How The Butterflies Killed the Moon

Special Child

The special child with the white eyes was named Jace. It was decided that this child would grow up in the attic of an orphanage. The parents of this child did not want it, because they feared that his eyes would turn out to be a symbol of bad luck. The family already thought that they must have been cursed to give birth to such a child. Jace was too young to understand why they hid him away from others, and why they gave him to the local orphanage.

He may be an orphan, but he isn't discouraged because of it. He is pent up in the attic of the orphanage, unable to leave it, and none able to enter except the occasional maid, which only gives him his meals. The only thing that he is able to do is look out the pane glass window and imagine what might be on the other side. Jace always wondered what the world outside of the attic was like. Only occasionally he would ponder about why he was isolated from the other children, or who his parents were. He thought that he might be better off not burdening himself with questions that The Butterflies would not be willing to answer.

With each passing day, Jace's desire to escape the walls of the orphanage grew stronger. He felt as though something was waiting for him out there; that there was an amazing life waiting for him. He would press his hands against the window and would push on it with all his might. Of course, he never expected for anything to happen; for nothing did happen. But he hoped that one day he would catch his break and finally escape the refinement of the orphanage and the watchful eyes of The Butterflies; in which he believes that they've been trying to stray him off of his path, his destiny, his life; the life he was meant to live. He pulled back his hands from the warm glass and looked at his handprints that had been made and how they were slowly fading back to the way it was. A shadow fell upon the window, signalling to him that it is time for him to rest.

It was a night just as any other night; Jace lit the fire in his little red lantern, sitting cross-legged on his bed staring out the window, watching as it became darker and darker outside. The shades of the sky morphed from popping colours of yellow and orange, to mellow shades of pink and purple, then blue, and eventually falling to a dark grey. The light in the lantern flickered and slowly began to die out, the room slowly dimming. Instead of going to bed like he normally would, Jace continued to stare out of the window, seeing nothing but his own reflection. A sudden glimmer of light through the window revealed a loose screw on the lock that secured the window so that it wouldn't open.

Jace twisted the screw before it fell off of the window and into his hand. He heard footsteps in the hall and quietly sneaked back over to his bed, trying to make the floorboards as quiet as possible, and carefully moved the sheets to adjust himself before setting the screw on the floor beside him and glancing back once more to the window before drifting asleep.

Early next morning, Jace knew just what he'd do from the moment he had woken up. He promptly gathered all the spare cloth and sheets that he owned and tied them up into a long chain before carefully opening the window and ripping a small hole in the sheets, where he twisted the screw into the thin wall and tugged on the cloth to test how sturdy it was. He hastily squeezed himself through the small space of the window before yanking on the chain of cloth even harder after he lost his footing. He stayed still for a moment, hoping that nobody would hear the thumping of his feet from inside the orphanage. After a moment of silence, he carefully made his way down; the cloth burning his hands as he slid down. Each step would create a tingling sensation and would make him flinch.

As his small, dirty feet planted on the cool ground that thrived with green grass that was dripping with the early morning dew, Jace got an incredible rush about him. He wanted to frolic and enjoy his time, but he also did not want to get caught. He took a couple more steps, then a few more, then a leap or two, and he finally ran away from that prison called an orphanage.

After what seemed like hours of running, Jace finally stopped to catch his breath. His breath came in big, heavy gasps. His chest was violently inflating and deflating; his heart pummeling out of his chest and pounding in his ears. The thumping of his heart was loud and quick, but since he had never experienced the joy of running before, he didn't mind the state he was in. He was far on the outside of town now, and he thought to himself that the farther away he was from the town, the harder it would be for The Butterflies to find him. He found himself approaching woods of some sort and decided that he would venture in there. He had never been outside before, so he had no fear of what might be waiting for him. After all, nobody at the orphanage bothered to give him any sort of education.