The boy huddled in a narrow alley, under a makeshift tent fashioned from a dirty tarp and three sticks. Rain pounded the pavement and dripped from the tarp as he shivered and hugged his knees. His teeth chattered.

The boy rubbed one arm across his leaking nose. He heard sniffling and looked at the ragged, faded teddy bear sitting across from him. "Stop crying, Rags," he said. "It doesn't do any good."

The bear remained silent, slumped over. It was missing an eye, and its stuffing poked out through loose stitches.

The boy had fished Rags out of a dumpster a few months ago. He hated it when other kids threw away their toys. It pissed him off. The boy had never had any toys of his own.

Sometimes he talked to Rags, because there was no one else.

More sniffling broke the silence.

He picked up Rags. "I said shut up!" The bear's head flopped back and forth as the boy shook him. "Okay, okay. Calm down." The boy set him on the pavement. "I know you're cold and hungry. But that's just how it is, okay? We're not going back to that place."

He always thought of it as that place, never home. It had never been home. He'd had enough of bruises and black eyes and the Old Bastard's yelling. He was better off on his own. He liked it. Or at least, that's what he told himself.

In truth, he was scared to go back.

Last time, the Old Bastard had really snapped. The boy had come home late. The Old Bastard had been drunk; he'd come after him with a broken bottle in one hand and carved two lines into the boy's face, forming a rough X-shaped scar across the bridge of his nose.

He might've done worse if he'd had the chance, but the boy had kicked him in the balls, and the Old Bastard had gone down howling, tears and snot streaming through his beard.

Serves him right.

"We can't go back," the boy muttered. He drew his knees up to his chest and folded his arms atop them, staring at Rags. Rain pattered all around them and drummed on the tarp, making a hollow, echoing sound. He rubbed the back of one hand across his leaking nose. "But someday, I'm going to make them pay. I'm going to make them all pay."

Rags stared at him through his single beady eye.

"What, you don't think I can do it?" The boy looked back and forth, making sure he was alone, then leaned forward and whispered, "Watch this." He held up one hand and concentrated. The hand sharpened into a sword's point, gleaming in the dim glow of the nearby streetlight.

The boy tilted the blade back and forth, liking the way it caught the light. "See?"

He was a Weapon. He couldn't change all the way yet, but still, the thought made him feel good. Powerful.

He held his sword-hand in front of Rags' face. "Are you scared? Don't worry. I won't hurt you. I'm going to protect you. Stick with me. I won't throw you away."

His stomach rumbled and cramped in a sharp spasm. He pressed a hand over it, wincing. That morning he'd fished a half-eaten tuna sandwich out of a garbage bin behind a restaurant, but he hadn't found anything since then.

Down the street, living under the bridge, there was a man with a gap-toothed grin who sometimes had food. Sometimes he shared. But he always wanted something in return. At the thought, the boy shuddered.

He wasn't that hungry yet.

He huddled under his tent and heard approaching footsteps. He tensed and quickly thought his sword-hand back into a regular hand.

A couple walked past his alley, a man and woman, dressed in expensive looking coats. There was a wallet poking out of the man's pocket, and the boy's eyes lit up. He slunk forward on soft, silent feet, heart pounding, mouth dry. He held his breath. The couple didn't see him. They weren't paying attention. They were talking about some show and all the reasons it wasn't good.

The boy's hand snaked out and snatched the wallet, cat-quick. The man didn't feel anything. He kept walking. The boy crept back into the shadows of the alley, clutching his prize in eager, trembling hands. He waited, breathless, until the couple's footsteps and voices had faded beneath the drone of the rain.

He unfolded the wallet and pulled out the cash. His head swam at the amount inside. "Look, Rags. Look."

Rags didn't respond, of course, but he somehow seemed pleased.

The boy's stomach rumbled eagerly. His mind raced. He needed to buy some food. He could go down to the market, but it was closed now. Maybe the convenience store on the corner—

A deep chuckle—like the rusty scrape of metal on stone—reached his ears. He tensed and looked up to see a bulky form step into the alley. It was a man, clad in ragged flannel clothes and an oversized hat, his black beard matted with dirt and snot, his tiny blue eyes gleaming above a chafed red nose. A knife glinted in his hand. "Quick little bastard, aren't you?" His voice was thick and slurred, drunken. He extended a meaty hand. "Give it over, now."

The boy leaped to his feet and backed away. "No. It's mine."

"Give it over, or I cut off your ears."

The boy gritted his teeth. A dull, hot rage suffused his chest.

People had stolen things from him before. He'd never seen this particular man, but it didn't matter; they were all the same, they were all bigger than him, they all thought they could boss him around, just like the Old Bastard. "I said no."

"Oh, you wanna fight?" He advanced toward the boy, who backed away. "This oughtta be fun."

You could kill him, the boy thought. You're a Weapon.

But something in him wavered.

The man knocked him to the ground with a hard blow, and the money spilled from the boy's hand. He reached for it with shaking fingers, and the man's boot came down on his hand, hard, making him cry out. The man snatched the money, looked at Rags, and smirked. "Aww, look at this." He picked up Rags by his ear. "Ain't that sweet."

A red haze crept across the boy's vision. The man was touching Rags. Touching him with his filthy hands.

The boy raised one arm and sharpened it into a sword. He roared and lunged. There was no time to think, no time to hesitate. He aimed for the man's belly, saw his eyes widen and his mouth open, displaying stumpy yellowish teeth. He was still roaring as the sword's edge sliced through cloth and skin. Blood bubbled up, thick and dark, and his guts spilled out in coils. The man gasped and staggered backward.

The boy lunged at him again. This time, he aimed for his throat and sliced it open. The man made a weak gurgling noise and fell to his knees. He flopped to the ground, wheezed for a moment, then went still. Blood pooled beneath his torn throat.

The boy stood panting, staring down at him. He picked up Rags by the arm, nudged the body with his toe, and rolled it over. The man's eyes stared up at the sky, glazed and empty. Rain pattered against them, and they didn't blink.

The boy looked at his sword-arm, the shiny dark blade stained red with blood. He looked down at the man again. "You're dead," he said, his voice shaking. "You can't hurt me. You're dead."

The man remained motionless, blood oozing into the puddle of rain beneath his head.

Still clinging to Rags, the boy clenched his jaw, raised his foot, and stomped on the man's face. His nose and teeth broke with a satisfying crunch. "You're dead!" he shouted, his voice clotted with tears. A thick sob escaped him. His sword-arm dwindled back to a human arm.

He looked at the crinkled paper bills scattered across the pavement. They were spattered with blood. He could take them and buy food now, if he wanted.

But suddenly, he wasn't hungry.

Medusa had been watching the boy for awhile, now.

There was nothing particularly special about him. He was a street urchin, one of many; a wild, dark-haired survivor who lived like a stray cat, foraging for scraps and begging for handouts. But his eyes…

They were a strange shade of purple-gray, but it wasn't the color that caught her attention. It was the look in them.

They were hard, cold and unflinching. Eyes that saw the world for what it was. Eyes that—at age seven or eight—had already stopped giving or expecting mercy.

She stepped into the alley, her bare feet making no sound on the pavement, and pulled down the hood of her cloak. She stared for a moment at the bloodstained corpse, at the boy standing over it, fists clenched, eyes blazing and wild. A little animal.

"Well done," she said.

The boy gave a start and looked up. He took a step back, the color draining from his face. "Who are you?"

He was, of course, wise to be afraid. She gave him her softest, sweetest smile. "My name is Medusa."

The boy stared at her, his expression closed off and wary; the look of a fox scenting a dog, debating whether to run or stand its ground. "What d'you want?"

"I want to help you," she said. "If you will come with me, I'll take you to a place where you'll never be cold or hungry again."

He frowned, eyes narrowing to a hard line. "Why?"

"Do I need a reason? Perhaps I'm just a kind soul wanting to help a child in need."

The boy spat on the ground. "I'm not stupid," he said. "No one helps anyone for no reason."

"I see you're wise beyond your years." A little flattery always softened people up. Children were no exception. "Very well, I'll tell you the truth. I'm looking for ways to create stronger Meisters and Weapons. Would you like to become stronger?"

His breath caught. His eyes widened. She suppressed a smirk. Humans were pitifully easy to manipulate.

Still, he hesitated. "Why do you want to create stronger Meisters and Weapons?"

"Because I'm a scientist. I don't need a reason. I just want to know if it can be done. You need a place to stay, and I need a subject. It will be a mutually beneficial arrangement…if you agree to it, of course."

He looked at the blood-spattered money scattered on the pavement.

"You know that won't last more than a few days," she said. "And then you'll be back to scrounging in the trash, hunger gnawing at your belly. And of course, now that you've killed a man, the police will be looking for you."

He tensed.

"They'll never give you a moment's peace." Medusa smiled. "You have nothing to lose, except a life of hardship. I thought I'd offer you the opportunity for something more." She shrugged. "Of course, I don't particularly need you. There's no shortage of homeless children in this city, and quite a few of them are Weapons, like you. It's not as uncommon as you think. If you're not interested, I can easily find someone else. So…what will it be?"

The boy looked at his tiny campsite, the ragged tarp which barely kept out the rain. He took a slow, deep breath and let it out through his nose.

"Okay," he said flatly.

"Follow me."

He picked up the teddy bear by its arm.

Medusa glanced at the ragged toy. It was repulsive, its original color hidden beneath the dull gray of dirt and grime. "Leave that thing," she said. "You won't need it."

The boy glared at her. He thrust his jaw out and clenched his little hand into a fist. "Fuck you, lady. The bear stays with me."

Medusa blinked, surprised. The boy was ready to do battle over his silly little toy. But she only chuckled.

He had a strong will. That was good. Of course, by the time she was done training him, he wouldn't dare defy her, but that spirit would serve him well in his bloody work. He would be good for Chrona.

"Very well," she said. "You may hold onto it. For now."

Afterward, the boy couldn't remember much of the walk that followed. He knew they walked for a long time, down empty streets and through litter-choked alleys, but when he tried to recall the details, a mist swam into his mind.

At the end of it, they were standing in front of a huge, old-looking brick house, the windows like empty eye-sockets staring down at them. Medusa walked up to the front door and unlocked it. The boy remained standing where he was, clutching Rags.

Medusa opened the door, revealing a shadowy hall, and looked over her shoulder. "Are you coming?" she asked.

The boy moistened dry lips with the tip of his tongue. "Are you a witch?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied. "Are you coming, or not?"

He hesitated…then followed her into the house.

She led him first into a spacious kitchen lit by candles, to a table laden with food: roast turkey, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and apple pie. The boy stared, his eyes bulging with astonishment.

Medusa gestured to the table. "Eat."

He hesitated again, wondering if this was some trick. Witches in stories always tricked children with tasty-looking food.

But he'd made the decision to come here. There was no point in looking over his shoulder now. Where else would he go, anyway? Back to the alley?

He sat in the single chair and began stuffing himself. He ripped off a leg of turkey and gnawed it to the bone. He shoveled potatoes into his mouth. He scooped out mounds of pie with his bare hands and gobbled up the sticky goo, not caring that it was hot enough to burn his tongue.

The boy paused for breath, leaning back in his chair. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so full. A weird yet pleasant floaty feeling slipped over him. Maybe witches weren't as bad as the stories said.

He propped Rags on the table and whispered in his ear, "Things are going to be better from now on. You hungry? Here." He held a spoonful of potatoes to the bear's muzzle.

He felt Medusa's gaze on his back, and his skin prickled. She walked out of the room, but even after she'd gone, he had the feeling that she was still watching him.

He kept eating…slower, now that he'd taken the edge off his hunger. After awhile, he started to feel sleepy. He rubbed at his eyes. The lids were drooping and heavy, and thoughts drifted aimlessly through his fuzzy head.

Medusa returned. "Have you had enough to eat?"

"Uh-hm."

"Come with me."

He was too groggy to do anything but obey. She led him down the hallway, to a dimly lit room. He stood, clutching Rags' arm and looking around. There were counters and tables covered with jars and strange, sharp metal implements. Things floated in the jars—eyeballs, tiny organs, dead animals. There was a big cauldron too, filled with bubbling black liquid, and two narrow metal tables like the kind doctors used for operations.

On one table was a kid his own age or a little younger, with messy pink hair and a black dress. A boy…maybe a girl, he couldn't tell. The kid was asleep, eyes closed, chest rising and falling with each soft breath. There was a tube running from one skinny wrist.

The boy approached cautiously. The kid looked soft. Delicate. Like his skin would bruise if you just touched it. Like he'd never spent a night sleeping on the street or digging through dumpsters for his supper. But there were faint gray circles under his—her?—eyes.

The boy poked one pale cheek experimentally, but the kid didn't wake.

"That's Chrona," Medusa said. "You'll meet it later."

"Oh." He yawned and rubbed at his eyes.

"Sleepy, aren't you?" she asked, sounding strangely amused.

"Um." He looked around at the weird instruments and bubbling black cauldron. Despite his drowsiness, unease wormed its way under his skin. "What is all this stuff for?"

"The experiment," she said. "The one that will make you stronger. Climb onto the table."

He obeyed. But he was starting to wonder if he really wanted to do this, after all. The room smelled funny, and all the sharp metal things were starting to creep him out. He tried to sit up, but dizziness pressed him back down to the table like a giant hand. His vision blurred, and a sick feeling filled his middle. He watched, unable to move, as Medusa slipped a needle into his wrist and taped it into place. A faint whimper escaped his throat, and he clutched Rags' arm harder…then his grip loosened as gray haze crawled across his vision.

"You needn't worry," Medusa said. "Soon, you won't remember your fear…or any of this." She smirked. "You can keep your charming personality. But the memories of your past life would only hinder you. All I really need is your soul."

A bright flash of panic cut through the haze. His breathing quickened.

Get out, he thought. Get out now.

But his body remained limp and immobile. The haze swallowed him. He fought it, pushing back, but a deep despair had settled into his bones. What was the point of fighting? He'd already lost. Maybe forgetting wouldn't be so bad, after all.

He remembered the bone-cracking pain of the Old Bastard's fists against his flesh, the whiskey-blurred eyes, indifferent to his pleas and his terrified squeals. He remembered the gap-toothed man's creepy grin, the blood pouring from the bearded man's throat, mingling with the rain. The cold, the hunger, the loneliness.

Some things needed forgetting.

A small, hot flash of defiance made his fists tighten. No matter how horrible his memories were, they were his. He wouldn't let this bitch take them. He summoned all his remaining strength and lifted his hand. Shaking, panting, he reached over and tried to tug the needle from his arm.

Another wave of dizziness washed through him, and he went weak and limp again.

Damn it.

He heard approaching footsteps. Medusa pulled Rags from his limp grasp. His fingers twitched in protest. He watched through fading eyes as she slowly crossed the room and dropped Rags into a garbage bin.

Only a weak sound slipped past the boy's lips, but inside his head, he screamed with fury and sorrow.

Then he was falling, fading into nothing.

He woke slowly, in darkness and warmth.

He didn't know where he was or what had happened to him. He didn't know who he was. He knew only that he felt safe—content—and he was running. Not running with legs, but running like water, running likes rivers and streams over beds of gravel and sand, flowing like magma deep beneath the ground, like sap through trees, like rain over stone.

I'm dead, he thought.

Of course. There was no other explanation. He was dead. He'd shed his own mind and body, and he was the world—the universe. He was flowing with its lifestream, through a thousand tunnels and hollows, through the depths of the Earth and over the highest mountains. He was everything and nothing. He felt a primal serenity that he'd never experienced, except—maybe—in the murky, forgotten depths of the womb.

He heard a heavy thud. Then another.

Ka-thump. Ka-thump.

The noise filled his ears like thunder. A heartbeat? If he was dead, why was his heart beating?

No. Not his own heart. Someone else's. He heard it all around, he felt each beat vibrating through him, pushing him and pulling him—

Ka-thump. Ka-thump.

He focused in on the sound and felt himself pooling in deep, hot, cave-like chambers. He ebbed and flowed like the tide as muscles squeezed and flexed around him. A heart.

He was…blood?

Ka-thump. Ka-thump.

The sense of peace dissolved. Terror gripped him, deep and cold and penetrating. What was this? What was happening? Why was he blood? And whose heartbeat was that, surrounding and driving him?

The fear and confusion built until he couldn't take it anymore, and he burst forth into blinding brightness.

He found himself staring down into a kid's face; messy pink hair, pale skin, eyes closed in sleep. The name Chrona floated into his head, though he didn't know how he knew it. It didn't matter. He didn't think, didn't hesitate. His way was to act.

"Hey, wake up!" He grabbed and shook the kid as hard as he could.

Blue eyes snapped open and stared up at him. They widened.

Chrona screamed.

"Knock it off!" He clamped both hands over Chrona's mouth, muffling the sound. His own hands looked strange, like little white balls.

Chrona made muffled noises, tears welling in his eyes. When the boy released him, Chrona whimpered and said, "Who are you? Wh-what are you?"

"What do you mean? I'm a kid like you."

Chrona blinked. "Y-you are?"

"Of course. What are you, a dummy?" He leaned down, glaring…and froze, perplexed. He grabbed Chrona's face between both hands.

Chrona squeaked. "Wh-what…?"

"Hold still, damn it." He tilted his head to one side, then the other, staring at his reflection in Chrona's wide, frightened eyes.

The face staring back at him was…not human. A round dark ball with a white X-shaped mark in the middle, and two ping-pong ball eyes with little X's inside.

He hadn't always looked like that, had he? But when he tried to remember how he'd looked before, the memory slipped away into the mist.

"Huh." He released Chrona's face. For a moment, they were silent, staring at each other. "Well, what are you?" he demanded. "You look more like a boy, but you're wearing a dress." He tried to pull it up. "Have you got one or not?"

Chrona squealed frantically and tried to tug the dress back down. "S-stop it!"

"Ha, you have got one! But what happened to the rest?"

"I d-don't know what you're talking about! Leave me alone!" He yanked his dress down, his face red.

"Oh well." He released Chrona and looked around. They were in a small, windowless room with a bed and little else. The light had seemed bright when he first burst out, but now the room looked dim and dreary. "This is your room, huh?"

"Y-yes."

"Kind of a dump."

Chrona said nothing. He just huddled in bed, shaking, a look of glazed-eyed terror on his face. "Wh-why are you stuck to me like that?" he squeaked.

"Beats me. I don't remember how the hell I got here. Or where 'here' is."

At the creak of hinges, they looked up. The door opened, and a ray of light fell into the room. A blonde woman stood, looking at them with cool golden eyes. "You're awake," she said. "Good. It appears that the operation was a success."

"M-Medusa-sama," Chrona whined, twisting his dress in both hands, "I...I d-don't understand what..."

"There's nothing to be alarmed about," she said. "This is Ragnarok. He's your new Weapon, and from now on, he'll be your blood as well. You two had better take good care of each other, because if one of you dies, you both die."

They stared at her, stunned. Neither one of them, it seemed, really knew what to say.

Then Chrona started to cry. "I don't want this! Get him out of me!"

"Shut up!" Ragnarok grabbed him and shook him, making him cry harder. "You think I'm happy about this? You think I wanted this?"

"Both of you, be quiet," Medusa snapped, and her tone was so cold that they both froze. "You can stay in here until you learn to get along." She shut the door, and they heard the click of a lock turning.

Ragnarok stared at the door for a moment. Ragnarok. Was that really his name? It seemed he'd had another one, at some point. But he couldn't remember it now.

He ran his hands over his own face. It didn't feel like skin. He was smooth and squishy, like warm Jell-o.

So this is it, he thought. I'm someone else's blood.

He wondered if he was even a person anymore.

Chrona whimpered softly. "I don't want this," he whispered. "I don't want this." He started to cry again, little hitching sobs. The sound annoyed Ragnarok.

Crying just brought more pain. Didn't Chrona know that? Grownups didn't care. They did whatever they wanted to you, they pushed you around and cut you up and stitched you back together, and crying didn't make a damn bit of difference. Why give them the satisfaction of seeing how much it hurt?

"Knock it off!" Ragnarok grabbed his ear and pulled. Chrona squealed. There was something satisfying about the sound. It made him forget his own fear. He did it again and again.

"Stop it!" Chrona's little fists battered against him. "Leave me alone!"

"Leave you alone? Fine! Noisy pipsqueak! See if I care!" Ragnarok recoiled into his body, back into the darkness and warmth.

For awhile, there was just the steady thump of Chrona's heartbeat.

He heard a muffled, slightly panicked voice saying, "Ragnarok? Ragnarok, where did you go? C-come back."

He burst out of Chrona's back. "You asked for it!" Ragnarok started raining punches down on his head. Chrona howled, flailing. His fist struck Ragnarok's nose. "Ha, that doesn't hurt! You can't hit worth a crap!"

"Ow! Quit it!"

They pushed and kicked and punched and wrestled, rolling off the bed and across the floor, until they were both exhausted and panting. Chrona lay curled on the floor. Ragnarok sprawled over him, tongue lolling from his mouth like a tired dog's.

"So," Ragnarok said between wheezes, "I guess we're stuck like this, huh?"

"I guess," Chrona said in a tiny voice. Slowly, he sat up and hugged his knees to his chest.

Ragnarok sighed and settled atop Chrona's head. He tried to close his eyes, found that he couldn't. No eyelids. Well, if he wanted darkness, he guessed he could just go back inside. "Okay," he said.

"Okay?"

"It is what it is. You heard what she said. We're stuck like this." He looked down at his tiny white hands. "Dunno what happened to my old body, but I don't think I can go back to being the way I was."

Chrona's breath caught. He started to tremble. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Huh? Why are you sorry? You didn't do this."

"I'm sorry anyway." Chrona bowed his little head, hugging his knees. "If you hate me now, I don't blame you."

Ragnarok stared at him for a moment. Then he grabbed Chrona's nose and tweaked it, hard.

Chrona yelped. "S-stop it!" he cried, his voice nasally and muffled. "Why are you doing that?"

"Don't say 'sorry,' especially for stuff you didn't do! I hate that kind of talk! It pisses me off!"

He squealed again. "Okay, I won't! I'm sorry!"

"You did it again!"

"Ow! I'm sorry! Ow!"

Medusa was getting a headache.

She sat at the breakfast table, chewing a mouthful of eggs as a spot behind her left eye throbbed.

"Medusa-sama! Ragnarok keeps taking my food!"

"Shut up! I took one pancake!"

Medusa gritted her teeth.

She'd thought that having a companion like Ragnarok would encourage Chrona in his role as a killer, as well as give him someone to interact with, so Medusa didn't have to spend so much time with him. It had seemed like a good idea.

"Oww! Medusa-sama, he's pinching my nose!"

"You sit there and pick at your food for an hour, and then you complain when I take some?" Ragnarok pushed Chrona's face down onto the plate. "You want the pancakes? Eat the damn pancakes!"

Chrona flailed his arms. "No! Noooo!"

"Yes! Eat them all!"

"You're getting syrup on my face!"

Medusa glared at them. "If you don't cease this noise, you're both going to spend the rest of the day locked in the room without food or water."

They lapsed immediately into silence.

Medusa sighed and went back to eating.

Until Ragnarok, Chrona's life had been quiet and empty: just him and Medusa-sama in a big house. She cooked his meals, washed his clothes—when she remembered, anyway—and occasionally she taught him things, like the fastest way to kill a person.

But for the most part, she ignored him. She was always in her lab, buried in her research, and if he disturbed her for anything that wasn't an emergency, she locked him in the dark room.

For most of his short life, he'd just drifted through each day like a little shadow, trying not to make too much noise or disturb her. Sometimes he would sit on the edge of his bed for hours, rocking lightly back and forth or just staring into space. Sometimes he would close his eyes, grip his own arms, and try to imagine it was someone hugging him.

Without realizing it, he'd been retreating deeper and deeper into his own mind; shutting out the world. At times, he wondered if he was even real. Medusa-sama treated him like an object, so he felt like one. He sought refuge in the silence and stillness of his own head.

But Ragnarok wouldn't let him be silent or still. Whenever Chrona ignored him for too long, he'd pop out and start growling in his rough, shrill voice about how he was bored or hungry. Then, at some point, he'd always start punching him.

It didn't hurt that much. Ragnarok was made of blood. He could harden himself when he wanted, but usually his fists were soft and spongy, so it was like being hit by a stuffed animal. But he liked to pull on Chrona's ears and hair too, and that stung. Chrona's crying only seemed to encourage him.

Before, when he cried, it never made a difference one way or the other. Medusa-sama didn't react to his tears; she was indifferent to all his emotions, as if she didn't even notice them. Now, when he whimpered or complained, Ragnarok would get annoyed, would pinch his nose and call him a pussy—whatever that was.

It hurt. But the hurt was better than nothing.

Ragnarok insulted him and poked him and dragged him out of the comfortable isolation of nothingness. But somehow, with him around, Chrona felt more real than he ever had before.

He felt like a person.

"Hey Chrona," Ragnarok said one day. "If you're a boy, how come you wear a dress?"

"I don't know," he said. He was sitting on his bed, arms folded atop his knees. "This is what I've always worn. Why?"

"Just seems a little weird. I mean, you are a boy, right?"

"Yes." He paused. "I think."

"What do you mean, you think? You know the difference between boys and girls, right?"

Chrona hesitated.

What little he knew about the subject came from watching movies and cartoons on the small, grainy TV in the living room. On the TV, girls were usually prettier and nicer than boys. But then, Medusa-sama was a girl—wasn't she?—and she wasn't nice at all.

He rested his chin atop his knees, pondering. "Not really."

"Are you serious? You're what, six, and you don't know this stuff? You're so dumb!"

By now, he was accustomed to Ragnarok's insults. He barely noticed them. "So what's the difference? Do you know?"

"Sure I do. Boys have a dick and girls have a pussy."

"Oh." He tried to sound like he understood. "Then why are you always calling me a pussy?"

"Because you are. You're a total pussy."

Chrona stared into space, frowning. So girls had one, but it was also something he was, at least according to Ragnarok. "That doesn't make sense."

Ragnarok sighed. "Do I have to draw you a picture? Okay, fine. Where's your damn crayons?"

Chrona fetched them from the old, wooden toy box in the corner of his room. Crayons and paper were the only thing inside. Sometimes, Medusa-sama showed him picture books about how to kill people, and afterward she asked him to draw the examples, to make sure he'd committed them to memory.

Chrona crawled back onto the bed and set the pad of paper on the mattress.

"Here, lay down so I can reach," Ragnarok said.

Chrona lay down on his stomach. Ragnarok picked a green crayon from the box. It was difficult to hold in his little round hand, but he leaned over and started to draw. Chrona watched intently as the crayon lines formed two people. They were little more than stick figures—and not very good ones, at that—so it was difficult to really tell what they were supposed to look like.

"Okay, so this is how boys are, right? And, uh…a girl is sorta like this."

"How do you know what a girl looks like?" Chrona asked curiously. "Have you seen one?"

"Shut up! I know what I'm doing."

Chrona stared at the stick figures. Something wasn't right. Something didn't quite fit. It was hard to tell, but…

He looked away, fidgeting. There was a funny feeling in his stomach, like he was about to be sick. "Ragnarok?"

"Yeah?"

"Are there any people who are like…s-something else?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean like…not really boys or girls."

"I don't know. Maybe." A pause. "Not many."

"Oh." He looked down.

"But you said you're a boy, right?"

Chrona drew in a slow, shaky breath and nodded.

Ragnarok tugged his hair. "Well? I went to the trouble to draw all this shit for you. Where's my thanks?"

"Th-thank you."

"Very much!"

"Very much."

Ragnarok tore off the sheet of paper and began to draw on a fresh one.

Chrona looked up slowly and watched as he slowly, laboriously scrawled green lines on the paper. "What's that?"

Ragnarok stared at the messy drawing; a teddy bear with one eye. "I don't know," he said.

Chrona sat on the couch in the living room, watching TV. Ragnarok perched atop his head, settled into his hair.

The TV's picture was often fuzzy, and it flickered in and out, and there were only a few channels. But in the long hours when Medusa wasn't training them to kill, there wasn't much else to do. They had no real toys, and they weren't allowed to leave the house.

There was a cartoon on that Chrona had never seen before. It was about a mouse who wanted to fly.

The mouse watched the birds with a dreamy smile, yearning for the freedom of the sky. Chrona hugged his knees and leaned forward.

Ragnarok pulled his ear, making him wince. "Let's go get some food!"

"Wait. I want to see what happens."

Ragnarok grumbled something unintelligible.

The picture fuzzed out for a moment, then reformed.

When the mouse tried to make wings out of a pair of leaves, he crashed, and the others laughed at him. He slunk away, embarrassed. Then he came across a butterfly trapped in a spider's web and rescued her. The butterfly turned out to be a fairy.

She offered him a wish. He asked for wings. So she gave him a pair of bat's wings.

"This is boring," Ragnarok said. "Why do you watch these buttfucking cartoons?"

Buttfucking was Ragnarok's new favorite word, and he used it every chance he got. Chrona didn't know what it meant—but then, he suspected, neither did Ragnarok.

Chrona ignored him and kept watching.

The mouse was overjoyed with his new wings. But now he was different—neither one thing nor the other—and everyone was scared of him. The birds flew away when they saw him. A baby bird stared at him with bright-eyed curiosity, and the mouse reached out to pet it, but its mother snatched it away. His own family hid from him when they saw his shadow on the ground. They threw a bucket of water at him when he came to the door.

An uneasy feeling squirmed in Chrona's belly. A part of him wanted to stop watching. But he remained motionless, his gaze glued to the screen as the mouse suffered rejection after rejection.

In the end, only the bats would approach him, but they were scary, looming over him and smirking as if they wanted to eat him for breakfast. "Hello, brother," one said in a deep, croaking voice.

"I'm not your brother," the mouse said, brave and timid at the same time. "I-I-I'm a mouse."

"A mouse!" The bat roared with laughter. "No mouse can fly. They ain't got wings." He pulled on the mouse's wing. "If you ain't a bat, you're nothing. Think of that."

The other bats all laughed and slapped their knees.

"A mouse? Ha ha!"

"A mouse? Ha ha ha!"

They began to dance around him, singing in low voices, as the mouse cowered and shook.

You're nothing but a nothing

A nothing, a nothing

You're nothing but a nothing

You're not a thing at all

You're nothing but a—

Ragnarok fumbled for the remote, grabbed it, and turned off the TV.

Chrona stared at his reflection in the blank screen. There were tears on his cheeks.

"What the hell are you crying about? You know it's not real, right?"

"It's not?" He heard his own voice as if from far away. "What is it?"

"They're just pictures. Like the ones we were drawing before. Except they move. Some guy just drew a bunch of buttfucking mice and bats and made them dance around."

"Oh." He stared at the screen, his gaze distant. He was sliding down into himself, retreating from the world.

Ragnarok grabbed his hair and pulled sharply. Chrona flinched and cried out. "Oww! Stoppit!"

"Then quit staring into space like a dumb-ass! Let's find some damn food!"

"W-we're not supposed to eat unless Medusa-sama says we can."

"Fuck that. I'm hungry, and she won't notice anyway. If we get caught, you can tell her it was my idea."

"But she'll punish both of us, no matter whose idea it was."

"Well, tell her anyway!"

"If you say so." He paused, then picked up the remote and turned on the TV. He didn't really want to, but he needed to see how it ended.

The mouse was reunited with his family. They were smiling and embracing him. His wings were gone.

Somehow, Chrona didn't feel better.

They sneaked a few apples and slices of bread from the kitchen and retreated to their bedroom. Ragnarok stuffed another apple into his mouth as they sat on the bed. "See? Told you it would be fine."

"You were right, I guess." He just hoped Medusa-sama wouldn't notice the missing food. He nibbled a piece of bread.

"Hey," Ragnarok said, "after this, I want to go look through the garbage cans in the basement."

Chrona blinked. "Why?"

"I think something of mine got thrown out."

The words puzzled Chrona. Did Ragnarok really have anything that was his? Did either of them? "What was it?"

Ragnarok paused, then said, "I can't remember. I just feel like I lost something. I think I'll know if I see it, though."

The garbage room smelled awful. Like rotting meat. A simple magic spell kept the smell from permeating the rest of the house, but once Chrona stepped inside, it hit him like a slap.

He pinched his nose shut with one hand and stood on tiptoe, picking gingerly through a trash bin. He touched something slimy and winced.

He didn't like this room. Aside from the stink, it was dimly lit and spooky, with greasy cement walls, and it was perilously close to Medusa's lab. If she overheard them, they'd be punished. The room was filled with creepy things, too—leftovers from her failed experiments, things he tried not to look at too closely.

"I don't think we should be doing this, Ragnarok. Th-there's probably broken glass in here."

"If you get cut, I'll just heal it."

"B-but I don't want to touch gross things…"

"Then don't. Just shut up and let me look. I didn't say you had to help, did I?" He leaned down, rummaging through the trash, and heaved a sigh. "Oh, forget it. I don't think I'm gonna find it."

Chrona peered up at him. "You still don't remember what it was?"

"Nah. Guess it couldn't have been that important." He sounded more dejected than Chrona had ever heard him. It made Chrona want to find whatever he was looking for.

Chrona looked around the room and pointed at a tarp covering something lumpy on the floor. "What's that?"

"I dunno."

He approached. With each step, the sickly, rotting odor got stronger. The whole room was pretty rank, but whatever was under the tarp definitely smelled worse. Chrona covered his mouth and nose with one hand, trying not to gag. He lifted a corner…and flinched back.

"Oh, sick," Ragnarok said. "No wonder it stinks so bad."

Chrona averted his gaze and gulped, his heart hammering. He'd seen dead bodies before. Medusa dissected people sometimes, and she left the parts lying around. Once, he'd opened the freezer and found a plastic bag full of eyeballs, right next to the popsicles. Things like that didn't shock him anymore.

Still, he didn't like the feeling it gave him.

He stole another glance at the body and immediately wished he hadn't. "It's just a little boy."

"Was," Ragnarok said.

Chrona looked at the boy's face. His eyes were closed, as if he were sleeping. A few strands of dark hair stuck to his cheek. Tears welled in Chrona's eyes. "He looks so sad."

"He can't feel anything. Not anymore. Don't waste your tears on him." Ragnarok's voice was flat and harsh. "He's probably better off like that, anyway." He looked away. A small shudder ran through him. "Let's just go."

"What about that thing you wanted to find?"

"I don't need it."

Chrona hesitated. He lowered the corner of the tarp and gently tucked its edges around the dead boy, as if he were tucking him into bed. His chest felt heavy and tight as he turned and walked out of the room, down the narrow, dimly lit hall. Medusa would probably burn the body later, along with the garbage.

He stopped and leaned against the wall. Only when he heard little, hitching breaths did he realize he was crying.

Ragnarok thumped a fist lightly against his head. "Don't be such a pansy. Dead people can't hurt you."

"I kn-know. But…" Chrona trailed off. For once, he wasn't crying out of fear. He cried for that little boy, lost to the world, alone and forgotten in a dank cellar—cried because there was no one else to cry for him.

Later that night, they curled up in bed, Ragnarok protruding from Chrona's back.

Normally, Ragnarok only slept when he was inside Chrona. But tonight he'd fallen asleep sprawled across the pillow next to his. Soft, raspy snores echoed through the room.

He kept thinking about the little boy under the tarp, that brief glimpse of his face. Ragnarok's voice echoed in his head, saying the boy was probably better off like that.

He'd thought he had spent all his tears, but a few more slipped down his cheek.

Being a child was painful, he thought. The idea had never occurred to him before. His life was what it was. He'd never thought about it or speculated on how things might be different. But he thought now about all the lost boys and girls in the world, the ones who were hurt, the ones who cried alone in silence. Ragnarok was crying too, he was sure, even if he never showed his tears.

Maybe someday, things would be different. Maybe they would leave this place.

Chrona drifted off, listening to Ragnarok's breathing.

He had a dream that he was the mouse from the cartoon, but he'd left all the bad people who were mean to him. He'd met a pretty girl mouse who kissed him and stroked his wings and told him they were beautiful.

He was awakened by a faint whimper. Chrona opened his eyes and looked over his shoulder at Ragnarok. The round, bulbous eyes stared blankly, unseeing. He never closed them, even in sleep.

Ragnarok flinched and shuddered. His breath caught. Then he spoke in a small, scared voice, a voice very different from his usual growl: "Don't hit me anymore."

Chrona listened, holding his breath.

Ragnarok shuddered again. "Please," he whispered. "Please don't…I'll be good…"

"Ragnarok." Chrona shook him. "Ragnarok, wake up."

He woke with a start. His X-shaped pupils swiveled toward Chrona. "Wh-what…" He trailed off. After a moment, he exhaled a shuddering breath and flopped down to the pillow.

"Were you having a bad dream?"

"Yeah. Don't remember it now, though."

Chrona had bad dreams all the time. He knew how awful they felt.

He hesitated, then twisted around and awkwardly hugged Ragnarok. Ragnarok tensed. For a few seconds, he didn't react. Then he pushed Chrona away. "What are you doing? Knock it off."

"Sorry."

Ragnarok vanished into his body, leaving Chrona alone. He curled around his pillow. A few seconds later, he felt a gentle squeezing sensation around his heart.

It might've been nothing—just Ragnarok shifting around inside him, as he sometimes did. But Chrona wanted to believe that he was hugging back, in his own way.

-The End

AN: "The Flying Mouse" is an actual Disney cartoon, made in 1934.