• The boy's empty eyes stared upward, showing nothing as stones were dropped from the ledge above. The children above took great joy in trying to make him suffer, but he would give them no such pleasure. He had done nothing to earn this from them, so he would pay them with nothing less than bittterness. His day would come.

    A stone strikes him squarely across the forehead, and he ignores it. Even the blood running from the sudden wound would raise no response. On the outside, he seemed almost a robot, but within, he was little more than a turmoil of regret, anger, hatred, and pain.

    Someday, he would pay them back, and he would make sure he exacted revenge for every second of pain they gave to him. But that day was not today. Today, he would bear the burdens with a strength many refuse to recognise.

    The strength of the Outcast.