Life as a street kid... (pt. 2)

A speaker on the wall crackles to life, and a panicked voice hurriedly says,

"The hospital has been breached by intruders! They are armed! I repeat, they are armed! Ward 1, please take all of the babies and proceed to execute the lock down drill."

Quinn and Nita rush with a cart full of blankets to all of the crying babies. At this point my ears are hurting from the noise of an alarm, the crying babies beside me, and the faint rat-tat-tat coming from the halls. I eventually give in to the urge to cry. Finally Nita reaches me, the last baby, and is about to pick me up when Quinn screams at her,

"What the bloody hell do you think you are doing!?"

"Taking the baby with us!"

"That... THING is not a baby, so leave it!"

"It is still a living thing though! If we leave him he could die!"

"It is not a 'him' it's an 'IT'! And if that demon dies, the world would be a better place without it!"

Nita, looks at me one last time and whispers to me with sadness in her eyes,

"You are beautiful no matter what others say, and I hope to see you again my 'rishima'"

Then she turns and starts to leave. I stop crying as she walks away only looking back once right before the door closes. So I was alone again. I am thinking that I should probably go back to sleep and just wait till it's all over. Whether I mean the lock down or... No, I will survive. I will survive even if it's just because I want to show the world that I can take whatever it has to throw at me and I won't do it lying down! Well, I mean I am a baby, so I will have to take it lying down for a little while, but metaphorically I won't. Just then, the door bursts open and a tall man dressed in all black walks in. For some reason, my gut is telling me to stay quiet, but then again, my gut also told me to just sleep a couple of seconds ago, and this is much more interesting! So... Screw my gut, I'm gonna cry my heart out!

In the end, I just started to whimper. Darn instincts! Well, it was enough to catch the man's attention, because as he was about to open the door to leave, he stops, turns around, and starts walking my way. When he reaches my bed, he peers over at me, and I immediately stop making noise. The man looks at something above my dome, which Nita left open, and grumbles,

"Says here this kid's name is Damon... Who on earth would name a kid Damon? I mean, people will mistake it for 'Demon'. Even we are not that mean... Heh heh... now that's saying something. Looks like you are listed as deceased here kido."

He looks down at me again and smiles, revealing a mouth that is definitely missing some teeth.

"You're coming with me now, kido. Butch will be overjoyed to have a new asset to do his biding!"

He laughs- No, cackles a bone chilling cackle. I'm starting to think that my gut had the right idea after all. Though I can say that I am pleasantly surprised when he picks me up. He is gentle despite his rough and dirty appearance. And let me just say, when I thought the inside of a garbage bag was dirty, that makes this man filthy in comparison. Yikes! He takes me outside and into the hall where he stops at a device with a screen that emits light from a flat, vertical panel.

"Probably don't know what this is, do ya Damon? It is a computer. Yeesh, you really need a new name... hmm... Nope, I never was good at naming things. Looks like you will get your name the way the rest of us do. But don't worry, since your mama probably gave you that name, even though she seems to dislike you, we will keep Damon as your middle name. How's that?"

Well he was right about one thing, my mother probably hated me. Unless you leave your own flesh and blood, that you love oh so much, in a garbage bag to die... then the rest of you might want to question how much your parents all love you... ha ha... ha... Nope! My mom hates me. Meh, let's get back to this thing called a computer!

I hear a lot of clicking and clacking, but other than that not much is happening. So much for this being more interesting than sleep. I start to squirm, realizing that I am now a lot bigger than I was over a month ago! Or at least that is what I understand from what Nita had said. The man looks down at me a little annoyed.

"Hey, kido! I'm just trying to do my job here! Settle down, or else I might drop ya."

He smirks and chuckles at that. This slightly worries me, but then I remember that this is still better than the garbage bag. Oh god... I start to breathe heavily at the thought of being back inside the garbage bag. Oh no, oh God, I'm gonna die in darkness with trash all around me. I will die from starvation or lack of air... God... What if I don't die!? What if I am just stuck in that tiny garbage bag forever? Oh no, help...

by this time the dirty man is looking down at me with something that looks like a mixture of a scowl and worry on his face.

"I should probably look up this kid's medical record just so I don't bring a defective kid into the family..." He mumbles to himself.

We both snap out of what we were doing when we hear someone calls out,

"Alex! You good? What the heck is taking so long? Download the files, kill the kids, and get out!"

Alex responds, "Rick, come down here and look what I found!"

"Ugh... You're a pain in my butt, you know that, right?" Rick says as I can barely see him running down the hall, over the mass of blankets I am in.

"Lookie here, I found this kid in the incubator room and he is listed as deceased! The kid is already off the grid, so we can take him in and raise him with us! You know what they say, 'No one is more loyal than someone who is Mafia born and raised.' right?"

"Alex, no one says that and he won't be Mafia born but sure we can bring him, ONLY if he really is marked as deceased, has no health issues, and does not cry, got it?"

"Yeah, yeah Rick. I got you. And here, check for yourself. It says right here on his file, which I had to get out of the trash since he is supposedly dead and no one claimed him, that he is marked as deceased and the only possible health issue they could find is he might have a small traumatic breakdown with something to do with..."

"Garbage bags? Really? And why the heck does it say 'Damon' next to assumed name!?"

"Yeah, I couldn't figure that one out either..."

"Which one? The garbage bag or his name?"

"... Both I guess."

"Anyway, Alex we gotta run. Butch won't be too happy if we miss the meet up at the rendezvous point..."

"Yeah..."

For some reason both men shiver for a second. Then after some more clicking and some papers spewing out of a machine, both men, one carrying me and the other carrying papers along with a hard drive, start running through the halls. All this movement slowly rocked me to sleep. This won't be so bad I thought, but little did I know, I would regret ever letting that phrase enter my mind when I woke up.