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His given name was Valeriu Marius Jaklovszky.

Unfortunately, people enjoyed shortening it to simply "Vale."

Or even more unfortunately, "Gargantua."

Unfortunately for them, at least.

He was born to two very loving, very traditional parents that came from a long line of independently-minded Romani peoples - and if you looked far, far back down the line, before the City was all there was, you'd find Gypsy blood at the source. His family was driven and ambitious - they'd worked their way up from the lowest dredges of society, up to middle-class in Middling, and their hope for the future was to make it to that elite society that they didn't have any chance of reaching within this lifetime, but maybe, maybe their grandchildren or great-grandchildren just might. This was the family that he was born into - a family with strict tradition, strong moral codes, a steel work ethic, and a will to succeed.

While he valued and embraced all that his family taught him, he was an volatile boy - not in the fact that he was constantly angry, or that he was prone to being pushed to the extremes on the emotional spectrum. No, he was volatile in that he reacted. A usually quiet boy, he preferred speaking with actions rather than words - and angry actions meant punches were thrown. He had infinite patience...yet a short temper. Normally he was in the middle of the spectrum; he didn't enjoy being angry, and he didn't give in to self-pity or depression. But people's words hit home harder than any personal thoughts could, and he'd lash out for just a little while.

Some people would call him sullen, he supposed. Recalcitrant. Reserved.

Overall, he preferred not to have anything to do with people whatsoever. They were loud, rude, immoral, disrespectful - and though he may not have been the epitome of genteelness, he at least attempted to be civil, unlike the participants of the rat race that was the city. He was only a kid though, a kid who didn't know how to play in their game with anything but his fists.

Sometimes he felt like an adult trapped in a kid's body while simultaneously being a kid trapped in an adult's world. He tried hard to be mature, to be responsible, to be everything his family needed - when he dropped out of elementary school he took up helping around the house, building things for his mother and father, things like chairs and beds and bowls. He couldn't stand school; he loved learning, but dealing with their catcalls and taunts and oppression pushed him too close to the edge too many times - and he often returned home the loser in a fist fight with the other child's parents hounding him down. The other kids would find any little reason to torment him - his height, far too high for a child his age, always too tall, he could reach the cookie jar when he was four; or his accent, ingrained after being taught to speak their family's language, Romanian, first, and then English after he'd entered kindergarten.

He would've gotten kicked out sooner or later, anyway.

But it was a hard responsibility for a ten-year-old to shoulder. To become the parent when his parents had up and vanished, leaving him and his young, too young sister to fend for themselves. An empty house with a struggling family. He didn't want to lose Sydni to foster care, didn't want to be separated from her and taken from his home, unable to even have the hope of finding his parents again. He took up work to cover their costs of living, illegal work wherever he could find it, making sure no one, no one realized his parents were gone. At night, when he wasn't tired enough to slip into a coma after a hard day's work, he'd search for any clues as to their whereabouts.

Strand by strand his thread of hope dwindled, until it led him to that boy, that boy and that shop.

Life didn't change much when he entered the Game; it just got harder.

Murphy's Law couldn't hold a candle to what ruled his fate.

__________________________________________________________


He figured he must be going crazy or stuck in the midst of a nightmare he couldn't wake up from.

He was dodging, dashing, scrambling through hordes of pale specters, surrounded on all sides by the wandering dead as he madly sprinted from the work site to his home. His heart beat loud and fast, and he wondered if it was the only one beating on this entire street. Faces passed by him as he ran; faces of all races and ages, from all times, their hollow eyes boring into his as he fought to avoid even looking at them. His lungs were straining for oxygen, and the cold air bit and clawed at his throat, even as he pushed himself forward faster. Nerves singing in fear, he narrowly missed running through one of the phantoms. Almost there, almost…

And then he passed the antique store, and time seemed to stand still. He thought he saw a flash of something in the window where various mirrors and trinkets were presented, but then the cold came. It raced up his legs, paralyzing him in that split second, and the world darkened and spun until he thought he must have blacked out while still conscious. Everywhere was black, and cold, and then it disappeared as quickly as it came, and he was sent crashing to the ground mid-step.

“Dammit,” he swore, pushing himself up, knees stinging and scraped and hands in no better shape. “V’hat v’as that?” He didn’t get much of a chance to contemplate the surreal moment, though, as a shock of pain lanced up his back, and he fell forward again with a half-scream that was cut off as his throat seized up. It felt as if someone had stabbed a hooked knife at the bottom of his spine and was slowly ripping it back out, and his feet scrabbled to push himself back up in the face of the attack. A similar pain exploded in his head, and he truly blacked out this time.

When he came to, it was raining again. Just a light drizzle that flicked against his skin, dampening his hair, but enough to wake him. He gingerly sat up, thoughts coming back to him in a rush as he practically twisted around to make sure no ghost had attacked him. But no, they were still shambling along, ignoring the living person in their midst as if he didn’t even exist. Tentatively, he got to his feet, taking one last look around, testing to see whether the pain would come again if he moved. When it didn’t, he took off again, slowing to a jog as he came upon the steps up to his house with a sigh of heartfelt relief. It didn’t look like anything had tried to get in, yet, and he took the steps two at a time, digging the keys out from his pants pocket and letting himself in hurriedly.

The house was quiet, and undisturbed, and he could hear the faint gibbering of the babysitter coming from the kitchen as he moved down the hall. She paced restlessly back and forth in front of the high chair where Sydni sat, whispering harshly into her cell phone and free arm hugging herself tightly.

“Ghosts, Jessica, oh god ghosts, they’re everywhere, everywhere,” she cried, covering her mouth as she nearly broke down, “One walked right through the living room, I thought I was going to die.” Her eyes widened as the girl on the other end of the line spoke, “Monsters? In the Corridors? Turned to statues?”

He frowned, stepping into the kitchen then, clothes uncomfortably soaked with sweat and still panting slightly for breath from his desperate run. He moved towards Sydni to reassure himself that she was alright, utterly glad she looked as unperturbed as ever about this. He didn’t think he could handle a crying baby right now (not that he ever could). “Monsters? V’hat kind of monsters…?” he trailed off at the way she was looking at him, frowning in puzzlement.

Shock. Fear. Horror.

And then she screamed, she screamed holy hell, she screamed so loud the neighbors two blocks away must have thought the ghosts had finally started attacking.

“Don’t kill me, don’t kill me!” she pleaded, even as she chucked the phone at him. He ducked, startled, and the phone shattered to pieces against the wall behind him. She grabbed a kitchen knife, circling around him to the exit, and he backed away from her as things turned serious.

“V’hat ee’s wrong v’ee’th you?” he barked, standing protectively in front of Sydni. She didn’t answer, though, uttering one last wail before dropping the knife and rushing out the front door, out of sight. He heard her screams, though, echoing down the street, of monsters and demons and creatures of evil.

“Crazy v’oman,” he muttered, shaken and frowning, striding over to the front door and quickly shutting and locking it. He turned back to Sydni, and thought he glimpsed something in the corner of his eye; a flash of black almost immediately to his left. He whirled to look, but nothing was there. Cautiously, he took a few steps down the hallway, ears straining to hear if there was anything lurking, hiding, in wait. His common sense told him a ghost wouldn’t be able to make sound (since when did his common sense consider ghosts to be a reality?), but the paranoia kicked in anyway at that flash of something. He listened, and listened hard, and his body twitched when the house creaked. There was an itching at the top of his head at every sound, and nervously he reached up to run a hand through his hair.

With a startled yell his hand jerked back as he felt something up there. Panicking, he clawed and smacked and tore to get it off his head, but stopped when it hurt. Shakily, he gently touched the thing that was on his head, feeling it, and finding a second thing beside it that twitched when he brushed against it, something furry and he felt that twitch...His eyes noticed the black thing again, and slowly he turned his head to look back.

A tail. A long, sleek, black tail hung behind him; dark and shiny, and if one looked closely it had the pattern of even darker rosettes covering it.

He swallowed, feeling like his heart might simply explode with how tense he was, how fast the blood thudded in his ears, how sickening realization seemed to spin the room around dizzyingly. Rushing to the bathroom, he almost skidded across the tile flooring to crash against the walls of the bath tub and nearly banging his knees, staring in horror at his reflection in the mirror.

Triangular, rounded black cat ears with the same spotted pattern twitched atop his head.

His eyes, once a honey color he proudly sported from his mother’s gene pool, turned a frightening, bright red color, pupil widened in shock but still in an elliptical, slitted shape.

His canine teeth, usually small and only slightly pointed, now sharp and long. He dimly wondered how he hadn’t cut his tongue on them.

He sucked in a strangled breath that was not quite a gasp.

“V’hat the hell…?”

He knew he shouldn’t have gone to work today.

____________________________________________

Nothing had been the same since then. He could hear, see, smell, sense things he hadn't dreamed of before. He could move so quietly that nothing could hear him coming. He could balance on the smallest of purchase, jump higher, and lift bigger things.

He wasn't human anymore. And he didn't know why.

He hadn't met many other people like himself.

So far, there was Ciro.
Honestly, he didn't know much about the man beyond that. The guy was all right, though. A respectable man. He could tell that Ciro had something to protect, and that in itself was admirable. If he had an uncle, he'd like to have one like Ciro. Or he'd like to grow up to be someone like Ciro.
Yeah, the guy was all right.

Then there was the Florist.
He didn't know what else to call her, but he was thankful that she told him what's been going on. She may have been stand-offish, but he thinks she's a good person. Who else would help a kid with cat ears and a creepy, dark, bad-touch god hanging off his shoulder?

Next up was, for lack of a better name, the Summoner.
He really ought to catch people's names more often. He didn't know what to make of the guy that called all the Godlings together, but he seems to be one of the leaders or referees of the Game.

In his group was a teenager named Jubs.
He may be short, but Vale can tell he packs a mean punch - or at least he hopes he does. Besides that, he doesn't know much about this feathered and furred Player of the Game.

There was also another kid in the group, called Koa.
Same thing with Koa, Vale doesn't know much about him yet - except he looks tough for a kid his age.

It's a journal, not a diary. And sometimes, everybody needs a place to put down their memories before they fade into oblivion. Sometimes, they're all that can keep a person sane, you know? You look back, you read, and you say, "Yeah...that was my life."
Sometimes, memories are all we have left to ourselves.
_________________________________________________

After the change, and before I even realized what I was, I encountered Ciro at my main workplace, the Site. Neither of us like sleep, I guess.

I just got a reality check. I found out the reasons for my appearance, and learned about the Game from a florist who was also a goddess. I've got to tread more carefully from now on. I get the feeling I've stepped into something that may be too big for me to handle.

Nice wake up call, there. An alarm clock would've worked just as nicely. Either way, I was ousted from sleep and herded to Seasons, the florist's shop, sans florist. Evidently there's something big going down, and we have to help free two kidnapped Players.

He's got a lot of jobs. In fact, if you're trying to find him, you're better off looking for him at his work places - home is only the place he sleeps and eats.
____________________________________________________________________

Early in the morning every day, I help out at the Bakery. I help make the bread and clean the place up, then I'm off once the sun starts rising.

Once in a while, when they get desperate, I'm willing to stick my neck out for the Press as a paper boy. I...do not like to ride bikes, though, so that doesn't happen too often.

Sometimes I work at the Butcher's, too, when I can't afford to actually buy meat. The guy's nice enough to give me the leftovers at the end of the day if I work hard.

My favorite place to work is at the Construction Site, though. On days when I'm called in to the newest area of construction, I'm there all day, from dawn to dusk. I love building: being up that high, working that hard, and the guys could care less what I looked like so long as I could carry the gravel bag up to the catwalk. I really want to grow up into the construction business when I'm older - as a working architect, designing and then building my own creations.