he is 11 rn (time skip)
All I see is black. My thoughts have been getting darker and darker since I found them dead. Ever since I was sent to a foster home, getting passed back and forth between frightened families like the child no one wants. I want to hurt them so much. "Why am I even still here?" I shout at the walls of my current home, "I should have died with my family," crying and trying to ease the growing anger that has been inside me since that day. "This world is so messed up. I don't want to live in it." I hear footsteps on the stairs. It's only a matter of minutes until they find me and bring me back to the center to be taken in by someone else. "Boy, you shout too much! This is enough!" The door bursts open and my eyes widen. "No—I'm sorry!" My body goes stiff as I prepare myself for the usual wave of anger that comes when my current family discovers I'm not who they thought I was. A monster. An unhinged, unstable child who is not capable of kindness. That's who they think they see.
"Finally," I think. I'm back at the foster home. People never keep me for more than a week or two. Something wrong with my attitude, apparently. I hear footsteps in my direction. "Great." I mutter under my breath and tell the person at the door to come in. It's a man who looks to be in his early forties, with thick black hair and a short beard. He looks at me with dark eyes. Although he appears smaller, his frame is muscular and there's a menacing glint in his eyes that makes me want to turn away. "Who are you?" I ask him. The man smiles. "I'll explain later. Do you want to get away from this place?" I nod. "Then come with me, boy,"
"Where am I? Did I get taken in again?" I sit up in bed, waking up in an unfamiliar room. I wipe my eyes and my vision begins to clear. The room seems strangely familiar. I get up and look out the window. My eyes widen when I realize it's the house that I lived in until my parents died. The same view, the same wallpaper, the same damn bed. "What—how—did I die somehow? Why am I here?" Still trying to make sense of the situation, I walk out of the room and see a black-haired man leaning against the table, grinning at me. The events of yesterday come back to me like rushing water from a waterfall. "You fell asleep in the car last night. Does this place look familiar to you?" He asks. I nod. "This is my old home—before I became a foster kid," I answer, confused by the man. "Allow me to explain," He says, walking towards me and putting his hands on my shoulders. "My name is Rudolf Sergei. Your parents made me your godfather before they died," The man looks into my eyes. "And told me to take care of you in case anything ever happened to them because of their line of work." "What do you mean, line of work?" I ask him. He laughs a little at my words. "You don't know?" He asks me. I shake my head no. "Your parents were in the Mafia, Alexei."