Prologue

John and Marla Ransom were a rather interesting couple. Well, maybe interesting is a bit of an exaggeration but they were good people with their own story. They had been married for two years having celebrated their anniversary just five days ago and were still blissfully in love with each other.

John was a nice enough guy but he wasn’t too good at talking to people. He was extremely shy which is rather funny to see with a guy who is a little over six-and-a-half feet tall and all muscle blush and stammer when trying to talk to a store clerk. He had red hair that he had darkened with dye at his wife’s recommendation and some of the clearest blue eyes you’ve ever seen. No beard, but not for lack of trying; just for lack of ability.

Marla was so opposite to John that it was almost a jaw-dropping miracle that she married him. Marla had blonde hair that she streaked with a vivid and eye burning orange; the kind that makes you wish that it were illegal. She was also extremely short at a flat five-feet tall. As far as her personality? The most outgoing and loud person you would have ever met. Marla was never afraid to express her opinions for an entire room to hear. Thank pizza she never got into politics. She could have easily started WWIII with her opinions.

John and Marla had spent a good chunk of their two years of marriage trying to conceive a child without much success but, finally after a lot of patience Marla was able to get pregnant.

The whole pregnancy wasn’t all to interesting Marla let everyone in a three mile radius that “morning sickness sucks” and grumping about being unable to fit in her clothes anymore. John spent the pregnancy catering to Marla’s cravings and apologizing to everyone within a three mile radius.

Finally after the the nine months had passed John and Marla were able to meet their infant son.

Unfortunately their son was in an ‘unexpected’ condition when he was born. His legs were malformed and it was clear something else was wrong; they just weren’t sure what.

Despite the difficulties, despite the shock, despite the opinions of others Marla and John loved their son, who they named James, with all their hearts and showered him with love as he grew up. They had to make some adjustments to their home and their lives but to these two doting parents they didn’t care. They loved James for all he was.

It became apparent as James grew older that his ‘other’ issue was detrimental to his life in just the same way as his legs. He suffered from a severe form of muscular exhaustion that prevented him from using his hands for very long and restricted the amount of strength he could put into his hands.

Because of his difficulties James had to be homeschooled and didn’t often interact with kids other than his cousins he spent most of his time in the house reading when his hands were too tired to play any more video games. He also worked on learning a few languages and fell in love with the strong respect of Japanese and the musical lilt of Italian.

Overall he made the best of his situation and tried to be cheerful and show his parents that bringing him into their lives was the best choice they ever made.

Sixteen years has passed since James was born and that is where this story begins.