Adrianna; Psychic of Valecon Shadow Oranization
Copyright© 2026 by A duck named TEF
Chapter 6
Another child smiling wide and walking out of the orphanage, hand in hand, with their new parents. The sisters stood, waving them off and dabbing their eyes with a handkerchief. It didn’t happen everyday; such a bittersweet moment for everyone.
In a cold room, sitting in a corner with his knees to his chest, sat a young boy lamenting another chance lost.
It’s not that he was a child who misbehaved, or acted out in any way. This child was one of the best in the orphanage. Intelligent, well mannered, helpful, and the kindest boy there. Why was he always overlooked by every potential parent? He did everything right. He was courteous in the interviews, honest when he answered the questions, and affectionate when interacting with anyone. Why then? Why was he still left behind and rejected by everyone?
The boy was the oldest orphan there. On paper he was the perfect child for any family. Upon the first interview potential parents were taken in by his slightly curled brown hair, bright hazel green eyes, freckled button nose, and charming pearly white smile.
By the second interview held, things began to crack. There was something oddly unnerving about him despite his pleasant manners and gentle approach.
When the third interview was held, that initial charm seemed to be completely gone. There was a coldness between him and any one who had thought they wanted to adopt him, something no one could put to words apart from ‘abnormal’.
The sisters were always crushed to learn that the family would choose some other child, abandoning any hope that Neesha would be adopted. It was as if a curse had been put upon him.
“Neesha? Are you in there?” Another orphan, a girl a good few years younger than the boy, poked her head into the room looking around for her friend.
“Neesha, there you are! The sisters made us pizza for dinner tonight, hurry or you’ll miss out on the meat topping.” She walked up to him and held her hand out for him.
Neesha looked up, eyes red and puffy, nose wet and drippy. He wiped his face with a sleeve and with his other hand took hers lifting off the ground.
The girl’s expression turned into a pout, “They weren’t worth you. Your perfect family will find you, I know it!”
“Yeah, when? I’ve been here since I was born. Almost thirteen years Liyah. No one else has been here that long since this place was opened.” Neesha held onto Liyah’s hand as the two made their way to the noisy cafeteria.
Lately Neesha had begun to withdraw from the group sessions, choosing to study alone. Once he had been the center of the group, the older boy who everyone looked up to.
Now, many of the other orphans were beginning to avoid him for reasons they never could put to words. Only little Liyah remained by his side in friendship, or rather kinship. Most days the two were inseparable, but even she would give him space when he requested.
The two sat at a table with some of the younger sisters, Liyah preferred this table as she had made up her mind to become a sister like them. Apart from Neesha, Liyah harbored an intense distrust of males.
She didn’t want to be adopted after having been brought to the orphanage by the enforcers who arrested her mother for trafficking substances across country lines. Neesha was the first to welcome her, and since then their friendship blossomed. By now they referred to themselves as siblings.
Prayers were uttered, and the pizza was set before each orphan. This was a treat usually reserved for special days. Each child happily began to feast, yet Neesha stopped Liyah from taking a bite.
“Don’t.” He warned suddenly.
Everyone at the table cast a questioning look at him. Meat topped pizza was arguably his favorite dish, why was he so weary of it now?
Liyah raised a brow, setting her slice back on her plate.
“It doesn’t smell right. There’s something wrong with the crust.” Neesha added, taking up his and Liyah’s plate to throw away.
“Neesha, there’s nothing wrong with the pizza. Eric made it himself, special for all of you.” One of the sisters chastised him.
He shook his head, “No, there’s something wrong with the crust. Liyah, let’s find something else to eat.”
Liyah shrugged her shoulders and followed Neesha’s lead. She trusted him more than she did the sisters when he was this insistent.
Some of the sisters huffed and rolled their eyes, it wasn’t worth an argument with a child about whether or not they would eat something of a treat. More for those who gratefully accepted it.
The next day, the majority of the orphanage was afflicted with food poisoning.
Liyah and Neesha, as well as a few of the children who either missed out or were hardier to food borne illnesses, were quarantined from everyone else.
“How did you know?” Liyah asked Neesha in awe.
Neesha shrugged, “I don’t know, I just ... It smelled wrong. I notice things people don’t seem to notice. It’s been happening a lot more lately. It started after the first new moon of my twelfth birthday.”
“Things like what?”
The young boy took Liyah’s hand and led her away from any eavesdropping ears.
“You know how some animals can just, well they just know things people can’t pick up on? I think it’s like that. I can recognize people by their sounds and smells. I know how many people are in a room before I enter it. I can see things others need binoculars to see if I concentrate enough. It’s like ... I don’t know!”
Liyah’s eyes went wide, a large smile on her face, “You’re like a superhero!” She quietly exclaimed.
Liyah was the biggest fan of any superhero story, she idolized those who accomplished inhuman feats in the name of justice. To think that her best friend, her brother, at the orphanage was a budding superhero sent her into a fit of excitement and admiration.
Grabbing his hand she hauled him to the orphanage’s library, the bewildered boy stumbled along behind her. The veracity with which she dragged him along struck the boy. Neesha had always known Liyah to be a bit eccentric, but also quite often sickly and weak.
Finally in the quiet library, the two paused to catch their breath. It took Liyah a bit longer to regain her composure, Neesha found them a secluded study-cubby near the large windows in the back.
“Liyah,” he quietly chided, “you shouldn’t exert yourself like that. Use your words and I’ll follow you.” He placed a hand on her shoulder, noting that she was shaking.
“I’m sorry.” She said between huffs of breath. “We really should talk in a more private space about this. You’ll need an alternate identity and everything!”
Her eyes lit up as she spoke, and she was visibly trembling in her excitement.
Neesha clicked his tongue and shook his head, “Stop being such a dweeb. This is real life Liyah, we need to think logically about this.”
“You’re still a kid too Neesha, stop acting like an adult. You’ve been blessed by the gods! Why are you not celebrating this?”
Neesha withdrew closer into the cubby. “Do you remember sister Anita?”
Liyah’s expression depressed as the memory of the sister who passed away just a few months ago came to mind. “Yeah, you kept saying she need’d to go to the doctor, but we don’t have a lot of money here.”
“She had Black-blood.” Neesha replied.
Liyah’s brows furrowed, she moved closer to Neesha, listening intently to anything he had to say. The boy realized that his young friend didn’t know about Black-blood yet.
“Sorry, Black-blood is a disease, well, more like a plague. It currently has the highest mortality rate of any known diseas-” “Morality?” Liyah interrupted.
Neesha shook his head and pulled Liyah onto his lap, the two facing the scene outside the window, “Mortality, it means death.”
“That’s terrible!”
“Shh, let me finish. The disease itself can be treated if it’s discovered before the blood completely changes color from red to black, once it’s black though there’s no cure yet. The problem is, you don’t know you have it because it feels more like a common cold. Once you think you’ve gotten over the cold is when it accelerates in breaking down the body. By then, it’s too late.”
“That sounds awful.” Liyah leaned into Neesha’s embrace.
“I knew Sister Anita had it by the sound of her voice and the smell of her breath even before everyone thought she had a cold.” His voice lowered as he spoke.
He heard a soft sniffle coming from Liyah. None of the orphans had been permitted to see Sister Anita in her final moments, the disease itself was highly contagious after the initially infected had passed. Even at her funeral she was placed in a closed casket with a barrier in place to keep the children far enough away.
Neesha didn’t want to cause an alarm of any kind, but he was beginning to smell the same scent on Liyah as he held her close. If he were to say something, questions would be raised, and he was afraid he and Liyah would both be in some sort of trouble.
“Hey, everyone is in quarantine, let’s see if there’s any sweets in the kitchen, what do you say?” He hid the growing fear from his voice.
Liyah looked up at him from her spot in his lap, “Are you trying to distract me from addressing your new superhero status?”
“Is it working?”