August 14, 2049

Our Lady of Compassion Orphanage

Puyallup Barrens, Seattle, United Canadian and American States

~~~

Sylvia wasn't sure if hell existed, but if it did, then Puyallup was one of its districts.

It was another muggy, drizzly summer day in Seattle, as Sylvia looked through a mesh fence through the bleak depression of the Puyallup Barrens. Trash and engine parts littered the street, along with a cardboard box blowing in the wind. A rough-looking, weather-beaten ork was chasing after the box in the breeze, cursing all the way. Sylvia hoped the box wasn't part of his home, but got the feeling it was.

Sylvia was an orphan, one of many elves presumably abandoned for being born to racist drek-headed human parents. Currently, she resided in the understaffed and rundown Our Lady of Compassion Orphanage, belonging to some vague branch of Christianity that even the nuns in the place weren't clear on. After Sylvia was shuttled around from place to place as an infant, she had ended up here at the age of 6, and had spent 10 years in this place.

For those 10 years, she had seen many kids come in, get adopted, and leave the orphanage, while she stayed behind to stare through this same damn fence at the same moribund streets every day. At this rate, she was going to be adopted as a Sister into the orphanage staff, and then would probably be forced to be a chaste and unloved caretaker of brats for the rest of her life.

Sylvia sighed. She wanted a handsome teenage brother to come in with a normal set of parents, sweep her up, and take her out of this hellhole place. But she knew it wouldn't happen. Sylvia was ugly, and that wasn't a desired trait amongst anyone willing to adopt an elf. Elves were valued by the less racist humans in society for being good-looking, charismatic, and cat-quick. No human parents would want a 16 year old screwup like her in the family photos. No cute guy would want her slightly awkward, facially unimpressive, ratty-haired, flat-chested self. She was valued by no one, and would have to be content spending her days fingering herself with a metal tube while looking at a fizzling holopix of an elvish sports star.

......Well, she was about to be valued by a group of people......

Sylvia turned to her left while reminiscing over her lousy life, and saw an unpleasant sight for sore eyes. It was the orphanage bully, a hulking atrocity of a teenage ork named Billy Bones. He was a master at causing problems and being somehow unpunished for it by the harried orphanage staff. The look on his face gave the impression that he was here to cause Sylvia some problems now.

Sylvia turned to walk away, and saw one of the lackeys of Billy Bones walking towards her from the opposite direction. She turned towards the orphanage, and another lackey was jogging towards her.

"Heeeeeeeeeey Sylvia!"

Uh oh.

Billy Bones and his lackeys surrounded Sylvia on all sides, closing off any escape. Billy Bones had some real swagger about him today, and Sylvia knew that couldn't be a good thing.

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"You hear the great news Sylvia? Stacey's getting adopted! Some human family came by to pick her up today!"

"......Yeah, so?" Sylvia said nervously.

"So that means there's a little problem with the orphanage. See, Stacey being gone means we have no one to teach us sex education! And since you're the only one here grown up enough, you'll have to volunteer to take her place."

Billy Bones smiled. It wasn't a pretty smile.

"So in exchange for teaching us some sex ed, we got people on the outside who can bring stuff in for us. You want makeup and cosmetics, to try and make you look purty? You want some better food? We'll pay you, if you teach us...... just like we paid Stacey."

Billy licked his lips, and you could see the drool leaking over the rotten fangs on his massive underbite. Sylvia felt deflated and utterly disgusted at this point. So the rumours around the orphanage about some of the stuff Stacey was doing was true. She had probably been forced into it by Bully Bones and his lackeys, and now this was Sylvia's life: a glorified personal hooker for the ugliest ork in Seattle.

"I'll pass." Sylvia said in a shaky voice while backing away. "I don't think I can teach you anything, and I really don't want to anyways."

Billy grabbed Sylvia as she tried to walk off and threw her against the fence.

"Now listen up, pointy-ear. You may be an ugly twig, but you're all we've got. We need to get off our rocks, otherwise we might get some pent up aggression building up inside. And that might make us do things...... VIOLENT things. Now strip down, and swallow what I give you......"

Sylvia started having a panic attack from the moment Billy had thrown her against the fence, and now her head was spinning.

She may be ugly, she may be just an orphan, without a Social Identification Number or even a last name, but she had rights, didn't she?

She didn't have to suffer this, did she?

Why was she suffering?

Why was this happening?

Why?

WHY!?

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sylvia, without even realizing she was doing it, moved her right hand to her shoulder as if to take her shirt off, before it suddenly shot out at the lower jaw of Billy Bones, grabbed one of his massive, rotten fangs on his underbite, and broke it clean off at the base.

Billy howled in pain, while his lackeys stood there in shock over what just happened. They didn't expect anyone, let alone a girl, to make a move at Billy Bones! He was a 6 foot 6 ork for crying out loud!

Sylvia backed away slowly, before throwing the fang at the feet of Billy Bones and running off, tearing shoe leather down the dusty ground of the orphanage to get away from them.

~~~

Sylvia was a tomboy at heart, and proved to be a pretty decent cross-country and mini-marathon runner with good stamina. Her running was not something she neglected, as it wasn't like she had anything better to do with her spare time. So she tore down towards a gap in the orphanage fence, went through it, and tried desperately to outrun the bully trio, the one thing she hoped she'd be good at.

She had no plan, and she knew that coming back to the orphanage would be a bust. The orphanage staff would take the side of Billy Bones as they always did, probably because he scared the wits out of even the most hardened, ruler-wielding sister they had on staff.

They scared Sylvia too, but the bullies largely left her alone except for the occasional insult, and didn't see her worth bothering with until all the other older girls had been adopted. And now, Sylvia was the only older girl left.

She couldn't stay here, so her only choice had to be outrunning them.

But as Sylvia tripped over a curb and hit the ground hard, rolling from the momentum, she got a glance behind her and noticed that the bully boys hadn't neglected their cardio either. Billy Bones had made noise about how he'd be a famous running back for the Seattle Seahawks someday, and he did seem awfully quick on his feet for such a big boy, with his two lackeys following close behind.

Sylvia made a panic decision in an attempt to lose them. There was an abandoned warehouse that everyone in the orphanage was told to stay clear of. It was rumoured to be a haunt for ghouls and vampires, and was also rumoured to have taken the lives of a couple local shadowrunners sent in to investigate.

But maybe they'd be spooked and stay away. And if they didn't, maybe she could lose them in the building somehow......