Xodus Lionel Bonwick.
"Mom, I've got to catch the bus-" Xodus sputtered as his mother tried to arrange his hair so that it wasn't a tousled mess. She was a doting woman by nature, very kind with her blonde hair usually wound into a messy bun and her blue eyes even bluer in shade than his own. She seemed to constantly want the best for him and that was well and good but he worried that she exalted too much energy on him sometimes and it made him feel vaguely apologetic. She had taken him in, just a street kid with no name or family or any memories of having either, he'd been so confused that the doctors who checked him over had thought he might have hit his head on something hard enough that he had a sort of amnesia. He'd get used to people asking him why he didn't know anything about his past and he'd get used to his mother asking about nightmares that shook him awake some nights.
He'd had a very strange accent when he'd met his mother, it had stuck around for ages before being replaced by something more Manhattan oriented. The only thing that hadn't been replaced were the nightmares, they were strange things full of screaming and creatures with high crested white wings fighting things with claws and dark figures that reminded him of the bogey man. He had nightmares of a screaming young girl and wings that seemed to be growing darker by the day. He had nightmares all the time but he had long since brushed them off as the product of his wayward mind and he tried to forget the trauma they caused him most times.
It worked, mostly. He got through school pretty easily and he rarely had many problems, kids got along with him and he got along with kids. His only problem was a constant edge of yearning for something that he couldn't quite put his finger on though he thought it might have something to do with his fevered dreams. His twin sisters had often told him that he had bees in the brain if he took dreams too seriously and he couldn't help but agreeing with them, they were just nightmares and he was no more special than the next person. He needed to get over this, it was self centered and terrible, there was no reason for it.
"Mom, stop." he whined, giving her a light nudge and arching his eyebrows. "That's enough. I look good."
"Your hair is a mess, Xodus!" she complained. "You were supposed to get it cut last week!"
"I know, but the bus!"
Practically bolting out the door, the boy took off towards the brilliant yellow bus and he climbed aboard. He spent most of the trip in a haphazard silence, trying to figure out what seat to bounce to and he chose at least three before settling down in finality near the back where he held a half hearted conversation with a young lady he recognized as Mandy. He held conversation with her on his way into the building and only lost her when he made his way towards his first class. School was fast for him, sometimes too fast and sometimes not as fast as he would like but it was usually fast. He just had to keep a warm air about it.
The first class was an art elective, the only class he really cared about and tried his hardest in, entering it was easy and he chose his seat near the front.
