Chiaroscuro

Vendetta's rage results in a fiend that destroys her empire, and ultimately her world. With nothing and nobody left, will she take solace in the one she despises and cares for most? Includes Vendetta's backstory.

Hi, everyone. Yet another attempt at a Making Fiends fiction...I hope Nick releases a second series. ^^ It's basically the same plot every episode, but you still can't help but love it, anyhow.

Chiaroscuro.

How I despise that idiotic word. 'Where darkness and light come together,' my foot. Bah! Such idiocy. Everyone knows that the two can not coexist. They do not like each other. They hate one another. They must, for however warm and beckoning the light seems to be, at the end of the day, when dusk overtakes the world into night, it is the darkness that takes over, which rules the night. Light may claim to be forever, but it always, ALWAYS, goes away. It's such a filthy hypocrite. It's darker then the actual dark, mainly because it needs a disguise, and merely hides in the shadows, until they invent a color darker then black. I know one exists somewhere. I have spent many years in my kitchen attempting to create that color.

But perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. The point is, light and dark try to conquer the other upon meeting. But I have learned that nobody wins, regardless of how hard they push. In the end, all you have is a distorted shade of gray, though Charlotte, the stupid eternal optimist, says that both light and dark aspects of the world accept anyone in without question, and that light never leaves, even during nightfall. She claims that the stars are light's way of dotting the sky to say 'I'm still here, I have not forsaken you.' Moron!

But I will agree with her on just one point; light claims to take in everyone, whereas I KNOW that the dark will eagerly take everyone and anyone inside its confines. Once you delve inside, and swallow past your ridiculous fears that the petty light has left you, you can far, so very far, so much farther then I ever could when I was in the so-called 'light.' Upon my willingness to steep and corrupt myself for as much and for as long as it would take, you can see everything in the darkness. The dark does not become blinding; it guides you to perform your tasks, no matter how vicious or how terrible they might be. The darkness comforts you when you do something so utterly catastrophically horrible, you are beginning to doubt yourself, and light trickles its way inside your head to confuse you with a hazy fog of gray.

My parents met in Belgium, before immigrating to the states. My father was an executive at a bank, and my mother, his doting housewife. As a child, I was never held, and attempts to garner my parents' attention by being good were lost. When I was bad, I got my bottom spanked, and my mother took the time to lock me in my bedroom or in the closet, before reminding me that I was a veritable 'accident' as it were. I never quite understood what that meant.

But children can always tell whether a comment is fruitfully kind, or malicious, and I knew it was the latter. Inside my room, in the attic, I felt so small.

So hideously, hideously small and alone. Children outside our house played and laughed about outdoors, but no one called to me while I watched them from my window, sometimes for hours if my mother got on her phone, and started prattling to old-time friends, and forgot about me. Sometimes, I saw a girl named Priscilla in the next door neighbor flounce about by her bedroom window, smiling smugly as she stroked one of her newfound gains she had received after screeching to her daddy about some sort of insecurity or petty need. He always obliged to make her shut up, and, truth be told, I might have paid any money to cease that spoiled brat's infernal wailing, myself.

Sometimes, it was a new dress. A bunny. A book. A new toy. She stuck her tongue out at me while I watched with wide eyes from my dusty window, stroking her new cat, or bunny, or hamster. A hamster! I remember glowering at her as she pranced about the window, determined to make me angry as she clutched that poor hamster in a vice like grip in her fat hand. I remember watching the hamster whimper and squeak in discomfort, looking ready to die of suffocation at any moment.

The anger grew to a boil after awhile. My father bought me a hamster for my birthday, but it was only to prove to his co-workers that he was indeed a loving father. Stroking the little creature in my hands alone in my room, I named him Grudge, after having looked up the funny word in the dictionary:

A deep-seated feeling of resentment or rancor.

1. To be reluctant to give or admit:

2. To resent for having; begrudge

It was perfect. After all, 'vendetta' means 'blood feud.' It is a perfect match, in my opinion.

I fell upon some dark books in my bored scroungings in the attic. (Mother had locked me in as usual for having the television set too loud.) I greedily devoured them with interest, for I had long since grew sick of my picture books. They always were full of warm, happy endings, the fuzzies, and fairies who helped stupid princesses who apparently could not decide to do anything else in their pathetic lives other then get hitched. These dark books, which my mother had never opened...were new. Exotic. Interesting.

I found the journal of my great aunt Emma, who had, after years of experimenting, had created life. Life! And, as if that weren't enough, she had used...some rather dark means to ensure that these creatures could easily understand and follow her instructions, with established links to their Creator, their master.

Emma had employed these minions of her to help take over a small town in Switzerland, and, in a matter of days, after the entire police force had been soundly crushed, the city of Resurgam fell to its knees. I remember, as a child, reading with wide eyes in the dim lighting a sole candle could give me in my attic my aunt's accounts...

"And so, it has been soundly decided that irritatingly hopeless bumbler he is, Poe will be removed from my city's premises under pain of death from my soldiers. In other news, I have decided to enforce a series of new laws, enlisted as such here..."

Whatever she wanted, she received. Immediately. Without question. If she wanted a statue or throne for herself, the townspeople never hesitated. Anyone she wanted out would go away or be taken away.

And her 'minions,' as she called them...they had to please her, and love her. Such a concept was bizarre to me, but very intriguing. Who needed love from two stupid, miserable people when you could have thousands bow at your feet?

It was then, in the occasions that my mother and father went out to dinner or a movie and left me home alone, that I began to experiment, using the diagrams that my aunt had inscribed in her book. Whatever had happened to her in her last days, I did not know, as the last few pages of her book had been destroyed. Hmmm. Well, it HAD been an old book...

When I was four, I first created a babbling pile of flesh. I decided to make a few choice...improvements, doing my best to drive every single drop of my loneliness, anger, hatred, and spite into my creation. Later on, I monogrammed it to only think of Priscilla White, who, at that point in time, was yelling towards my window tauntingly as she rode her new bicycle about.

Priscilla was reported missing the very next day.

By the time my parents realized what was happening, it was too late. I had garnered an army of monsters, of freaks, of dark creatures. But while 'minions,' had a nice ring to it, I decided to capture another name, not from my aunt's book:

Fiends.

They were ready, and at my command. I set them loose on the tourist attraction of Clamberg, laughing as giant cats chased after terrified, yipping dogs, and how clawed beasts charged after the screaming girls at my school who had never invited me to play dolls with them, roaring.

Dark shadows twisted everywhere, and it was beautiful. Heh. Heh. Heh. I had mutated Grudge into an absolute giant, and he stood beside me while I stood on the corner of a building, and laughed at the beauty of it all.

The postman who had never left any letters for me was having his truck eaten by two enormous, squid like fiends, and the polka bands that had irritated me so often were being dragged towards a sharklike abomiantion, who was growling abhorrently whilst devouring their instruments with razor sharp teeth.

The ice cream man that had never stopped for the ugly, plain girl who wore her hair in braids every day was screeching as a fiend scooped him into a traffic zone cone, much like his namesake dessert before making to eat him.

And...for my parents...?

Clamberg had fallen into a nightmarish darkness, one that suited me just fine. Annoying shops my parents had never allowed me into-like the toy store, were boarded up. Fiends stalked the streets, and glared at you from every corner of darkness and filth. I watched it all while I helped myself to a delicious plate of clams and ice cream at a fancy restaurant I had seen my parents eat at quite often.

Ah, but I am getting off-subject again. I wanted my stupid parents to feel as remotely small as they'd made me feel, alone in the dark and dusty attic room. Huh. A bit ironic I now LIKE the dark and the damp, huh...?

Anyways, to be frank, I shrunk them. Funny just how humble and quiet people can be when they're finally shrunk to about how they've made you feel for years...about two inches tall. They live in a small cage that used to be my hamster's. But I am not overly cruel. I have not killed them, and I have left them some home comforts. I even leave them a daily bit of food, which consists of a crouton each day.

Years went by. I ruled this town with an iron fist. My teacher, Mr. Milk, was too terrified to even look at me. I had the entire town at my beck and call, and fiends to ensure that my rule was absolute, and comfortable. It was immensely enjoyable...in some regards.

I was never completely satisfied, and I was never quite sure why. I had all the things I could have wanted: grape punch, beef jerky, clams, fiends terrifying my fellow students...

But while this was satisfying, something was out of place. Uncomfortable. Missing. When I felt this hollow emptiness pang, I would usually bring on a psychotic rampage to keep the people down on a low profile. While this amused and distracted me, I still felt something vaguely twitching at the corners of my consciousness.

What was I missing? What was it? I didn't even believe that it was something specific, like a dress or a shoe. It was...

What was it? Was it possible to miss something you never had?

Then, SHE came along. I mean you. You smile at me brightly, and I have to resist the urge to groan or vomit or worst, smile. This idiot blue-girl from Vermont came to town, and ruined everything.

Well...perhaps that isn't fair. I am fair; I acknowledge what has destroyed my world.

Anyways, Charlotte was the most annoying, irritating, exasperating source of cheer that I have ever encountered. So stupid. So terribly interfering. So rotten. So...ruining. Of everything. It really spoils the effect of things when you've destroyed an entire town, and you have an asinine little twit skipping about, singing while fiends are nipping at her ankles.

She never, ever left me any peace. I may have tolerated her infernal presence had she ever left me alone. But every second of my life, Charlotte was there. I could know no sanity, no cheer for myself. I became sickened with hatred, and I began to dream of the girl's death at night. It was my newfound obsession.

My life suddenly had one drive: Destroy Charlotte. Kill her. Incinerate her. Or, at the very least, make her miserable. Make her pay. She was an uncomfortable blemish on my lovely, dark world, and she would not go away. I had to make her go away. I had to watch her die.

But I failed, each and every time, to sour circumstances, people with no spines, the fact that so many of my fiends have been coddled by her incessant love, bad luck, and...something else, from me. Bitter as I was while I watched her, what made me the most angry was the fact that she lived in a world that I could not dominate, could never want, in fear of losing the one I already had.

My fingers twitched around her, and I thought it meant that I longed to strangle her. But, much to my hamster's dissatisfaction and jealously, it was the urge to touch her skin, and wonder if she felt any different from any other human being...if she was human at all.

Do not try to hug me, you little moron! I am not finished with my story...

But Charlotte was a dangerous creature I could not coexist with. There is no such thing as a chiaroscuro, remember? Not in my eyes, anyway. I decided to eliminate Charlotte. I could not have any beauty in my life. It contrasted. It mismatched. It was scary, filthy even, filthier then the life I had already been leading.

So for three days, and three nights-to keep that moronic blue girl out of my hair, I told her that I was going on a trip to Washington, so that she could fiddle about my house and my fiends or attempt to do something asinine, such as throw me a surprise party. I allowed what ever foolish shenanigans she was about to embark on for my own sake, and worked feverishly for those precious three days of privacy in that abandoned house's basement on a new Fiend, one that would destroy Charlotte, once and for all. One that could not be defeated, nor coerced. It was during that time that I poured every single drop of what is me inside of that fiend, instead of mere tokens of hatred. I hoped that by doing so, it would have more power in its tasks.

It was when the fiend was born that I realized what plague I had released upon the world. And just what it was going to cost me, in the end.

The fiend was a shapeless, formless shadow. I can't describe the monstrosity of what was in my own dark heart to any mortal; seeing as your ears would most likely rot.

It was in agonizing pain and rage, and would not listen to my loud words and commands. Instead, it crashed away from my house to destroy.

Everything.

This was no rampage like I had ever planned; people were lying dead in the streets, screams choking off to eternal silence as I rounded up my fiends in an attempt to stop it. But one after one, no matter how many I frantically built, each one of my soldiers fell before the fiend that was the embodiment of my own self. It killed; it maimed, its very breath was the very source of another resonating death gong.

Clamberg was no longer just a broken city. It w...is a city, that simply does not exist.

At least...not any more.

My house. My fiends. My hamster. My parents. My classmates.

Gone.

Gone away.

In a sea of smoldering wreckage, I simply lay in a ball, and wept blindly; wept as I had not for years. I wailed, I screamed, I cried until my throat felt ready to tear-

I wanted to die.

Now I know what happened to my Great-Aunt. Every empire falls eventually, and every dictatorship is overturned.

Just hours ago, I was an overlord. Now, I was a filthy, orphan brat, screaming in a pile of filth and burning debris amidst a sea of death and decay. Just as I had always been, right from the very beginning.

Despair overlapped me, and pain took me right into its folds; overwhelming my entire frame.

But still, idiot you are, Charlotte came to find me, her face blackened with ash and numerous cuts, her hands swollen with burns. Her voice was not cheery or happy; as it was perpetually. In fact, she was screaming.

"VENDETTA! VENDETTA!"

I could hear Buttons 2, the fiend I had first crafted to kill her, making frantic snipping sounds from behind her, as she overturned a piece of rumble, letting it crumble to the ground.

"VENDETTA!"

I froze as I listened to the stupid little girl cry out my name, the one creature who my Overlord Fiend had not been able to kill. I raised my trembling, bleeding hands to my face.

Just as I had never been able to ki-

"VENDETTA!"

At last, Charlotte had spotted me, her anxious face turning into abrupt relief as she saw me feebly stirring in the muck. She raced towards me, her for once unruly hair streaming along behind her, while she clutched a stitch in her chest before scrambling over to me.

"VENDETTA!"

Will she ever cease to shout my name? I peer dazedly into her face, and am immediately overtaken by Charlotte's frantic tears.

"O-Oh! V-Vendett..."

She choked; and her voice cracked and broke. For the first time in my life, I am seeing Charlotte succumb to tears. I watch, stunned as Charlotte tugs me into a hug, still weeping incessantly.

"I...was so wo..."

Her voice breaks again. She pulls back from her fierce embrace to stare at me, eyes enormous.

"I thought that you had died," she said quietly, the tears streaming down her filthy face. "Everyone...Buttons...M-Mr. M-Milk...Ms...Ms. Minty...Marvin..."

She paused to bury her face in her hands, just as I was sitting up. She peered at me through her hands, face distraught.

"Let's go over to my place! It...hasn't been touched...and i-it's safe! I-"

SMACK!

I slapped Charlotte as hard as I could with a savage expression on my face, heart pounding as I bolt to my feet, knocking a stunned Charlotte down.

"YOU!" I scream, now losing whatever small token is left of my mind. "YOU...HAVE DESTROYED EVERYTHING!"

I tore at my hair, still screaming above the flickering and crackle of the searing flames around us.

"IT'S BECAUSE OF YOU EVERYTHING IS LOST! EVERYTHING IS BROKEN BECAUSE YOU TORE IT DOWN! YOU RUINED EVERYTHING! EVERYTHING WAS FINE BEFORE YOU CAME IN! I HATE YOU, HATE YOU SO MUCH! I WISH YOU WOULD GO AWAY! I WISH YOU WOULD JUST DIE!"

The tears didn't cease their flow down my face. I sobbed as Charlotte stared at me with wide eyes. I crumbled to my knees, still weeping as I violently socked the ground with my fist.

"You...j-just...die..."

I was crumbling. I felt Charlotte's hands at my shoulders, and viciously pushed her away; but, after a moment of hesitation, she did the same thing once again. This time, I didn't stop her, and I allowed her to guide my face into my shoulder as I sobbed, feeling what was left of my heart readily destroying itself in a savage suicide in order to save itself from more blistering pain.

Charlotte doesn't speak; she only holds me while I wish over and over and over again to die. I continue to cry, gripping at Charlotte like my lifeline for ten minutes or ten hours; I don't know which. It's only when a third set of arms enfolds around me and Charlotte that I pause in my wailing, recognizing the scent of new cars and cookies coming from Charlotte's grandmother.

For awhile, she holds the two of us amidst the fire and ruins while I wail, Charlotte cries silently from above me, and even Charlotte's grandmother shakes a bit while she stares at the remains of Clamberg. After a good while, she stands, with the two of us in her arms, and carries us both to her stupid blue car before she buckles us in the backseat.

I'm too broken to care that I'm being taken away by stupid Charlotte's stupid grandmother. What else is left to care about?

Evidently, a lot.

Charlotte's grandmother treats my injuries, and incessantly wipes away my tears with a handkerchief with kittens on it. Bleechh. Later on, the stupid woman gives me a large dinner that is not my usual roast chicken with clams...that is rather...interesting in taste...not to say that I like it, of course...then, a hot bath, demeaning though it is, and a stupid nightgown. At least it's green, though I spin it around so that I don't have to see the bunnies on it before tucking me in in the guest bedroom. I don't remember my parents doing this for me.

We move away from the wreckage of Clamberg, and, evidently, Charlotte's parents (still in space) have no problem with Charlotte's grandmother taking me in. Feh. Those two wouldn't mind if Charlotte brought a half starved, rabid wolverine in the house.

Time goes by, as it always does. We move to Lisle, a stupid, normal city, in a stupid, normal state. Feh. Though I still have the ability to make fiends to do my bidding, or barring that, my homework, I have opted away from that, too afraid to glimpse a repeat of the past.

Charlotte is still annoying as ever, but I tolerate her. On some occasions, I even allow the stupid blue girl to play cards or video games with me, or do my hair. Say that to anyone, and I swear I'll create a fiend, just for you. I know where you live.

I go to school. I even cry sometimes, as I haven't done for years. And, when worst comes to worst and the floodgates open, I allow Charlotte or her stupid grandmother to hold me. Occasionally, I hold back, just to hold onto something. I crave it now, and while I may not give...hugs, I will tolerate them, learn to accept them. I nervously like them, but only to a degree, and I can't tolerate it for very long. Living with someone so full of them as Charlotte can be an extreme chore sometimes, but Charlotte's grandmother often sends Charlotte to town for some errand to give me a moment's peace.

We live precariously in a shade of gray. Charlotte has been so used to people dropping in and out of her life, only to leave her behind, that she paints a picture of the world as she sees it; a pure, inexplicably warm, and good place, full of sweet, singing birds, cream puffs, and kittens.I pity her in that regard, just as she doubtlessly pities me for the amount of darkness I can see in the world.

I suppose we balance each other out. I am beginning to shift and change, just as she is. Charlotte is a little less annoying now, though an eternal optimist. The glass is still half empty for me, but perhaps that is...normal. Every 'normal' person varies a little.

The two of us have become gray, though never boring or humdrum. I refuse to believe that by a longshot. I still mourn my loss, but aspire to make something new arrive from the ashes of Clamberg.

I am not a king, or queen, of a dark empire. I am only named for a blood feud, and am only a person. Or half of one. I am still working on becoming whole. It takes time and practice, I am told.

Charlotte is half-baked, but perhaps she will become a person, too. For now, we're a senseless blob of gray, just another chiaroscuro.

Chiaroscuro.

How I hate that word...