Chapter 1: Shadows of Solitude

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Prince wasn't always alone.

There was a time—fading now like an old photograph—when he had a family. A mother who sang to him at night. A father who carried him on his shoulders. A home that felt warm and safe.

But that was before the accident. Before the funeral with two coffins and a small boy standing between distant relatives who whispered about what to do with him. Before he became the orphan passed from home to home until he landed with his uncle on the edge of town—a man who provided shelter and food but little else.

Now, at seventeen, Prince had mastered the art of invisibility.

"Hey, freak!" The voice cut through his thoughts as he walked home from school, head down, shoulders hunched. Amar and his friends—the self-appointed tormentors of anyone they deemed different. And Prince, with his thin frame, quiet demeanor, and strange habit of talking to plants and animals, was different enough.

Prince quickened his pace, clutching his worn backpack tighter. Inside was his most precious possession—a journal filled with drawings of stars, plants, and imaginary conversations with creatures who didn't judge or mock him.

"I'm talking to you!" Amar's hand landed heavily on Prince's shoulder, spinning him around. "What's the rush? Got a hot date with a tree?"

The other boys laughed, forming a loose circle around him. Prince kept his eyes down, counting silently in his head. One, two, three... His therapist had taught him this technique years ago. Count to ten. Stay calm. This too shall pass.

"What's in the bag, weirdo?" One of the boys reached for his backpack.

Prince pulled away instinctively, his voice barely audible. "Nothing. Just books."

"Books? You hear that? The freak reads for fun!" Amar snatched at the bag, catching one of the straps. "Let's see what kind of weird stuff you're into."

Something snapped inside Prince. The backpack contained his journal—the only place where he felt free to be himself. Without thinking, he yanked back hard, surprising Amar with his sudden resistance.

"Leave me alone!" The words came out louder than he intended, echoing in the quiet street.

Surprise flickered across Amar's face, quickly replaced by anger. "Oh, so the freak has a voice after all."

The first shove sent Prince stumbling backward. The second knocked him to the ground, his backpack spilling open. Papers scattered across the pavement—star charts, sketches of plants, notes about animal behaviors. His private world exposed.

Laughter erupted around him as the boys grabbed at his papers, mocking his drawings and notes.

"What is this? 'Dear Oak Tree, today I told you about my dream'?" Amar read in a high-pitched voice. "You write letters to trees? That's a whole new level of pathetic!"

Prince scrambled to gather his papers, his face burning with humiliation. A foot came down on his hand—not hard enough to injure, but enough to hurt, enough to remind him of his place.

"You know why you're alone, right?" Amar leaned down, his voice dropping to a mock whisper. "Because you're nothing. Nobody wants you around. Not even your parents stuck around for you."

The words cut deeper than any physical blow could. Prince felt something hot and wet on his cheeks and realized with horror that he was crying. Not here. Not in front of them.

In a desperate move, he abandoned the scattered papers, grabbed his half-empty backpack, and ran. Behind him, laughter and jeers followed, but he didn't stop. He ran past houses and shops, past the school and the park, until the town thinned out and the dense line of trees marking the edge of the jungle appeared before him.

He shouldn't go in there. Everyone knew the jungle was dangerous—full of wild animals and treacherous terrain. But right now, the thought of returning to his uncle's empty house, of facing another evening of silence broken only by the occasional grunt or the sound of bottles being opened, seemed worse than any danger the jungle might hold.

Prince slipped between the trees, the sounds of civilization fading behind him. The jungle welcomed him with a symphony of rustling leaves, distant bird calls, and the occasional crack of branches. Here, at least, he wasn't being judged. Here, his tears could fall freely.

He walked until he found a small clearing with a fallen log. Sitting down, he opened his backpack to assess what remained of his journal. Most of the loose pages were gone, left behind on the street to be trampled or blown away. What remained was the bound notebook itself, containing his most recent entries.

"They're right, you know," he whispered to no one. "I am nothing. Nobody would even notice if I disappeared."

The jungle seemed to pause, as if listening. A breeze stirred the leaves above, sending dappled sunlight dancing across his tear-stained face.

"I wish..." His voice caught. What did he wish for? A friend? A family? Someone who understood him? It seemed too much to ask for, too impossible to even articulate.

Instead, he opened his journal and began to write, pouring his pain onto the page:

Sometimes I wonder if I'm even real. If I disappeared tomorrow, would the world notice? Would it care? I feel like a ghost already—walking through life, unseen, unfelt. The only time people see me is when they need someone to hurt, someone to make them feel better about themselves.

I talk to trees because they listen. I watch birds because they're free. I count stars because each one is alone, like me, but together they make something beautiful.

Is it wrong to want to be part of something beautiful too?

As he wrote, the shadows in the clearing lengthened. The jungle grew quieter, as if settling in for the night. Prince should have been afraid—he needed to get home before dark—but a strange calm had settled over him. Here, surrounded by life that didn't demand anything from him, he felt more at peace than he had in years.

He closed his journal and looked up at the canopy of leaves above him, at the patches of darkening sky visible through the branches. The first stars were appearing, tiny pinpricks of light in the gathering dusk.

"I should go," he said aloud, though there was no one to hear him. "But I'll come back. This can be my place."

As he stood, gathering his backpack, a strange sound caught his attention. Not the usual jungle noises—this was different. A soft, rhythmic sound, almost like... breathing? But labored, pained.

Prince froze, suddenly aware of how dark it had grown, of how alone he was. Fear prickled along his spine.

But beneath the fear was something else—curiosity. Concern. Whatever was making that sound was suffering.

Against his better judgment, Prince moved toward the sound, pushing aside ferns and low-hanging branches. The breathing grew louder, more distinct. Then he saw it—a flash of color so vivid it seemed to glow in the dim light. Green, but not the green of the jungle. Brighter. Almost luminescent.

He pushed aside one last frond and gasped.

There, lying on a bed of moss, was a parrot. But not like any parrot he had ever seen. Its feathers were an impossible emerald green that seemed to emit their own light. Its eyes—half-closed in pain—were a deep, intelligent amber. One of its wings was bent at an unnatural angle, and a small trail of blood matted the feathers on its side.

The parrot's eyes opened fully at his approach, fixing him with a gaze so intense, so aware, that Prince took a step back. This was no ordinary bird. There was something in those eyes—something that spoke of wisdom, of consciousness, of a soul.

For a long moment, boy and bird stared at each other in the gathering darkness of the jungle. Two lonely beings, wounded in different ways, brought together by chance—or perhaps by something more.

Then the parrot spoke, its voice soft but clear, the words unmistakable:

"Help me."

And Prince's world changed forever.