Ah, the long awaited Histories I've been promising for Separated and soon Purge as well once I introduce a couple characters I'm planning out. Hope y'all enjoy and I hope I can get the facts right. Its been so long since I've really thought about some of these characters' pasts that I'll probably confuse myself. Anyway, we're gonna start off with Alec so enjoy! And all these are are gonna be told in first person.
Alec- Bite to Break Skin; Senses Fail
'Bite to break skin, don't give the secret. My stoic face, beaten with passion. The phoenix will die inside the firestorm. I am the son, follow my footsteps.'
"Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as a fuel, as a reminder of your strength."- August Wilson
My world shifted and tilted in a haze as I stumbled beside my two eldest brothers on our way home from the bar downtown. It was my twenty-first birthday and Max and Patrick had dragged me out of the house as soon as mom and dad had retired to their bedrooms to go party. Joshua, being the saint he is, had opted to stay home and watch Rachael until we got back. It was slightly chilly but sticky out as winter and spring duked it out in the atmosphere but I didn't notice. I was too busy trying to keep up with my older and much more sober brothers as we staggered up our long driveway. Somehow, we had lost our car. Whether it had been stolen or not I wasn't coherent enough to notice or realize it.
"C'mon Alec!" Max laughed, blowing some of his freakishly dyed; formerly dark brown now orange; hair out of his face. "You ain't that drunk." I couldn't form a reply but I knew the bastard was lying. They had swapped the beer in a bottle with tequila and I had downed the whole thing in one go. Yes, I was that drunk. "Pat, help him would you?" he looked at my other older brother and grinned widely, his boozy breath slapping Patrick in the face making him flinch visibly.
"Yeah sure." he had only had a couple beers so he was fine. Max had had god only knows how many jello shots so he was pretty damn buzzed. Patrick slid his arm under mine, supporting me from one side so I didn't stagger as much. "If you throw up on me I'm going to kill you." he growled in my ear. I looked at him and grinned at him even though I knew the threat was real. The only person in my family that liked me was Joshua and that was only because he was too kind hearted to ignore me like my other siblings did. Mom was alright but it was obvious that dad hated my guts. He had made a point of letting me know that he hadn't wanted me to be born and that I was 'the accident child' when I was fifteen. Since then I waited for the day that 'Dr. Adalric' finally smoked himself to death on those cheap cigars he always had on him.
In the back of my drunk mind I could tell something was wrong as soon as we stepped onto the porch. The front door, massive french doors that were built for mansions like this, were slightly askew and I could hear a weird wheezing breathing from inside. When Max pushed open the door he froze, his arms trembling. "What the fuck happened here?" he ground out. Peering around him, my stomach heaved at the sight that met my eyes. My younger sister, Rachael was lying on the floor, a chunk of flesh and muscle torn out of her shoulder and a single hole through her skull. My mother was leaning over snarling, blood dripping from her hands and from her mouth. "Mom what-" Max gasped as Patrick let go of me and opened the other door so he could get in too. I could see dad standing in the background, not moving but with a gun in his hand. His expression was calm. Joshua was hiding behind him, his blue eyes glistening with tears.
Mom looked up at us, her eyes glowing a eerie pale red color, yellow rimming her irises. She staggered to her feet and limped forward, a hole in her leg seeping blood but she didn't appear to feel it. Suddenly she broke into a run with a howl. Max and Patrick dove to the side, their minds sober enough to realize the danger. Teeth met my shoulder and I screamed louder than I have in my entire life. Pain ripped through me like lightning as the monster that was my mother shook her head, tearing away a good amount of flesh. Hands grabbed her shoulders and yanked her back and I just saw Joshua's panicked expression through the haze of pain that was blurring my already skewed vision. The blurry forms of Max and Patrick were already next to dad but Joshua stayed by me. "Alec, Alec look at me man." he gasped, his voice thick. "Look at me don't fade. Stay up." he grabbed my arm as my knees buckled. The pain was too much. I couldn't even scream anymore but my mouth hung open in a silent wail.
I hit the ground with a thud, curling into a ball, shaking. I heard footsteps in the back of my mind, drawing closer. I heard a gunshot and a thud then Joshua yelping and a thud. "Dad no!" he screamed as something clicked. A sharp, piercing pain shot through my back and out my chest, blackness crashed down around me and silence enveloped me like a thick stifling blanket. When I blinked my eyes open, my mind was still blurred with pain but my vision was clear. A horrid reek sat in the air around me and I could hear the sound of buzzing flies all around me. The memories of what had happened came back in a rush and I sat up quickly, regretting it instantly. I let loose a scream of pain as my shoulder and chest burned with white fire. Looking down I saw a festering hole just to the right of my heart, placing my hand gingerly over it. My own father had shot me. Whether he had meant to kill me or not I don't know yet. Chances are he wanted me to suffer, after all, he did hate me. I glanced at my shoulder, looking away quickly when I saw nasty sticky puss and thin streams of blood trickling from the now cracked open scab.
Breathing through my mouth so I wouldn't take in any more of the rancid smell around me than I had to, I looked around. On either side of me were corpses. One belonging to my mother, her once beautiful face sunken and rotting, flies picking at the flesh along side maggots. My stomach heaved some at the rotting hole in her chest where a bullet had gone through. I looked at my sister's body, the wound in her shoulder had expanded down her chest with white maggots squirming in it. My gut heaved harder and I just had enough time to lean to the side before I threw up.
After dry heaving for what seemed like forever, I managed to scoot over to a chair and pull myself weakly to my feet. I limp-staggered my way over to a mirror, remembering the pale red glow and the yellow tint of my mother's eyes from... before. Staring intently at my own face, I was relieved to see that my eyes were still their normal gray-green. How long will it last though? The small thought shot through my mind like a bullet, there and gone again. Shaking my head to clear a sudden torrent of horrible scenarios, I staggered toward one of the bathrooms on the ground floor. Rifling through the cabinets, I found some disinfecting solutions and gauze along with medical tape. Slowly stripping out of my clothes, I turned on the shower and stepped in, hissing as the warm water beat on the wound on my shoulder. I slowly and gently cleaned it and the hole in my chest, allowing the water to beat on the entrance wound on my back, and stepped out.
Wrapping a towel around my waist, I sat on the toilet seat and applied hydrogen peroxide and the like to my wounds, covering them in a generous helping of gauze and tape. Dreading the long climb up to the third floor and my bedroom, I looked at a digital clock that rested on an ornate table in the hall. My heart almost stopped. It was March eighteenth. I had been out for three days since my birthday on the fifteenth. I suddenly remembered reading Julius Caesar in high school, the line 'beware the ides of March' flashing through my mind. "Coincidence, just a coincidence." I muttered quickly to myself as I started up the first flight of stairs. It wasn't as painful as I thought it would be though I was slightly winded by the time I reached the top, reminding myself that I was dehydrated and hungry as well as weakened from blood loss and infection in my wounds.
Carefully and slowly, I pulled on some boxers as well as a loose pair of dark blue jeans and a tee-shirt, grabbing my brown hoodie as well from my closet. It finally dawned on me that no one else was in the house aside from me. Well, no one living anyway. I wasn't sure what exactly had happened that night but I had to find out something before I figured out what I was going to do. Slipping into my father's study, I sat down in his chair behind his desk, looking at the papers there. I had a sneaking suspicion that he knew something about what was going on, especially if it had happened in our home. We were isolated from the main city, living in a huge estate off the beaten path. Dad always said he liked his privacy but I never believed that was the case. Neither did Joshua but he was never really verbal about his suspicions, being timid by nature and all.
The drawers were all locked and there was nothing useful on the papers there. I didn't know where he kept the key to the desk and didn't have the energy to go down the the garage and find a crowbar or something. The power appeared to still be on so I grabbed the remote and flicked on the tv that he had mounted on the wall off to the side of the desk. Flipping to the news channel, I felt my entire body go cold as I watched a news report on CNN. The reporter was standing in a tent where official looking people in cumbersome green suites pinned down struggling people on gurneys. IV's were hooked up to all of them but whatever was dripping from them didn't appear to be doing any good. Finally one of the men in green shot some weird fluid into one of the people and they jerked and lay still. The reporter jabbered on something about a virus called the Green Flu and how it was sweeping across the nation at an alarming rate. They said that CEDA advised that everyone stay off the streets, to barricade themselves in their homes and wait for further instructions and/or rescue. My mind translated the Green Flu into 'zombie apocalypse' and wait for further instructions into 'wait until you starve or are eaten.' There didn't seem to be a good way to get out of this. I was in no condition to travel into the city and look for help and I wasn't sure if this was like zombie apocalypses in movies where a bite or scratch transfers the virus. If so than I was fucked.
I stood up slowly then stiffened suddenly getting a rush of energy. My body ached and I felt feverish but I felt like I could run a mile and not be winded. I moved out of the room with a new confidence and into my room. I knew that there was enough food and medical supplies to last me about two weeks but I wasn't sure I wanted to stay in this house. True I had lived here most of my life but this is where I was told that I was the unwanted child, where my sister and mother died and where my father shot me and left me for dead. Too many bad memories, fresh bad memories that I wanted to leave behind quickly.
My body moved automatically as I trucked to my room and grabbed a bag, filling it with clothes. I walked across the hall to Max's room. He had a pistol and if he had left it I planned to claim it as my own. Of course, it wasn't there but neither were most of his clothes and the aluminum baseball bat he owned either. It was a similar story in Patrick's and Joshua's rooms. Missing clothes and possible weapons. Carefully, I moved down to the ground floor and into the kitchen, bagging canned foods and a can opener then going into the garage. The power tools were still there as well as an old ax. I picked that up, quickly realizing that my injured shoulder wasn't good to carry something that heavy. Nothing else in the garage looked useful and dad's car was missing in action. Of course.
I wasn't sure how far I could make it on my own in the condition I was in but I was determined to at least make it into the city. So I set out, hoping to find some CEDA people to tell me what the hell was going on. Slowly, ever slowly, I staggered to the city, barely reaching it by sundown. My entire body throbbed and my head felt like it was being squeezed by pliers by the time I came to the first house. My fever had risen, that much was obvious with the hot and cold flashes I was continually getting. I was forced to stop when I almost passed out as I passed a gas station. Limping inside, I found it abandoned, which was strange. In fact, the entire town seemed awful desolate for such a panic-causing disease to be going around. It was unnerving and quite honestly it freaked me out. Sliding to the ground heavily behind the checkout counter, I kept my ax close at hand even though I felt too weak to lift a feather now that I had found a place to rest.
My breath started coming in short gasps and a cold sweat broke out over my entire body. Looking at my hands, I saw that they were shaking and any movement made me dizzy. Leaning back against the wall, I tried to relax so I wouldn't go into shock along side my wounds. Slowly my eyes slipped closed and I drifted into a fever induced sleep. I blinked my eyes open to complete darkness and instantly knew I wasn't asleep. I could still smell the reek of rotting flesh but it was much stronger this time. Turning automatically, I let out a shriek at the long line of piled corpses that rested at my feet. Another shriek tore from me, making me freeze. It didn't sound like my own voice, more like an angry animal. A third one came from behind me and I turned just in time to be face to face with a doppelganger of myself with red glowing eyes, claws, and sharp fang-like teeth. The clone snarled and crouched, springing forward and knocking me onto the corpses behind me. It grinned sadistically down at me as it dug its claws into my ribs. My mind. My body. I heard the voice echo in my mind, a deep grating growl and nothing more. My hands. My legs. My movements. All mine. Kill kill, pounce tear shred. The voice chanted on and I laid there under my clone, mesmerized by the growling voice. Streams of blood, rivers lakes. Eat flesh. Eat. Slowly I closed my eyes and sighed as I sank into a warm liquid and into darkness.
I don't know exactly how long I remained submerged in that part of my mind, but it felt almost like I was watching a movie as my body moved on its own accord from then on. A red haze seemed to cover everything as I looked through the eyes of the stranger that now controlled me. I couldn't feel anything but somehow I knew in my subconscious when pain was present in my body, when something twisted wrong or pulled too far. When I was shot or stabbed. But none of it registered. All I saw through the red haze were movements. I heard now sounds, felt nothing. I was numb.
The monster I had become followed a group of four people for several days at one point after... I don't know exactly how long. It was a long time however. I couldn't hear anything but I could sense the intent from my back seat view of my own actions. One of the huge meaty monsters attacked them, forcing them apart. I could feel the excitement coursing through the body that wasn't mine anymore as they scattered and that escalated as one was blindsided and thrown down the hill they had just climbed. My prey... the monster growled, filled with sadistic glee. I felt something tug at my subconscious then and for the first time in god knows how long, I fought against it for control. I probably looked like I was having an epileptic attack to anyone passing by as I writhed on the ground, snarling and twitching. Finally, after what seemed like forever, I managed to get control back. I groped for any memories that would allow me to keep the control, to remind me who I was buy my mind was oddly blank. I couldn't remember anything. Letting out a dog-like whimper, I rolled into the crouch that felt so familiar even though I personally had never performed it. It was all the 'other' me. The beast that had taken me over.
Looking around, I looked for anything that would help the guy that had managed to stagger into a run down shack, and obvious limp to his stride. I caught sight of his pistol and crawled over to it, carefully picking it up and placing it in the pocket of my hoodie. Slinking toward the shack, I pushed the door open with a warning growl and sniffed the air automatically. I knew exactly where he was, huddled in a corner scared out of his mind. Slowly I crept into the center of the room and laid the pistol down, making my retreat carefully, making sure not to look at him. With a screech of sudden pain I leaped away, my legs protesting at the sudden movement. I didn't know how to use this new me, the me I had become's abilities. I didn't know my own limits yet. But something told me I would have to learn fast if I was going to survive this new world.
Not as long as I would like it but it works fine. I think the history chapters are ones I'll have to go back to later once Purge is finished and rewrite and tweak some. Oh well. Up next is Philo. Reviews lemme know how I can improve not only the story but my own writing skill so drop one by me eh?