“Sun Boy”

I never liked recalling my time before meeting Rose, it seemed far away and painful, they were memories that didn't ever bring me joy.

Rose, since day 1, had been a light in my dark, pain-filled life. She was always the reason I wanted to live to see tomorrow.

Before Rose, I had another best friend, a little boy so incredibly filled with happiness that it spilled out into the people around him.

He was a little ball of sunshine who also looked like the sun, he had pale white skin and hair as brightly yellow as the rays of sun that leaked in through the windows, he always wore a beautiful wide smile that reached his little eyes.

He had a big scar on the side of his neck, neither he nor I ever knew why.

I don't think I ever asked.

I couldn't remember if I gave him a name other than sun boy, we were both very young, I remember the way he made the world seem more colorful than it was in reality, him and I would spend hours talking on the swing-set until we were ripped apart to have experiments done on us.

One day, my little sun boy wasn't smiling, he sat underneath the tree next to the building, he held a brown notepad in his hands, tears slipping out of his eyes as he drew a pretty house with two parents.

I felt my small heart crack, I'd never seen him without that signature smile.

I asked him about it, the day was so beautiful but it felt gloomy, the sun couldn't shine brighter than him when he was happy.

The horrible people in TCRC had been connecting wires to his brain and made him watch videos of happy families.

They did the same to me at some point but I had already read books by then, and I didn't have anyone to want as family. My reaction wasn't what they wanted, but my sun boy, being the pure soul he was, longed to have a family like the ones he was seeing, he kept getting tests done and they started giving him pills and all sorts of things.

His glimmer slowly faded, over time his smile was rare and then I didn't see him for a few days.

I remember crying on the playground, scared he didn't like having me as a friend anymore... He was nowhere to be seen until I saw someone carrying his sleeping body in their arms, his entire being limp.

I didn't understand what was happening until I saw them put him on one of those wheeled beds, cover him up and take his body away.

They had tested him to no end, until his little body couldn't handle it anymore.

That day marked me for the rest of my life, we were too young to understand what this place was, he had horrible things done to him but he smiled until they eventually ripped that away from him.

He was the sweetest thing to ever bless this hell hole, and they couldn't protect it, they took the little star that lit up the darkness and slowly killed its light until it had nothing left to give.

After that, I simply couldn't allow myself to care about people, either mine or their life would get taken from our hands, so I didn't love.

Until Rose came, my beautiful Rose, I was bitter, angry.

I couldn't let her into my heart but she managed to carve her way through the 4 thick walls I had built to protect it from being cracked once more, I was a coward, but some part of me always wondered if the little sun boy had seen me, magically from some place better than this one, and sent Rose to help me.

The mere thought of him taking care of me always brought tears to my eyes, I kept the memory of his limp boy in someone else's arms buried deep in my mind for as long as I could, because I knew that day a small piece of my soul had been broken off and sent away with his.

Now, I'm glad he's not still here, he always deserved so much better.

Maybe an angel had seen his beauty, and took him to be gifted wings, but after that day... the sun never seemed to shine the same way it did once when he walked these halls....