Hey guys! This idea has been nagging at the back of my head for a while now, so I decided to go ahead and start writing it. If you don't like dark, sad, and angst-y, then I don't recommend this fan fic to you.

The whole story will be Natsu's POV, with occasional third person POV.

Hope you enjoy!

Igneel Dragneel was my dad. He was the best dad anyone could ever ask for. He loved me, cared for me, spent any and all spare time he had with me. I loved him so much. I always thought it would be me and him forever.

I wish I could say the same for my mom, but I never knew her. Dad always said she was very beautiful, very smart, and very kind. He said that she loved me. If I had gotten the chance to know her, I bet I would've loved her as much as I loved my dad.

But fate is cruel. It took my mom away before I even knew her. Then it took my dad away when I was nine. He didn't leave. Didn't drop everything and abandon me. Honestly, I wish he had left instead of what happened. The Accident, as I call it. Some drunken ass driver hit my dad with his shitty car. Dad died instantly. The driver? Well, he was sent to prison for ten years on account of drunk driving and hit-and-run. It should've been longer. He deserved to freaking rot in a cell full of rat shit. But, no, he gets to go free in a measly ten years. Imagine it was your dad that got hit. Do you agree with me now?

After The Accident, I was sent to an orphanage. There I cried for days, no… weeks. My tenth birthday happened while I was still stuck in that God forsaken hellhole. You know how I spent it? Weeping. Sobbing. Grieving. Alone. I drew my birthday cake in the dirt outside the run-down building I called home.

Life took a turn for the better a couple months after my birthday. Wrong. I was adopted. I know what you're thinking: Yay! He has a family again! He's gonna be happy now! Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Sure, I have a family again, if you can even call it that. One man. That was it. No mom, no siblings. Just some old guy with a permanent scowl. He's really muscular, despite his advanced age. He's very tan, too. His long, light-colored hair is usually tied in braid that reaches below his middle back. Shaggy sideburns connect his hair to his untamed, light-colored, spiky beard and mustache. Scars cover his face. His sunken eyes, topped by light and bushy eyebrows, look almost white, as if he has no pupils. The black underlining his lower eyelids give him an otherworldly, and frankly scary, look. Jiemma Orlando is his name.

He took me to my new home: a small, wooden two-story house. He said things like "I'll look after you" and "Nothing bad will happen to you again". Lying bastard. A week after he took me in, his real child came home. Minerva Orlando, a sly she-devil in the body of a curvaceous, raven haired girl. Her slanted dark eyes have a malicious look in them. The amount of eye makeup she wears only adds to the maliciousness. She wears too much lip gloss, in my opinion, but most would say her lips look desirable.

Anyway, when she came home, I was thrown in the attic without a second thought so that she could have one of the two rooms the house provided. My new digs was like any ol' attic you can think of: dusty, full of cobwebs, low ceiling, no furniture, and one small window just big enough to squeeze through for emergencies. Yep, this is my new home sweet home.

For the first month, life wasn't too bad. I enrolled in school, made some friends, got good grades (all A's baby!). But then my life took a turn for the worse. Again.

I started to get bullied. Not by one kid or one group, but two different groups, each containing four people. All of the kids are buff, except the one girl in the group known as the Raijinshuu, which means Thunder God Tribe. The other group calls themselves Sabertooth. Maybe they mean like the sabertooth tiger. Who knows? Either way, I'm bullied everyday by one, or both, of these groups.

Then fate decided to ruin my life even more.

The beatings started. At first just a couple lashes from Jiemma's belt. Then it escalated into more lashings, plus actual fist-to-face, or just about anywhere on my body, contact.

This continued for years, and is still ongoing.

After a year of being abused at home and bullied at school, I grew a fear of people. I secluded myself away from everybody at school. I lost all my friends. No one knows who I am anymore, except for the bullies. I became that random kid in the back of the class with his nose in a book. It's hard. It's lonely. I cry myself to sleep most nights. I want to change, but I'm afraid, terrified. And, really, I don't know what "love" is, anymore.

I'm eighteen now. Today begins my first day of senior year in high school. Hooray.

It's 3:30 a.m. Time to get up. No, school does not start in an hour. It starts at 8:00 a.m. So why, you ask, am I getting up four and half hours early? The answer is simple: Jiemma gets up at 5:00 a.m. so, by getting up at 3:30, I'm out of the house by 4:30, thirty minutes before Jiemma's even up, thus avoiding a beating.

I rise from my bed; a piece of cardboard I found when I was thirteen. It's not much, but it's certainly better than the old creaky floor. My glasses lie on the floor. I put them on. They're big and thick-rimmed, the definition of dorky.

I throw on a pair of dirty, faded jeans and a black hooded coat over a dull red T-shirt, all of which I bought with my own hard earned money. Then I use my fingers, since I have no comb or brush, to plow through the little tangles in my hair and pat it down. You heard right: down. No spikes. No Mohawk. No styling. Just simply down. It helps me hide… most of the time.

The stairs creak as I exit the attic. It's a good thing Jiemma sleeps like log. Minerva just doesn't care anymore, so she sleeps with ear plugs. The steps leading downstairs are a little better than the attic ones, but they still give the occasional groan. Once downstairs, I head to the kitchen.

I don't dare turn on the TV. Never have, never will. Jiemma will throw a fit if he finds out I even thought about touching the flat screen.

My breakfast consists of a piece of bread. Hard, stale, and somewhat moldy, it tastes foul. Nevertheless, I stuff it down my throat and rinse it out with tap water straight from the sink. I use no dishes; I'm not allowed to.

I pack my school bag full of books I got from the library, my necessary binders, notebooks and other stuff. Shoving five dollars – again, my own hard earned money – into my pocket, I exit the house.

It's only 4:25-ish, so it's still dark outside. I don't mind, though, because over all the years of having to do this, I've acquired pretty good night vision. The air is cool and fresh. It smells of peace, calm, and freedom. I love it. This is the only time when I'm not open to being hurt physically, verbally, or mentally.

I leisurely stroll around. Not many shops are open at this early hour. The few that are, are basically empty. Sometimes I go in one, just to look around, but today I decide not to. Today, I go to the park.

It's deserted when I get there. I like it that way. It's peaceful. It's quiet, providing a place for me to sleep. I sit down on a bench, flinging my bag down next to me. My eyelids already feel heavy with sleep. Soon, I'm out like a light.

I wake to the suns bright rays. Groggily, I check the time on a giant clock that's positioned in the park. It's 7:43. I have seventeen minutes to get to school. That's more than enough time.

When I get to the main building of Fairy Tail high, there's still ten minutes left before school starts. I enter the building, keeping my head low and sticking to the shadows. Avoid people, keep my head low, stick to the shadows, and don't make eye contact with anyone. That's how I survive. It keeps me hidden-

"Oh Natsu!"

-most of the time…

Just keep walking. Don't turn around. Ignore them and maybe they'll go away.

"Oi, bitch! I'm talkin' to you." A hand lands on my shoulder, roughly turning me to face my assailant. It's Laxus, leader of the Raijinshuu. His posse stands around me so I'm in the middle of them. I'm trapped. Shit.

Laxus smirks, making the lightning shaped scar across his right eye and down his cheek distort. He holds out a big hand, tough from football. "Give me your lunch money."

Only the first day and I'm already losing my lunch money. Perfect. I won't give in without a fight, though.

I shake my head no.

"Give it now, geek, and maybe we'll go easy on you," he sneers. That's when I notice the Raijinshuu are closer. I won't stand a chance in a fight.

Defeated, I dig into my pocket and pull out my five dollars. There's more of my hard earned money gone, stolen.

Laxus smirks again. The Raijinshuu back off a little.

I look down. I think it's over.

…

Apparently it's not.

One of Laxus' hands grabs my hair, yanking my head up to look at him in the eyes. He's a head taller than I am, though, so it really hurts.

"I was gonna be lenient since it's the first day of school, but since you defied me, I changed my mind. You can enjoy an empty stomach for lunch." He tugs my hair again, causing my head up at an angle it shouldn't be at. "But next time you talk back, the punishment will be much worse, Pinky."

I try to speak, but the abnormal angle makes only weird sounds come out.

"What was that," Laxus growls.

I look him in the eyes now, giving him as best a glare as I can muster.

"I-it's salmon, not p-pink," I spit. My saliva lands on his nose since he was a mere inch away from my face.

Laxus raises his hand in a fist ready to punch.

The bell rings, signaling the start of school. As they say, saved by the bell.

He pushes me against the lockers, using his muscular arm to hold me in place. "You'll regret doing that, punk," he snarls. Then he grabs me by the shirt and throws me to ground. I land hard. And on a spot on my back that's healing from Jiemma's latest whipping. It sends a white hot pain up back. I hold back a scream.

The bastard signals for his posse to do their thing before he heads to his class. Bixlow, a creepy guy with an unusually long tongue, pours the contents of my bag on the floor. Freed, a green haired guy shoves me in a locker. Evergreen, the female of the group, kicks my stuff everywhere. I see this through the gaps in the locker.

They leave, each banging a fist once on the locker I'm stuck in.

My onyx eyes gaze through the gaps, making sure no one is out there. When I see the coast is clear, I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. I open the locker and step out. My back is throbbing where I landed on the lash mark. I have double vision from banging my head against the locker when Freed shoved me in. My head aches, too.

I pick up my things. I might as well skip first period since I'm already late.

Getting to my locker is challenging. The double vision kept causing me to run into things. By the time I find my locker, the double vision is almost gone. I unload my things, keeping what I need for the rest of the day. It's better to have everything to avoid time in the hall when I'm an easy target.

I haven't even made it through first period yet and I've already been bullied.

Deciding to skip first period, I head to the roof. There, I read until the bell rings, signaling the end of first and a four minute transition to second. I pack up and exit the rooftop.

Let's see what the rest of the day holds in store for me.

How was it?

Jiemma was the guild master of Sabertooth, if anyone's wondering. And yes, Minerva is his actual daughter in the manga and anime.

There will be some songs later, that go along with Natsu's life and the pain, loneliness, and sacredness he feels. If anyone has suggestions, please feel free to PM or review.

'Til next time!

-AlphaDemon