Date: June 21, 1975
Location: Franklin Orphanage, Hawkins, Indiana
Being eleven sucked.
Or maybe, being eleven and a telepath in an orphanage full of burgeoning teenagers sucked. The days had an amplified hum now, a constant, low-grade thrum of hormones and desires and anxieties that vibrated through my skull like a poorly tuned radio station. Most of the other kids just called me Ruru these days. It was short, easy, and felt… mine. I was Rupert Johnson, officially. Anthony Stone was a ghost, a faded memory of a hot, noisy, tricycle-filled world. This pale, Indiana-born body, with its absurdly green eyes and ginger hair, was my reality.
And speaking of this body, it was changing. The freckles that once dusted my nose and cheeks like cinnamon had begun to lighten, scattering, making my skin look even smoother, almost luminous. My ginger hair was no longer just wavy; it fell in thick, lustrous curls that the girls, and even some of the older boys, would eye with a strange longing. My green eyes, which I used to think were too bright, now seemed to hold a captivating depth that made adults smile and teenagers… well, teenagers just stared. I knew what it was. I heard their thoughts. Angel. Doll. He's gonna be trouble when he gets older. My features were becoming sharper, more refined, somehow more classically beautiful. It was a curse and a shield, drawing attention while simultaneously making people overlook the calculating mind behind the "angelic" facade.
Breakfast was always a mental assault course. I sat with the younger kids, strategically placing myself near Sister Agnes, whose thoughts were usually a dull, comforting drone of hymn lyrics and grocery lists. But even here, the periphery was loud. Across the table, eight-year-old Lily was silently planning a complex revenge on Timmy for stealing her crayon. Stupid Timmy. I'll hide his stuffed dog. He loves that dog. He'll cry. I sighed inwardly.
Then there were the older kids. Jason, a fourteen-year-old who sat a few tables over, was currently wrestling with a single, potent thought: Brenda's hair smells like strawberries. I wonder if she'd let me hold her hand during the movie tonight? The sheer intensity of it, coupled with an almost physical flush of heat, made my head throb. I took a deliberate bite of my oatmeal, trying to ground myself. It wasn't just the lust. It was the crushing self-consciousness, the desperate yearning for acceptance, the fleeting resentments, the surges of anger, the fragile hopes. Puberty was like a mental wildfire, and I was stuck in the middle of it.
After breakfast, I usually retreated to the small reading nook in the common room, a relatively quiet corner where the mental noise was somewhat buffered. Miss Karen, bless her blissfully unaware mind, thought I was just a diligent reader.
"Morning, Ruru," she said, bustling by with a stack of clean towels. "Finished your chores already?"
"Almost, Miss Karen," I replied, forcing a smile. My telepathy was mostly a passive thing, a reception of thoughts rather than an active probe, but I often picked up on intentions before they became words. It made navigating the orphanage oddly efficient. I'd already sensed that she needed help with the laundry, so I'd preemptively started folding my own clothes, making me look helpful.
Later, during free time, a couple of the older boys, Billy and Mark, were arguing over a worn-out baseball. Billy, all gangly limbs and simmering aggression, was thinking: Stupid Mark. Always trying to one-up me. I'll make him trip later, accidental like.
"Give it here, Billy! It's my turn!" Mark yelled, his own mind seething with indignation. He thinks he's so tough. Just wait till I tell Sister Paul about his smoking.
I kept my head down, pretending to be absorbed in my book, a worn copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Their thoughts were a dull roar, but the underlying hostility made my stomach clench. It was tempting to nudge Billy's foot, just a little, make him stumble, prevent the conflict. But I kept my powers contained, a deeply buried secret. It wasn't just about not being found out; it was about the dizzying potential for chaos. If I started interfering with every thought I picked up, I'd unravel.
I was Rupert Johnson. I lived here. I had to learn to live with the noise, to filter it, to become just another boy. A boy who just happened to know a little too much about everyone else.
As the day wore on, from lunch to afternoon studies to dinner, the mental chorus never truly ceased. It was an orchestra of human experience, beautiful and terrifying and utterly overwhelming all at once. My identity was solidifying, no longer just a shell. This body, these powers, this life in Hawkins – it was all me. The reborn Anthony, now fully Rupert, navigating a world that felt increasingly vibrant and, at times, dangerously loud.
And as I drifted off to sleep that night, the last thoughts I picked up were from Tom