My name is Jericho. I'm seventeen years old, and I live in an orphanage. I've never met my parents, so I never even learned my last name. This place has been my home for as long as I can remember.
To be honest, it's a pretty creepy orphanage.
Not everything about it is bad, though. My best friend, Kanan Judge, has spent years trying to convince his parents to adopt me. He never managed to change their minds, but that's okay. In one month, I'll be eighteen. I'll finally be able to leave this place behind and make my own choices.
I was born with raven-black hair and mismatched eyes. One is an icy blue, while the other is a dark crimson red.
People always made fun of me for looking "evil" or "emo," even though I never tried to. I guess judging people by their appearance is what humans do best.
I'm not especially handsome, but I'm not ugly either. Just average. My beard has finally started coming in, and I've always kept myself in good shape. Throughout school, I was known for standing up to bullies and holding my own in fights. I even joined a local fight club.
The strange part was that the orphanage hated it.
Whenever I tried to take martial arts classes or train, they always pulled me away from it. They had a strict no-combat policy. It almost felt like they wanted me to stay weak.
The orphanage itself wasn't normal either.
The workers all looked impossibly old, as if they could drop dead at any second. Some had injuries that should have killed them years ago. Sometimes I'd catch them staring at me when they thought I wasn't looking.
It felt like they were waiting for something.
Or someone.
Still, that wasn't even the weirdest part of my life.
For as long as I could remember, I felt as though there were other parts of me reaching out from somewhere far away. Not voices exactly—more like pieces of myself that I couldn't quite touch.
Because of my anxiety, I never had many friends. Most people found me intimidating. The girls rarely talked to me, and most of the guys seemed nervous around me.
Only Kanan stayed.
A few weeks passed, and before I knew it, my eighteenth birthday arrived.
That was the day everything changed.
After school, I headed back to the orphanage.
Except it wasn't there.
The entire building was gone.
No rubble. No damage. Nothing.
Just empty space, as if it had never existed.
Unfortunately, I had been stuck in detention for hours after a bully named Derek blew up a toilet with a firecracker and blamed it on me.
Now I stood alone in the darkness with nowhere to go.
Panic began rising in my chest.
Then I heard it.
A distant screech.
I looked up.
At first, it looked like a bat flying in front of the moon.
Then I realized it was far larger.
The creature was bigger than the orphanage itself.
And it was heading straight toward me.
What terrified me most wasn't the monster.
It was the fact that nobody else seemed to notice it.
Cars drove past. People walked down the sidewalk.
Nobody looked up.
Nobody ran.
Nobody screamed.
Then I heard a voice behind me.
"Get down!"
I dropped instantly.
The giant bat shot over my head, missing me by inches.
A blast of molten-orange energy slammed into it.
The creature exploded into flames.
I turned toward my savior.
It was Kanan.
Except it wasn't.
His skin had become gray stone streaked with glowing red cracks. Massive wings spread from his back.
The bat dissolved into ash.
Kanan walked over to me.
"Sorry for lying to you all these years," he said.
I stared at him.
"What are you talking about?"
He sighed.
"I'm a gargoyle. Your father sent me to protect you until you were strong enough to protect yourself."
My brain completely froze.
"What do you mean?"
Kanan looked me directly in the eyes.
"Jericho..."
He paused.
"You're the son of Hades."
"WTF?" :::