The beauty of it violates you
Allen Liu was born in New Zealand to an unknown Maori man and a Chinese witch named Baozhai Liu. His birth was long, arduous, and debatably successful. He was sickly and missing many body parts, as Baozhai had been cursed by an offended witch to have a barren womb over twitter. Baozhai used her own magic to repel the curse, but it didn't go quite well.
Baozhai took Allen and moved to Germany in hopes of modern medicine doing what magic could not and saving Allen. It didn't work, and Allen passed away at the age of two.
Baozhai couldn't cope with the loss of her first and only child, and turned to dark magic and alchemy in an attempt to bring him back. She heard of a man creating a living creature out of dead body parts, and took her child's lifeless body to him, deep in the Bavarian woods.
There, he gave Baozhai a gun and informed her to collect body parts for her son, and he would keep the body fresh. Two weeks later, she returned with a pheasant, a stag, a wolf, and a rabbit. Together, they filled the holes of Allen's body with pieces, giving him the ears, spine, teeth, shoulder blades, and skull bone he lacked, and begun the ritual to return his soul.
The woodsman never told Baozhai that the ritual required equivalent exchange- a soul for a soul- but Baozhai already knew, and after learning how to conduct the ritual herself, slit the woodsman's throat and then successfully brought Allen back.
Of course, as everyone knows, nobody is the same after dying. No matter what Baozhai did, Allen could never speak an actual language, only broken gibberish, and Baozhai was too fucked up from the first two years of Allen's life to teach him much else, so she taught him to read, and that's where he learnt everything he knows.
When Allen was nine, Baozhai finally succumbed to the effects of the dark magic, and fell ill. Allen then had to take care of her, and resentment for her grew in his heart. He knew what she did when he was younger, and knew how taboo it was. Baozhai was constantly plagued by nightmares and hallucinations that had no cure.
Allen watched helplessly as his mother, his only human contact for his whole life, withered away. She'd scream for him to save her from the gruesome afterlife she knew was coming for her, but Allen couldn't do much but hold her hand and mumble gibberish in hopes of calming her down.
Before Baozhai passed on, she cursed Allen for not doing for her what she did for him. She told him that she'd haunt him forever, and he would see the things she saw.
Allen left the house in the woods and ran to the nearest town, unable to communicate with anyone. He hid in a library from the people who said they wanted to help- he never trusted that word ever again- and the old man who owned the library took pity on him, and set up a small cubby for Allen to live in. The old man showed Allen how to sort the books, and how to use sign language to communicate. He introduced Allen to shapeshifting, allowing the poor kid to go into public without his animal parts.
The old man took Allen on as a grandchild, and told everyone about the wonderful, genius kid he adopted. Allen finally felt truly loved, and nobody was surprised when the old man left Allen their beloved library in the will.
When the old man passed away, Allen happily took over the library and tended to it for years, until he received a package containing a letter and a DNA kit. His father had finally gotten wind about Baozhai's death, and wanted confirmation that this was his son. Allen, excited to have a parent in his life again, thoughtlessly took the DNA test and sent it back. He forgot it for a few years, until three large men in black suits showed up at his library and told him they wanted to help him find his father. The word triggered Allen's flight response, and he took off as fast as he could- but not before getting shot in the shoulder.
He flew as long as he could with a bulletwound, and wound up crashlanding on an island. He was given permission to stay until he could fly again.
