PRELUDE
My brother is trying to get on the computer. He sits slumped over the chair in front of his wooden desk, a bottle of whiskey in one hand, the mouse in the other. I watch him from the couch as he tries to log on. Try after try, his attempts fail. I know. I did it. But I don't tell my brother this. I sit back, just staring as his eyes begin to narrow into slits with frustration. I love to see this happen. Unlike people, and by people, I mean humans, My brothers and my father are different from me. Their midnight-blue skin, beaks, wings, and clawed hands separate our species so obviously, that my brothers always find SOME reason to use them as an advantage against me.
"What the hell did you do?!" he roars, throwing the now-empty bottle of Jack Daniels at my head.
"Nothing! I swear!" I scream back, ducking the bottle as it smashes against the wall behind me.
"BULLSHIT! What the hell did you do?!"
I proceed to block the incoming swings as my half-drunken brother manages to get to his feet. No matter how hard I try, at least one of them hits its mark. When I go down, he starts to kick me. I don't care. I grit my teeth, shut my eyes, and remain on the ground, so used to these outbursts that they've become second nature. When he is finally through, I groan and sit up, coughing up blood and the remnants of a tooth. In the wall mirror, I can see my reflection. My face is bruised, I have a black eye, and there is a bleeding cut on my lip. Chuckling to myself the irony of the situation, I get up, shake it off, and walk down the unlit hallway towards my bedroom.
Welcome to my world.
Say 'Hi' to everybody in it.
CHAPTER 1 : A BRIEF HISTORY / Rude Awakening
My name is Daniel. I don't know my last name. For all it's worth, I don't think I ever had one. I never knew my father. For a while, my mother and I moved from city to city, state to state, until they disbanded the state of california after the great Quake of 2085. That quake is what changed my life. I was six years old at the time. Mom, naturally, decided to move on as quickly as possible, so she packed up all we owned, strapped me into the front seat of her old, beat-up 2001 Ford F150, and floored the gas.
Two weeks and two hotels later, we arrived in Texas.
I can't remember the first few months, but I do remember when she met Jon. Jon was a large, muscular creature, with deep midnight-blue skin, and equally dark black hair. He was a gargoyle, one of a newly discovered sub-species of human-like creatures, whose origins are now documented as coming from nature, as one of humankind's half-ancestors. The result was a human with taloned hands, taloned feet, large wings protruding from the back, and sometimes a beak not unlike a parrot's.
She met Jon at a bar. He had been drinking away his problems somewhere in downtown Houston, Texas, and she had the courage to offer him a ride home. Needless to say, SHE didn't return home that night. The very next day, we moved into Jon's house, a three-bedroom ranch-style house in the suburbs, with his three sons from a previous marriage.
My brothers are triplets. They look exactly the same, but I can tell them apart by how they act.
Shaun is the youngest by two hours, and he's the shy one. He'll do exactly as he's told, but he'll never be the one to make a first move. I always liked shaun the best. He was the only one who had the decency to be nice to me. He even got me into drinking and smoking, although he kind of felt guilty for that.
Jack is The second-youngest. He's the smartest of the group. He always knows what needs fixing if there's a problem, what one needs to do what task, and of course, Which strain of weed does what. I always held a kind of resentment against Jack. He would always help beat me, no matter what I'd supposedly done to deserve the beating. He also hit the hardest.
Spike was the leader of the group. a hardcore rocker in school, his hobbies consisted of drinking, smoking, fighting, and fucking.
This is the one I hate. I would love to slit his throat from ear to ear and watch the blood spray out. He starts swinging his fists at even the smallest thing, especially when drunk. Once, he even took a swing at his own Dad, which was the last swing he ever took at dad, since Dad sent him clear across the room with his reversal.
My dad, Jon, is never abusive towards me. Hell, he still believes that I've never been in a fight before. He has NO idea what I have to live through, day-by-day while he's off on his not-so-secret jobs as a hired killer. Yeah. Daddy's a hitman. He's been at the top of the FBI's most wanted list for the past ten years. I sometimes wonder if Mom ever knew.
Chapter 1 part 2 : A rude Awakening
I'm now fifteen years old. At the present moment, I'm in my bedroom using a towel to clean the blood off my face. Then, I'll have to go and sweep up the broken glass from the whiskey bottle, before going into Spike's room with a new bottle of whiskey from dad's bar. I use the towel to wipe the blood from my brown hair, before checking my face in the mirror to see if I'm still bleeding. Sometimes I'd wondered what would happen if I'd been larger, instead of a skinny, pale-skinned kid, when fighting my brothers.
I fling the towel against the door. It thuds and falls onto the floor, the red stain leaving a stripe on the wood of the door. Reaching under my bed, I pull out a shoebox that has been sealed shut with duct tape. Unwrapping the layers of tape, I open the box. I reach in, pluck two cigarettes, and a joint from the crushed cigarette pack inside, and slide the box back under the bed.
I'll be damned if I'll clean up Spike's mess this time.
I walk through the kitchen, and out the back door. We have a small backyard, consisting of only grass, and three chairs around a small round table in the grass. I take a seat in one of these chairs, and stick the joint between my lips. Checking to make sure none of my brothers is around to steal it, I reach into my sock and pull out a strike-anywhere match. I scratch the tip with my thumb, and it blazes to life, lighting my joint. Flicking the match, I take the biggest hit possible, knowing full well what to expect.
I tilt over my knees on the chair and cough, thick, hot smoke shooting back out through my mouth, setting my throat afire. This causes me to vomit, and so I do, and more smoke emerges. I settle myself, before taking a smaller hit, and holding it in for what seems to me like hours. When I finally exhale, I hear the clanging sound of our chain-link fence being closed. Startled, I put the joint out in my hand, and grip it firmly whithin a fist.
"It's all right, kid. I could smell it coming up the drive."
Dad's voice and words bring a sigh of relief for me. At the same time, I wonder if I'm getting punished. I turn my head to see him pull out the chair next to me, and sit down. "Spark it back up." he encourages me. "I need some of that, too." A Mixture of shock and awe crossed my face. I take out another match and relight the joint. After taking a long hit, I pass it to Jon and he does the same,
before handing the roach over to me.
"What're you doing up this late?" he asks.
"I woke up about an hour ago." I lied. "I was getting ready to go to school."
"Nice try, kid." Jon said, a tone of seriousness in his voice.
"But I've already been inside. There's a smashed Jack Daniels bottle behind the couch and blood on the floor."
I groaned, not from the pain but from resentment and anger. Spike must've ratted me out! He must've told Jon that I'D been the one who'd came at HIM with the bottle, that it was all my fault! My worries disappeared when dad placed his clawed hand on my shoulder.
"Don't worry, kid. Spike's not going anywhere until he sobers up. After that, He's not going anywhere, period."
Inside, I am cheering. On the outside, I'm laughing. I stick one of the two Newports between my lips and offer my dad the second one. He produces a lighter and lights them both, and we smoke and continue to talk over what had happened. When the smoke clears, we are laughing together, as I tell dad about how Spike takes after him in every way. I tell him how he has influenced Spike's every decision, from his ignorance towards his early-teens alcoholism to his habit of bringing home a different woman, often a hooker, every Saturday night. He merely laughs and shakes his head and flicks the cigarette butt into the next yard. "I know I taught Spike a lot of bad things." he admits. "But I'm sure he'll grow out of them, just as I did when I was his age."
He gives me a hard pat on the back. I smile, and shrug, and finish my own cigarette.
"When I was YOUR age, however..." he continues, "I spent a lot of time getting used to my brothers' fists."
I look at him with an expression of shock and surprise. "YOU?!" I exclaim. "The FBI's top most-wanted killer, was beaten by his brothers at the age of fifteen?" He chuckles, and nods. "Yeah..." he says. "It sucked, and was not something I'd recommend... for anybody. especially you." I take the final drag from my cigarette, and flick it across the yard. "How'd you guess?" I asked, turning to face him and stare into his eyes. "I didn't have to guess..." he admits. "I had cameras set up in the house. I've known about his habit of beating on weaker siblings for awhile."
"No shit?!" I exclaimed. "What are you gonna do about it?" Jon took a whole ten minutes to think before replying. "I'm going to send him to a boarding school." He said. "I know a good one that will definetly straighten him out. A few ass-kickings and he'll come back changed. I know I did."
A week later, Spike was dragged, kicking and screaming, by adult male gargoyles, on board a HOVRcraft(Helium-Operated-Vertical takeoff-Rotary vehicle) school transport, which would take him, along with a dozen other gargoyles deemed "too violent for society" and transport them to a place known as the Greater Earth School for Boys. To the kids who went there, it was known only as "The School." Any person, human or gargoyle, who went to that school relished the return home as one would a religious epiphany, as it was the beginning of a dramatic change in one's life.
When Spike got shipped off to boarding school, Jack assumed the position of "head brother" of the house. I disappointed him greatly, refusing to obey his rantings, and knocking him cold out when he chose to fight with me. Shaun, as a default, stuck with me, and we grew attached to one another during this period of time.
Two weeks after Spike was sent away, The triplets' birthday arrived.
Jack refused to spend it with the family. Instead, he chose to spend his eighteenth birthday getting drunk with the friends he and Spike had shared, which would later prove to be his biggest mistake up to date.
Shaun and I stayed at home with Dad, who actually baked a cake for the occasion. It made Shaun feel so much better to be the center of attention, that he commented on this birthday as being the best he'd ever had. After we ate the cake, the three of us went out and picked up an ounce of purple haze, Shaun's favorite weed strain, and rolled up a total of six blunts, of which we would smoke half before the night ended. When dad had finished rolling the last blunt, we sparked the first one, and went for a drive around the city in dad's brand-new year 2095 Model XV by Ford. The car ran on a HOVER fuel cell, the newest and greatest introduction in fueling cars since the first Gasoline-powered vehicle, over a century before. The HOVER cell could carry a car for a total of 500,000 miles per cell, which was the equivalent of close to a few hundred tanks of gas. The car itself was smooth and sleek, a flawless design involving complex aerodynamics studies, which after half a century of development, had concluded that the best car to build would be one which is streamlined, has sealed doors, a state-of-the-art air ventilation, filtration, and conditioning system, eliminates the need for power windows with voice commands, and above all, which drives itself, so that we could sit back and smoke for the duration of the drive.
Dad sets the car to autopilot and sets the course of transportation for a trip around the city's freeway, the 610-2 loop. The car beeps, and he reclines in the driver's seat, offering the blunt to me in the backseat. I take it, and puff slowly, enjoying the exquisite flavor of purple haze, and the buzz which immediately follows the exhalation. Taking my second hit, I lean up, and pass it to Shaun, who takes it and grabs my hand. "I'm sorry..." he says. "For all the times I helped them hit on you, and for all the times I may have made you feel like shit... No matter what I've done, I want you to know, you're still my brother."
I can't help the smile which crosses my face. I jerk his arm towards me, and pull him into a hug. We embrace for a couple of seconds,
and let go, as dad tries to pass me the blunt again.
When we get home, we are high as hell, laughing and tripping over each other, as we walk into the living room and fall onto the couch. "Happy birthday, my son." dad says to Shaun, wrapping a wing around him. "Thanks, dad." Shaun replies, reaching for another blunt from the pack. He sparks up our second blunt, and is about to hand it to dad, when the front door bursts open.
Jack stumbles in, sobbing wildly and bent over at the waist. Reluctantly, I get to my feet, and run over to him. I put an arm around him and lead him to the couch, where he sits in my spot next to dad. In the light, I can see the full damage. Jack's black wife beater is ripped to shreds, and he has several gashes in his chest and side. I can see that a piece of his beak has been chipped off, and that he has a very swollen black eye. Dad hands me the blunt, and runs to get the first aid kit. I stare in shock at my brother, and offer him the blunt. "Who the fuck did this to you?!" I question him. "And don't lie to me!" "It was the Death Squad!" he blurts out.
"The gang that Spike was rolling with. When I told them what happened, they smashed a whiskey bottle over my head, and stabbed me for not stopping dad!" I check the cuts on his sides and chest. They aren't too deep. Dad returns with the first aid kit, and I bandage Jack's cuts. I pass him the purple haze, and he take a HUGE hit, finishing off the blunt. Shaun takes Jack's bloody clothes, and throws them in the trashcan, fetching another wife-beater from his own collection. When Jack is bandaged up, we all recline on the sofa, and pass the third and final blunt of the night. I tell dad nothing about who had hurt Jack, and Jack doesn't mention it any more throughout the night.
The next morning, it's over with.
End of Chapter 1! I've got the entire story written, so adding chapters should be a breeze. Again, If you don't have a sens of humor, or don't like violence and/or drug usage, please feel free to hit the 'X' button in the upper-right corner of your screen.