“Seriously? You're a random?”

It's the question I get anytime I get to know someone. They always ask how I was modified, and then they ask if I'm seriously a random. It may sound weird, but just about everyone is genetically modified before they're born by their parents. IQ boost, stronger muscles, healthier skin, you name it, they got it. That's the slogan anyway, the geneticists make trillions modifying babies for families, and they'll do anything to meet the parent's demands.

Me on the other hand, I was born naturally; that is, without genetic modification. Hence me being called a random. No one knew how I might even remotely turn out so far that I know, and if I was genetically modified, I was never told anything about it. I'm also a bit of a paper geek, or that's what they'll call me. Most everything is digital nowadays, but I've always preferred the feel of a paper book.

I'm going to be honest, I don't know where I fit in if at all. I have no friends, I'm too different for that, and no one even wants to even look at me. It's like if they so much as acknowledge the fact I even exist unless they intend to bully me the world is going to immediately end. I've gotten used to it though. It actually comes pretty quick when that's the only way you've been treated since the age of ten. Sometimes I actually think little kids have something that people just lose as they grow up. But with all the dictionaries being revised almost weekly, a word to explain it may be here today and gone tomorrow just to come back the very next day with a completely different meaning than before.

I don't know why, but I've always felt drawn to disaster and chaos. There's something about watching people that I know either have or would have mocked and shunned me, panic for their lives and suffer while I sit at a safe distance. Am I a psychopath? I might be. I've never been diagnosed with anything. But I also don't have the means to go find out. Besides, even if I knew I was, there's no way I'd be able to get meds to treat it even if I had the money to. It's an unspoken portion of the American slogan: Land of the free, home of the brave, but ALWAYS exclude the randoms. What happened to the “unalienable rights endowed to us by our creator”? Oh right, I'm a random, I have minimal rights if I'm lucky.

My parents died in a car accident when I was three. And people will tell me “go get your mommy and daddy, Phoenix” knowing that full well. I've thought about running away. But where would I even run to? The orphanage is basically a maximum security prison, and it's not like things will be better if I do. It'll be the same old story I've been given for the past five years. It's not going to just change overnight. Nothing ever does, except for the dictionaries.

But that was just my life: being publicly shunned while I barely scraped along to keep myself remotely fed. I had learned early on to not trust anyone, because at the time, it could have easily been the factor that decides life or death. I never knew what fate had in store for me. But I was along for the ride whether I liked it or not.