Pig of the Hill

Ben and Russel weren’t the only lonely children in Tokyo.

Krista was lonely. In the beginning, she was alone. Her parents moved to Japan before she was born. She had been an awkward child, if not a little weird. Still, Krista was friendly and cheerful. The little girl hoped for at least one friend at her new school. At first, that didn’t look like it was going to be possible. Krista didn’t know how to interact with people the “normal way.” Her parents pushed her to keep trying.

It would take one boy to try and reach out to her.

Robin had always been the weirdo. She and her brother didn’t have it so easy. Their mom died when they were young. Dad wasn’t exactly warm and friendly. Their stepmother… Well, the less said about her, the better. (That’s for now at least.) Because of this, Robin tried to cling to her brother. The twin wasn’t too happy about this. He tried to avoid his sister as much as he could. Robin didn’t take a hint. Maybe because her twin was all she had. Maybe it was because she was slowly breaking down.

That might not have changed—friends or not.

Matt kind of had the same problems. Only, he handled it better than Robin did. The boy just closed himself off. He didn’t know what else he could do. Matt was only a child. After the death of their mother, it fell to him to be the sane one of the family. His father stopped caring about them in a way. The children suspected that he had been pursuing another relationship while their mother was still alive. He didn’t even bother to hide it. There wasn’t much the twins could do anyway. They just had to be the perfect little angels and just obey. Robin didn’t want to do that. Secretly, Matt didn’t want that either. He just wanted to retreat into himself and be alone.

However, reality had other plans.

Finally, there’s Max. He was the loneliest of them all. Always on the outside. No one took notice of him. Not even his own family seemed to care about him. In the beginning, Max pretended that was okay. The boy was always by himself at school anyway. But deep down inside, he just wanted a friend. However, the other children sensed that something was off about Max. Their parents whispered that they should all stay away from him. But why? There was never a real answer that was given. The children just took it as fact and followed through with it. However, that was all about to change.

It would be him to pull everyone together with one spark.

Krista, Robin, Matt, and Max. Four little odd pieces in the machine. Max called them the “pigs of the hill”.

“Why do you call us that?” Robin asked when they were eight years old. Max just shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he said. It was never really questioned again until years later. For now, these four kids were alone and didn’t have a way to change that. Until Max started that fire in the kindergarten in the winter of 1992.

Slowly, the pieces came together from there.