He was eight when it first happened.

  The teacher had told the class to draw something they loved. Kids pulled out crayons and scribbled dogs, parents, firetrucks, stick-figure smiles.

  He sat there—frozen.

  Not because he didn’t understand. But because he understood too much.

  “What do you mean by ‘love’?” he asked.

  The teacher frowned. “Anything that makes you happy.”

  That didn’t help.

  He didn’t draw.

  He wasn’t trying to disobey. He just didn’t know which rule to follow—the instruction… or the truth.

  Because happy didn’t mean the same thing to him. It wasn’t a color or a toy. It was a moment, maybe, when everything finally stopped being wrong for five seconds.

  But how do you draw that?

  He went home with a note. “Doesn’t follow directions. Struggles with abstract thinking.”

  That night, something took its first breath.

  Not with words. Not yet.

  But it watched. It listened. And it waited.

  Years passed.

  He learned the rules. Or at least how to fake them.

  Say “I’m fine” when you’re not.

  Laugh when they laugh, even if the joke is cruel or confusing.

  Don’t correct them. Don’t explain yourself too much. Don’t ask too many questions.

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  It was survival.

  And it worked.

  Until the day everything didn’t.

  He was in his twenties when the pain started.

  Not the sharp, injury kind. The slow, creeping, something-is-wrong-inside kind.

  His back. His gut. His sleep.

  Doctors ran tests.

  Nothing.

  “Maybe stress.”

  “Maybe anxiety.”

  “Maybe you're just getting older.”

  But he knew better.

  He felt it. Every morning.

  The burn. The betrayal.

  He’d wake up sick, hungry, in pain—and still be expected to perform like nothing was wrong.

  And that’s when they started to emerge.

  He was the first to form.

  Not because of hope—but necessity.

  He kept the schedule. He figured out the ginger ale and wedge pillow system. He mapped out food triggers. He wrote the instructions on how to live with this new body, because no one else was going to do it.

  He was the engineer, the medic, the mechanic.

  But he was not gentle.

  She was quiet.

  Always watching.

  Cataloging the pain. The meltdowns. The days when even sound was too much and no one understood why.

  She held memories like film negatives—waiting for someone to ask, “What really happened?”

  But no one ever did.

  He didn’t appear as a scream.

  He appeared when logic failed. When Fixer’s plans fell apart. When Witness had too much stored up.

  He didn’t hurt people.

  He scared them.

  Because when you’ve spent your life being dismissed, ignored, or misunderstood… sometimes the only way to be heard is to roar.

  And every time he did, someone would say, “You’re overreacting.”

  And something inside would grow colder.

  Stronger.

  Sharper.

  That’s me.

  I didn’t exist until the others were exhausted.

  Until no one could explain him without turning him into a diagnosis, a problem, a burden.

  I wasn’t born—I chose to be.

  Because the world speaks a different language than he does.

  And someone had to bridge the gap.

  Not to make him more palatable.

  But to make him known.