Swallowing The Spider

[After Transition]

My name is Nicholas James and life didn't start out great for me, actually it hasn't been all that great even when I had gotten older and I guess that's because I grew up on the mean streets of Gotham City. If you don't get born into a well off family in Gotham than there's a 95% chance that your gonna end up dead in a gutter before you reach the age of thirty(because you'll either be getting robbed or be the thug that does the robbing) and if you're in Gotham without a family then you're pretty much screwed from the get go, unfortunately I was screwed from the get go because I was an orphan and the orphanage wasn't a good place to grow up.

The Gotham City Orphanage was built by Thomas Wayne and apparently it was a haven for orphans, at least it was before he up and died because after that it went to hell with no return ticket. Now the orphanage was heavily underfunded and people found ways to take advantage of that, after all human greed is limitless even to those whose job it is to look after children and I can only say that I'm glad I was put in that orphanage because it helped me leave this hell hole called Gotham, no matter how painful it was living in that orphanage.

The matron of the orphanage used to be a kind elderly woman back when Thomas Wayne was alive but after his death she ended up leaving it and she was replaced by a plain looking middle aged woman who was really good at faking being pleasant, she was anything but but she knew how to give the kids the carrot and beat them with a stick. It turns out she was actually working for a lieutenant of the Falcone crime family and she was ordered to become the matron of this orphanage and it wasn't out of the kindness of their hearts, it was because children make good drug mules and why wait for the kids to grow up before recruiting them when you could do the nurturing yourself and raise yourself a pack of drug mules who get paid in a little extra food at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Of course not all children were chosen for such special duties because half of them were to dumb to do it and the other half were too greedy to trust(children are clever little social animals that when given an inch will start running for a mile) so the only choice was the outcasts that were clever enough and desperate enough for the extra food, that specific category was the one I belonged to and I don't know whether I am blessed or cursed because of it. The matron needed a specific type of kid but there wasn't enough of that type of kid so she set out to create them by herself, she'd find a kid who she could tell was a bit smarter than the others and then she would tell the older kids to start bullying them and taking some of their food from them and she would reward them with a sweet or something of the like, then when the smart kid was at his most desperate she would come to him with an offer that they couldn't refuse, she would stop the bullies from bullying them and even punish the bullies and she would reward the smart child with extra food and a few toys and all they had to do was deliver a package from one place to the other.

It was on my fifth birthday when everything changed for me because the day before the matron came to me with an offer that she had brought to so many little kids before me and those kids disappeared when they reached the age of ten and the matron said that they were rewarded with a rich new family for helping her, so why wouldn't I accept as it would stop the bully's from bothering me and it would net me some extra food, how I pity my younger self for his naivety. I had accepted yesterday and since it was my birthday today the matron said she would give me a muffin as well if I help her properly, I didn't know what I would be doing that morning but by the time that day ended I would have a very different outlook on life and I would be grateful for it eventually as it would help me through the rest of my life.

The morning started of with breakfast where the matron had place an extra heap of food on my plate with a promise for more at every meal time if I do my job right, for the rest of day I just played around and observed my old bullies giving me a wide birth till the matron eventually came to get me and then she took me to the front of the orphanage where she stopped, dropped to her knees and held me by my shoulders. She told me exactly what my job for the day was and exactly what I was expected to do, I was expected to walk across the street to the man leaning against a lamppost and then I would rub my nose and cough, when I do that the man would drop a brown paper bag on the floor which I was then supposed to pick up. I was then to walk two blocks down the road to my right and stop at the building that had a smiley face grafted on the side of it, I was then supposed to enter that building and climb the stairs to the rooftop where I would find a pigeon coop and I was supposed to lift up some of the nesting in the pigeon coop and place the bag there before going back to the orphanage.

I did exactly as I was told, I walked across the street, I coughed and rubbed my nose, I picked up the brown paper bag and proceeded to walk two block down the road to my right before stopping at the building with the smiley face, I entered the building and then made my way up to the rooftop, everything was going perfectly but unfortunately that was where things took a turn for the worse. I had made my way to the program coop and was trying to figure out how to open it up(I was a five year old and I'd never seen this type of locking mechanism before, hell sometimes I'm still confuse by weird gates even today), just as I managed to get the door to the pigeon coop open I heard the rooftop door behind me swing open and crash into the brick wall.

I turned around and saw what seemed to be a very twitchy and skinny looking man, he was skinny to the point of almost looking malnourished and he was constantly moving his eyes in every which direction, eventually his erratic eyes landed on me or perhaps more specifically what I held within my hands and he started to walk towards me.

I started to back away from the dangerously skinny man, clutching the brown paper bag to my c.h.e.s.t like a lifeline, I couldn't let him take it as it was my job to make sure it goes into the pigeon coop and if it doesn't it means no more extra food for me...

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<AN> I now have a Pa treon up and running and when a chapter is ready it will go up on Pa treon first so please take a look. Some support from you guys would be appreciated and motivate me.

(pa treon.com/GutsyRipper)

A special thank you to my patrons Tim Brown, Stormrall and Leonidas Simon. Thank you for the support.