I liked to watch nature. I liked to watch the clouds sailing across the sky, shimmering in the sunlight, like ships sailing on an endless blue ocean on a route they knew only to themselves. How the crowns of trees, woven of green leaves, sway in the warm breeze, creating an inexpressible rustle of leaves.
To hear it calling, imagining it as a prankster that rubs the hair of a tree. To feel with my body the touch of the grass, or rather with my hands and bare feet. To lie down and do nothing but listen to the music of nature: trees creaking as if ancient elders were telling each other something. The wind carried the singing of various birds, as if they had gathered in one bird orchestra, announcing the whole neighborhood with their performance.
I enjoyed the peace and solitude of nature. Away from the hustle and bustle of civilization. Lying on a green hill, not at all worried about picking up a couple of parasites, like ticks. I had long ago forgotten what it was like to relax in the fresh air, in nature and not think about anything.
I spent most of my life on the Internet, only rarely going outside to get some fresh air and give my brain a rest. Although, as most of it - more like more than half of my life. The rest of it I spent on walks and games with the neighbor kids, running in the yard or in the grove not far from my former apartment.
It wasn't a large town, with a population of only more than sixteen thousand souls, located by the banks of the river. It was a tourist town with its own history and nature that beckoned many famous poets, artists and writers. And living in such a small but cozy town, I loved nature.
Not radically, of course, but I had a love for it. What can not be said about megacities, to be in which it is impossible. The air there is so polluted that breathing was akin to torture without a mask. And what smell was in the transport - I don't even want to remember. I wanted to vomit unbelievably, especially when you are constantly rocking. That's why I flatly refused to use cars or any other form of transportation except bicycles or walk on my own two feet. Only in rare cases, when I had to get to another city on business, I took special pills for motion sickness.
But I couldn't call myself a lover of country life either. Still, I loved a lot of things that civilization could provide: sewerage, gas, electricity, warm water, telecommunications and so on. And no, I don't deny that there are such things in villages too, but they are either well-developed or urban-type townships. So the city I lived in had the perfect balance for living in it.
Nature was living its life, not paying any attention to the children's yelling that was coming from the direction of the orphanage. The children were having fun, playing among themselves and just having a good time outside, on a huge fenced plot. And the hill was in that lot, even though it was on her very border. I wanted to continue to enjoy this beauty, but it was not fate. The bell rang - all the children stopped playing and headed inside the orphanage.
I've been lying down. Slowly I got to my feet and, stretching, went to a huge, thick and ancient as the world itself oak tree. Under its crowns lay my children's sneakers with socks - I left them to let my feet feel the ticklish grass and the warm earth under them. Shaking the dirt off them, I put on my socks and sneakers, then quietly headed toward the building.
The shelter looked... small, but new and well-maintained, from the outside. Recently painted white walls, a roof of ashy-charcoal colored metal shingles that glinted off the sun's rays nicely. Rectangular plastic windows with the ability to change position and so on. Inside it was the same, but done more towards a pleasant and warm atmosphere. A combination of bright caramel colors in the corridors, vanilla with a combination of gray stripes in the dining room, and blue, green and white in the bedroom. Though, despite the building's small size, it had many rooms: the library, which was where most of the time. Showers, game rooms, and the office of the guard, whose cameras were dotted everywhere except, of course, the restroom and shower room.
Everything indicated that the orphanage was being taken care of, and that a lot of money was being allocated for its upkeep. I had seen orphanages many times in my home world. But most of them looked either like a relic of the past that had to be renovated or torn down. Or like a real misunderstanding, the sight of which made me wish I hadn't seen. All the more so with the current caretakers, who would rather sit on the sidelines while the children solved problems among themselves.
But not here. Hell knows who hired them, but he knew who he was hiring. The caretakers were professionals at their job, to describe them in a nutshell. Nurturing, developing and educating them, engaging in various interactives, giving them the opportunity to work as a team and not letting them chill out in their free time. There were several in total: two adult women, one elderly and a young girl. While the two women were more in charge of education, and the older woman was in charge of the library, the young woman was in charge of the children.
I sat at the table, looking around the dining room and marking each child that was here. And everyone was enjoying a meal that made even me drool. Golden mashed potatoes, the smell of which caressed my nose. And next to it was an appetizing, plump chicken cutlet. And both were covered in the perfect gravy, creating an incredible combination of flavors and cooking quality. Now it was Saturday - a day on which such culinary masterpieces were prepared for the kids. Honestly, if my school fed like this, I would give all my money and shake the chef's hand with all due respect.
The funny thing is, I did. Only, as it turned out, it wasn't a man or some humanoid, but a bear, an ordinary fucking bear! I'd never seen such meaningful and grateful eyes in my life. He was intelligent, though he couldn't speak human. And what was somehow human - his paws, or his hands, it's not clear. They were functional enough, unlike his clubfooted brethren. And no, his fur doesn't fall on the food - they keep an eye on that here. And so I eat, remembering my first time at the shelter.
It's been over a week since I got here. I was then settled into a solitary room, separate from the shared bedroom for the time being. This was done so that the shelter staff could first examine a new child before letting him in with the others. To check his health, psyche, attitude to others and so on. It is not clear how a child who lost his parents before his own eyes will behave. Even the documents received from the hospital didn't really stop the medical check. I had to try not to show anything unnecessary, not typical for a child of my age, except for some moments shown in front of the doctor. But I managed, I passed and I was transferred to the common bedroom.
And there I saw all the variety - all the sentient beings that might have existed in Kathy's works: horned, whose shape ranged from short and blunt to long and sharp, curved or straight; tailed - short, long, furry, black with arrowheads or heart-shaped tips, smooth, scaly, with or without growths; winged, though there was only one, and that with feathers behind it; animal-like, ranging from the banal furries or individuals with separate animal body parts, from cat ears and tails to those with dragon, unicorn, or something else familiar but not thought of. And yes, there were natural anomalies here that even such a menagerie described before paled in comparison. There were several in total.
A girl my age with all human features. It seems nothing unusual - an ordinary person and that's it. Except that if you look up and look at her hair, you immediately throw away the idea of her being ordinary. Her hair is water, which sends the poor physicist far away. And no, it's not a joke, her watery hair is real in both composition and feel. Yeah, she let me touch it with a satisfied face, like she was bragging about her unique anomaly. And I can't judge her for that. Because this is a really unique phenomenon even for a person like me, who has seen everything in my life (on the Internet, of course).
And what's to say - she is the most famous in the shelter because of her watery hair. And it seems like water is water, but it still behaves like ordinary hair. It can grow over the course of her life, it can be cut off and she can have a short bob. And the cut hair goes to the shelter workers. For what purpose? I don't know, but it's suspected of being used for cooking or drinking. There were a couple of times when I drank from a glass of water in the dining hall - it felt surprisingly tasty and invigorating.
Well, it's also worth mentioning that her hair can show the wearer's emotions, as it does with a cat's tail. Angry? Her hair is bubbly and slightly red. Getting sad? The water becomes murky, turning a black and blue color. Cheerful? Surprisingly, the water becomes slightly clear and bright blue, and so on.
After her comes an ordinary-looking seven-year-old boy with a potty haircut (who cut his hair like that). Everything is normal at first glance, until you come up and take a closer look, after which you touch his body. And it's made entirely of chalk. Chalk, my ass! It doesn't look like it - it's too natural and anatomically accurate. It's as if he wasn't born naturally at all, but as if he had been recreated from improvised materials and performed a ritual to revitalize the newly created golem from chalk. I can't explain how this walking miracle came to be.
He can change colors all over his body if he wants to. Lengthen his limbs by a couple of centimeters, as well as break off pieces of himself and use them without feeling any discomfort or pain. They recover in one - two, quickly and without delay, unless of course the damage is severe. He eats regular chalk, and he eats huge chunks of it. Probably using it to rebuild his body. But I have my doubts about whether he could survive if we destroyed him completely. Or find the source of his life and hit it, taking his life.
It reminded me of a couple universes that had the same situation with kids who had biological mutations and their abnormal variants - Hero Academia, with its quirks and biological mutations and abnormalities that are just as bad as the orphanage kids. X-Men with the X genome, which is already clear from the name. And also Meta - people, although here I can be wrong, because I have not studied this issue and was not interested in the DC universe. And here the reason for such peculiarities can be absolutely different, in no way connected with their genomes or something there. Perhaps, it is such a convention of the world, or something more complex and comprehensive is involved here?
In any case, it should be said at once that there are very few such non-humans compared to the number of ordinary children in the orphanage. Which, however, only makes them more unique on the one hand. On the other. More alien and wrong for ordinary people. Especially for children, who at that age can be especially cruel, which can lead to unforeseen consequences on the basis of hatred of non-humans. And fortunately, I did not notice such a thing, at least there were no preconditions for it. Which already says a lot about educators, that it's being watched strictly. It's okay, teachers can't have much influence on students. But here the tutors were a second mother, so to speak.
And then. Everything went on as usual. Children were simple and understandable, if you study their behavior and psychology well. And I had experience with them, especially when I had a younger sister to take care of while the mother was away. Though compared to me now, my past version was still an aggressive and lazy pain in the ass. What's to say, if I was often in conflict with my sister back then, when she had any sense at all. Always disgruntled, conflicted kid, who, if something does not like it, he will immediately begin to swear about it with a special passion right in the face of the ill-wisher. Looking at my past self - became ashamed and unpleasant in my soul, especially remembering those moments when I was wrong, but was too proud to admit it.
But here I am now, among children like my little sister. Being aloof, bored looking at them or nature from the window, but always helping in times of need, if those times require it and I can handle it. I don't mind to listen to a child's story, what he is interested in and what he has learned. And I do not keep silent, I also tell about what is interesting to me, what I like and what new things I can know. And during these days I unwittingly became an outlet for many people, an older brother and mentor, always ready to prompt or give advice. It seemed funny, considering that most of the kids were between five and seven years old. Only Anna, the girl with the watery hair, was my age. The seven year old, on the other hand, is Melow - the chalk boy.
Well, height was also part of the image of the older brother and headman - 140 centimeters. When I found out my height, I was really freaked out, especially by my long arms and legs. And I didn't look like a choker, even though I expected to look that way. Rather, I was just a big boy with a good weight, not showing an extra belly, but the skin did not tighten the bones. He was dressed in a white t-shirt, black shorts, and black and white sneakers. Long black hair tied up in a bundle, thanks to the librarian who gave him a blue hair band for that. I don't care if it's feminine, I like it and it looks good on me.
It's amazing how easy it is to go from being a new, unknown and interesting boy to being the most important and respected of all the little tomboys. Hell, I feel like I'm the boss of the little kids. The dark lord of the little brats, pointing at anyone who goes against me. King. All right, enough of this, or I'm going in the wrong direction. It should be said that when the teachers saw me interacting with the kids, they called me over and offered me to be the headman for the younger kids. The third, to be exact, the other two being Anna and Melou. Became one three days ago, come to think of it.
I thought about it, scratched my head, and decided to accept. I had nothing to do but read books and develop my body anyway. Yeah, when I get the chance and no one is bothering me, I just start doing exercises to keep my body trim and fit. I still remember the world I'm in, so I don't forget to exercise.
I finished my lunch and took the tray to the playroom, where the teacher was waiting for us.
- Maaax! Maaax! - A little five-year-old girl with a fishbowl on her head filled with clear water addressed me. With blue scales and a long fish tail, dressed in an azure dress.
- М? - I lifted a bored look from the table and transferred it to her. In her scaly hands, she held a large, open, thick book with a picture of a Tyrannosaurus Rex standing behind the title 'Prehistoric Monsters'.
- Can you give me a hand? - she flipped the open book over to me, pointing at the images of sea monsters, where each had the name and description of the creatures next to it. Holding her head and one hand, her free hand, she pointed to their names.
- Speak the name? - I clarified, to which she nodded. Reaching up and stretching slightly, I sat down on the rug, taking the book in my hands. Watni settled on my lap, nestling herself comfortably on it.
- So... Show me.
- This one... - she pointed to Ichthyosaurus.
- Ichthyosaurus.
- Ichthiosaurus? - she repeated after me.
- No, Ichthyosaurus. Repeat after me. - I began slowly, syllabically, repeating the name of the ancient lizard, which looked like a bloated dolphin. She tried to repeat after me, but made mistakes several times until she finally got it out.
- Ichthi... Osaurus...
- Ichthy... Osaurus! Ichthyosaurus! - she exclaimed with joy.
- That's right! - I smiled, high-fiving her and being happy for her. She threw her hands up in the air with a happy face, repeating the word over and over again.
- More - more - more - more! - she asked me to keep going.
- More so much more. Look... Plesiosaurus. Repeat after me. Ple...
- What are you doing? - another child of the same age joined in. A boy with wings behind his back, white like his hair. He wore a brown T-shirt and striped chestnut-colored pants. He wore yellow glasses, which he was constantly adjusting, slightly too big for him. And a tail, a real bird's tail.
- Max is helping me pronounce these curlicues! Too complicated and confusing! - Watni answered Iris for me. He tilted his head to the side with a mute question. I grinned at this action, remembering how parrots sometimes tilted their heads in different directions. Cute analogy.
- O-o-o-o-o-o-o!" he stretched out, returning his head to its place, as if realizing what she was talking about. - Can I come with you?
- If it's okay with Watni," I said, and she said no. Iris sat down next to me, looking at the pictures, and we started. It wasn't until a couple minutes later that I watched the altercation between the two of them. Both were trying to prove the correct way to pronounce words.
And so far, neither of them had gotten it right. I glanced around the playroom, where the other kids were doing their own thing. Some were playing with toys, drawing on paper, molding with plasticine, or crafting with cardboard and glue. Now it was about 14:57, in three minutes we will go outside again for a walk. And then it was time to eat and get ready for bed, so the children were now taking full advantage of the time so that they could go to sleep and face the new day.
Anna was sitting at the table, grooming her hair. Along with her sat a couple of girls helping her with it. Melow on the other hand was drawing with his fingers in a big chalk board with the other children.
- I'm telling you it's more correct to say Leopravudon! With a capital E! - I heard Iris's voice trying to prove his point to his interlocutor.
- No, it's not! The correct word is Liopriveadon! - But Watni was not going to give up, continuing her argument with Iris.
- It's more correct to say Lioplevrodon, - I decided to intervene in their argument, ending it with my answer, - neither Leopravudon, nor Liopriveadon, only Lioplevrodon. Now repeat after me.... Leo...
But no sooner had I begun than the teacher entered the hall. The youngest of the bunch, Stacey Milana. She had long brown hair that reached to her shoulder blades. Dressed in a white shirt that showed a white tank top underneath, jeans, and black shoes. Well glasses she was wearing. Her gaze was squinted, sweeping around the room and taking note of everyone here. There was a small, but sly, foxy smile on her face. What was that about? That's the first time I've ever seen that look on her face.
- Children, please pay attention to me! - she raised her voice. The hall plunged into silence, only the working hum of the lamps from the ceiling was heard by everyone. Seeing that everyone was looking at her, she continued.
- Children, today we have a new girl. Please be gentle with her, she is a rather shy girl," she finished. The children looked at each other, some of them began to whisper, and a small part of them quietly waited for the new girl to appear. She turned, whispering to the unknown girl, asking her to come out to us. She was hiding behind the wall, peering at us with her two eyes. After a few seconds she came out to us, slowly and warily, as if afraid that someone was about to jump out from around the corner. And what I saw immediately made all the boredom shake out of me. Her eyes narrowed, her posture straight and leaning forward to get a better look at her guest.
Rear pointed legs covered with smooth, short, black-colored fur. A long tail whose end is curved in the shape of a sickle or crescent moon. Dark violet-blue hair reaching down to her waist, the same color as her tail. Dark eyes with a blue glare, and three pairs of hands. She was dressed in a warm blue sweater with a black collar and sleeve edges, and ashy charcoal pants.
Anova is the third heroine of the Dangerous Forest, a friend of Claire and Biscuit in the story. The girl is a spider girl that is afraid of anything and everything, stood here before us...