Scarred
They say that all life comes from the death of a star, that the elements keeping us alive are created in the fiery, Hell-like bursts that glide through the cosmos of space and time. Now, I'm not a religious or superstitious person, but I know these things don't happen on their own. I know, regardless of whether it's God or Buddha or whoever you might pray to, there's someone out there, keeping tabs on our existence: someone who rewards our goodness, and, all in good time, strikes down the bad. "Believe and repent, and you shall be saved," those faithful do-well-ers say. I believe. I repent. Yet there's still Hellfire waiting for me.
So says the teenage serial killer.
I'm not cruel or sadistic. I don't go out, choose people out of the crowd, and slaughter them for the fun of it. It's more of an extreme case of anger issues. My anger is like an everlasting fire-I try not to nurture it, I try to douse it, but sure as death and taxes, it won't ever go away, no matter how hard I try. So someone, a thug, normally, insults my honor, threatens me, hurts me in whatever way; that anger-fire grows into a consuming flame, burning and sizzling my conscience and common sense away, and well...I'm handy with a knife.
In technicality, we're all cut from the same slab of stone. We've got our ups and downs and in-betweens, and we can't damn help it if we let our guard down and sin a little. Yet, for most, they have Light in their souls to keep the Darkness at bay. That's why we find success.
If you see my vaguely disproportionate face right now, you see a girl who's 99.99% Dark. And as you might guess, ninety-nine, nearly one hundred baddies against one hundredth of a good guy, that tiny good guy doesn't stand much of a chance.
Still, I never meant for it to turn out this way.
The devil on my shoulder whispers constantly, in spite of my grief: He deserved it...he poked fun at your predicament, that's worth a knife to the gullet... And then the small angel, clinging to my other shoulder, whispers, or more like yells, shut your trap! I balance in the middle of these two entities, both pulling at me on an incessant rate. Unfortunately, the devil is stronger.
I mean, the boy I stabbed-I don't even know his name, just that he's my age and a CEO to some company-had more than his fair share of flaws; he was both a D and a D-bag, if you catch my drift. And yes, he did make fun of my dead family and evident poverty, acting like he had money shoved up his butt and waving the darn thing in my face. But he deserved maybe a broken jaw or collarbone, nothing fancy. He shouldn't have ended up in the hospital with a knife between his ribs and nearly in a coma. There's a whole outrage going on in the general area: who did it? Why? Is it that dude who broke out of prison?
Ahem, no. It's the pretty teenage girl who just moved to here in Japan from America a few days ago.
So where it begins is...well, actually, I'm not quite sure. It could be the events that happened last year, it could be my emergency secret transfer. It could be my involvement with Them, the gang that ruined my life, but I guess we shoould really start in the plane ride where it all happened.
First though, you should at least know who I am and why I'm so bloody, unusual, and bloody unusual. My name is Jade A. Fox. Before you ask what A stands for, I'm not exactly sure myself. I'm nearly sixteen years old, born and raised in Chicago with four sisters, older and younger, who, er, now they're dead. I didn't kill them, before you ask. I loved them and my parents more than anyone else. Which is, I suppose, why They killed them...
The first time I managed to kill someone, I was either nine or ten years old. The person was a creep, let me tell you that. Sneaking up behind me in an alleyway, sniffing my neck and telling me what a pretty little girl I was. I was so surprised, the knife flew out of my sleeve, into my hand, and in a split second the blade found its place in the man's throat. The police never figured out who I was, exactly. But They did.
They. The nameless, nation-wide gang that thrives in the big American cities: New York, Chicago, 'Sisco, even Miami. If They set their sights on you, there's no escaping. They'll commit every felony on the planet, getting away with it, until they get what they want. They wanted me as a hitman, a hired killer. I refused-I was only eleven, after all. But then when I was twelve, They killed my grandparents. Then my aunts, uncles, and cousins. Then my parents. My siblings. I was caught, no way out, but I still refused. Then They found me again, and...and...touched me. Hurt me. The memory is stuck in my brain; it is only one way I am scarred.
With my chestnut hair, pale skin, and skinny body, I'm just your regular old gal-that is, until I open my eyes. I have what doctors call heterochromia iridum-as in, one eye color is different from the other. My left eye is a bright green, the other an icy blue. I'd like to say it gives me "charisma" or "beauty", but really, it just makes me look like a freak. If that weren't enough, I have the scar...
That day, when They caught me, They slit a knife through my green eye, giving me a long diagonal stripe of ragged flesh that will never heal. I was temporarily blinded, but the vision came back, eventually. However, the mental rift will never heal.
Mentally, emotionally, physically, I have wounds that won't heal. This is who I am. I am scarred.