landed on my rear.

His cries and wails echoed and I scrambled from the ground and booked it back to my new home. Before the door man could question my urgencies, I ran to the stairs and zipped to my apartment and locked the myself inside. I collapsed at the door and cradled my heart in my hands and let loose the pants that burned my lungs.

The look in that boy's eyes, his cries, it all scared me. The floral walls melted and the fringes from the carpet stretched and snaked their way up my fingers. My wrists were wrapped and constricted to the floor, and my legs felt heavy like lead bricks. The lights from above exploded and rained sparks onto the carpet and fed them to a roaring flame.

I coughed and the flames licked at my fingers, and I felt suffocated in the clothes on my body. I twitched and squirmed against my restrictions, and felt the dry air burn my eyes. The ashes billowed and kissed against my cheek.

My eyes sprung open and every muscle in my body violently threw itself into alert. My foot kicked the door and I instantly stood up and looked around. The colors blurred and whipped together and I smacked my hand against the nearest wall and put my face flat against the wall paper. I told myself, breathe, in, out, breathe, before I peaked open an eye and looked out of my peripheral.

There was no scorched carpet and the furniture- all in complete polished pieces- barely looked touched. I looked to the wall lamps and saw them unused and not shattered, and the ruffled indent of my body sprawled on the floor in front of the door, remained. The street lamps glowed from the windows and the moon was in full disk form from above the curtains.

I had determined I had a long day and I needed rest, and more than likely, a bath and some food. I rinsed off my body and dressed in loose night clothes, and the feeling of sleep-wanting felt delicious under my skin. I crawled under my covers and slipped my fingers under the silk of my pillows, and my thumb lightly caressed the engraving of Dutchess' compass. Its smooth and polished gold surface soothed me, and I felt like I could breathe again.

I was awake just as the sun peaked over the city buildings, and I found my mind wondering to the dirty boy scurrying in alleys like a common rat. I could recall every detail of him; from his oily, garbage and feces caked hair, to his over grown nails with layers of dirt stuffed under them. The only certainty of his complexion that I could recall that was not dirty, were his eyes. Even the one that was scarred hideously; that special pair was innocent. Despite the sinful act I witness, that man was long after dead before that boy found him.

For days on end, each and every hour I spent trying to keep myself busy, those eyes clouded every paper I read and every person's face looked dirty. On the fifth night, I had a dream. I dreamt of Dutchess, which was not unnatural, and she looked like she was angry. I reached forward, desperate, and cradled her delicate fingers in my palms. She snatched her hand away and frowned before grabbing my hand. Even in my dreams, she was as strong as ever. My head jerked forward with my body, and she flattened my palm before smacking something into it.

The force had me springing from my bed and tumbling onto the floor. I opened my eyes to see my hands tightly, bone-crushingly, cradling something to my chest. It was the silver spoon I recovered from the fire. It sparkled against the morning sun with its grape vine engraving and the word "Grotto" curved down the handle.

What was I supposed to do with it? It was a misconception; the word "Grotto" was the Greek base for the word "Grotesque". The word meant hideous and horrible, in its literal definition. For such a word to be carved on such a , nonetheless, beautiful piece of silver with the most precise of details. The grapes were tinged with shinning gold, and the curves were so sharp, you felt marred just by gazing at it.

It was a true contradiction.

The only image that appeared like a ghost in the reflection of the polished surface of the curvature; those blue eyes. Upturned, blue eyes mirror mine, and I felt overtaken while I jolted from the floor and threw on whatever clothes I could and grabbed my coat before running out of the door.

I felt silly running up and down the streets with a spoon in my hand, looking for a rat boy, but it had to be done. I found him in that same niche, with the same man. That man was missing his lungs, kidneys, and it looked like his heart too. His arms and legs were messily slashed open and emptied of the bones and muscles, and the bones remained in a pile in the corner.

The tiny fingers clawed at the man's left cheek and eye lids, and I craned my neck forward to see what he was doing. Past the darkness, I could see that the man's left eye was sunken in his socket. It looked like he attempted to get it out, but the glass was too sharp to get it out as a whole. Cuts and chunks of skin around his face where missing, and the edges of skull around his eye looked chipped. This boy was desperate to get that eye out.

A tiny whine ripped from his throat and he slumped backwards, looking dejected.

I had no evidence of any shed of sense when I stepped forward and pulled the spoon from my pocket. The boy noticed me and whipped his head around, and stared from the ground, unmoving. Slowly and carefully, I inched forward. I crouched down to his level and held the man's face steady. I felt the boy's eyes shift from me, the spoon, and then the man.

I reached forward with the tip of the spoon at the edge of the bone, and I gently eased it into the socket. The horrid smell from the decay made my stomach lurch and this boy's years of collection made me want to die and disintegrate into the dirt. He leaned forward, and put his filthy fingers on my arm. I dug with the spoon and maneuvered my way around the maggots to the back of the rotted ball.

I wedge the string of tissue between the edge of the spoon and the wall of the skull and wiggled it around before I felt the eye loosen, and rolled it out of the socket.

There was a long string of dead silence; I looked at him and he looked at me. But no movement. His breathing ranged when he glanced between the eyeball and me, and I felt a little queasy in the particular atmosphere.

I presented the treat to him, but he just looked at me. I stared back. He finally took the spoon, but I was never to expect what he did next. He hit me and I opened my mouth to holler, but he shoved the damned, rotting thing in my mouth. My jaw was still open, and he retracted the spoon and brought his palm up and knocked my jaw close.

The ball squeezed and slowly oozed, what I expected was, maggots into my mouth. Instantly, as I felt them try to worm their way down my throat, I turned and regurgitated. With my hands spread wide to be pillars for my shoulders, I violently emptied myself in that alley corner. The sour stench of the acid and decay had me lurching forward. I freely vomited; I did not want any trace of that thing in my body.

"Oh god!" I cried.

I set myself against the wall and buried my head in my arms, and- as unmanly as one could be- I sobbed. I felt as dirty as the alley and whatever crawled in it, and I couldn't have ran out of there faster.

It was the second time my door man saw me run into the building, and he felt the need to knock of my door an hour after I soaked in scalding water. I was basically drinking the soap and water, and I felt dirty down to the veins that connected my heart.

"Is something the matter?" He asked.

"Completely fine."

He stayed to ask a few more questions before leaving me to wallow in my bed and cry. I begged to the ghost of my late Dutchess, asking why she would send me to that peril. She answered with gentle breezes from my window, and I fell under the blanket of slumber. My dreams festered with horrors of maggots, detached limbs, and blue eyes.