My name is Leo. Before I turned ten, I had lived a thousand lifetimes of silence, wrapped in the grey fog of a city that refuses to sleep yet often forgets to care. I was a ghost in the machine of New York City, a small shadow moving beneath the steel ribs of the Brooklyn Bridge.
I have no memory of the storm that birthed me into this life. The story, told to me in hushed, raspy tones by the only father I ever knew, was that I was found floating in a plastic basin, bobbing like a discarded cork on the turbulent waters of the East River. I was two years old, mute with terror, and entirely alone.
