Warchild

Eight-year-old Jos’s life on a merchant ship ends in a pirate attack that kills the adults and scatters the children. What follows is a brutal journey through captivity, abuse, and displacement as he is repeatedly taken in, used, and remade by people on different sides of an interstellar war.

As Jos moves between pirates, alien sympathizers, and military forces, he is trained for survival, spying, and violence while trying to understand where he belongs. The story follows his shifting loyalties and the emotional cost of being shaped by war, trauma, and competing claims of ownership and care.

The narrative is less about battles than about Jos’s interior life, relationships, and slow growth into himself. Across years of upheaval, he must decide what trust means, who deserves his loyalty, and whether healing is possible in a world organized by conflict and betrayal.