Anyone with a weak constitution should leave immediately.
This story is not a very happy one, nor is it a very trite one.
This story is only for the hard of heart, for those who are capable of bearing witness to crimes of sick perversion and walking away unscathed.
This story is not one to be taken lightly at all.
This story is one of pain, of suffering, of betrayal, of me.
My name is KX and I'm 17 years old.
This is my story...
Where to begin?
My childhood was simple enough. I had a sister, a cat, and two parents. I had friends, though they weren't what one might call "normal." Then again, neither was I.
My sister Tori was kind of my role model. She talked tough and always backed it up. She had every possible piercing and knew everything there was to know about life and then some. I didn't like her pot-head friends, but what we did was fun. We had contests: Who could sustain the most salted ice burns, who could drink the most of their own blood, who could stand the most hot wax... We had fun. She ran away a lot, mainly from my dad, so I appreciated the time I had with her. The only thing I didn't like was how destructive she was, especially to herself. I never saw the point in her drugs, sex, and alcohol, but I never confronted her about it.
It's not like I've never had a drink. I was always in the living room with my mom drinking Smirnoffs as a kid. It wasn't my favorite thing to do, but Mom was cool when Dad wasn't around. She loved being a mom, something I'll never understand. What's even more surprising is that when Tori started bringing home dates, they were allowed to have sex in her room. At least it was under her own roof, she said.
Of course, that was only when my dad wasn't home. Around him, Mom usually stayed in the background, or else she was the strictest parent in the world. I never asked why; I just went with it, like everything else. My dad was a drinker and a smoker. My memories of him always have straight-shot Bacardi in one hand and a menthol Marlboro in the other. He worked at a steel plant and collected metal out of people's dumpsters on his way home every day to take to the scrap yard. That's where we got our bikes: other people's dumpsters.
Looking back on it now, I guess I never really knew what we had. I was grateful for everything, of course, since we were never well-off, but I didn't know life could've been worse. I knew it wasn't normal for us to sleep in the living room during the summer, which we did for lack of an A/C. Our rooms were too hot for us; it would've been child neglect. But I always thought I'd have them there.
Even now, family isn't the most important thing to me. It never has been; I've never understood why it's such a big deal to stay together. I can see that being important if you fall in love, but you don't have to stay with your family; you just have this connection with them that makes it okay to be apart. I do, anyway.
Now that they're gone, it's true that I miss them, but their absence doesn't hurt as much as people say it does. The only thing that hurts is... it's all my fault...
I'll never forget the day they were taken. Ironically, it happened on my twelfth birthday. At the party.
My dad used the tax return money to do something nice for us. I overheard him saying he felt guilty because he could never give us anything, so he changed that by taking us ice-skating. I was enamored with winter, so it was a good way to celebrate. I was told to invite people from school. The problem was, I didn't talk to anyone, so I let Tori invite a bunch of her friends.
So we all went skating. I got the hang of it pretty quickly. I was having the time of my life until Dan, one of Tori's friends, told me to follow him; my parents hid my birthday present in the back. He would know, he told me, because he saw them hide it during his shift yesterday.
I had a terrible feeling that something bad was going to happen, but I made the mistake of ignoring it. I neglected to realize, in my excitement, that something bad always followed that feeling.
The jinx wasn't broken. When we got to the employee lounge -- always empty during this, the busiest hour -- Dan locked us in and covered my mouth. Everything stopped -- my breath, my heart, my whole body -- and waited for the Unthinkable.
"This is cyanide," he told me, holding up a small bottle of blue liquid. "It's poison. If you scream, your whole family dies."
No, I didn't like them, but I had instincts to protect them, so I made myself stay quiet. It was the scariest thing that had ever happened to me and, all things considered, it still is. I didn't know what he was doing back then, I had no idea what hurt me so much... no idea what made me lose control...
The last thing I remember clearly is me on the floor, bleeding and crying, while he hit me to shut me up and continued tearing my body apart.
All of a sudden, I was standing over Dan, enraged, as he cowered in fear before me. Claws that couldn't have been mine reached out and tortured him to death, ripping apart all his pride would not let him live without, trying to drag it out as long as possible. Though I didn't know it then, I was making him pay the ultimate price for the scar he left on my young life. It's all I'll ever condone of that night.
I crashed through the wall, imposing my fury upon anything in sight... and unfortunately, the crowd was directly in my field of vision.
I tried as hard as I could to stop myself, but, only half-conscious, I had no control. I watched helplessly as I fought my way through the crowd, throwing ten people at a time out of my way. I saw them run in terror, watched them all die, as the rest of the world cried, "Monster!" The smart ones fled, the slow ones died... and on I went, paying my pandemonium no mind.
A monumentally stupid man in BDU pants drove the Zamboni to the edge of the rink and started shooting at me. I heard terrifying laughter echo through the building and died inside when I realized it was me.
Unable to do all but scream, I saw my claws reach for the man, moving straight through the barrage of bullets flying at me. I seemed to be made of mist until I reached him, when I became solid and grasped his frail human form. I was scaring myself so badly, I wanted to suffer my own wrath rather than be the one responsible.
The fool I now held in my demonic clutches kicked and punched just as hard as he could, but refused to scream. His fate may have desensitized me to some degree, as I watched him being torn limb from limb, as his eyeballs were dug straight out of the sockets and dropped to the ground with a bloodcurdling splat! but I was in no way prepared for my next act of maniacal tyranny.
Even as I screamed for an end to the madness, as I voiced my trauma at the sight of what he suffered for trying to stop me, my fear only showed itself in the form of a deafening roar that shook the entire building and made the lights come crashing down, killing throngs of innocent people and leaving other, less fortunate ones alive and electric.
All too soon, there they were: My parents. I lifted my dad off the ground easily and tore him to pieces, first the skin off his arms, then the shins off his legs, as he struggled wildly against me and bathed the ice below him in thick Teutonic blood. Each gush fell with a sickeningly satisfying splatter against the floor of the frozen torture chamber. I remember being more disgusted as I realized part of me was enjoying this...
I heard my mother scream his name and he managed to choke out, "Run away!" through the blood now pouring out of his mouth: I had cut his jugular vein just enough to make him bleed out slowly. He had to yell, "GO!" before she would listen, but it didn't matter: While I crushed his rock-hard bones easily in one hand, I reached for my mother with the other.
For the first time, I actually found the strength to take control of myself for my mother's sake. The moment the clawed hand went for her, something inside me snapped. It wasn't the monster; it was my normal human self. I was alive and willing to kill for her. I poured all my energy into stopping it, gave everything I had to containing the beast, to locking it away where it would never again see the light of day... but I was too late.
Yes, I'd managed to retract the monster and force it back to whatever den it crawled out of, but just before it went inside, it gave one last swipe of its claws.
Nearly dead from the effort needed to contain the thing, it was all I could do to find it in me to get off the ground. Without the strength to see my father so dismembered, I pushed past him and stumbled over to my mother.
This was the last thing I needed to see. There she was, fully alive and in shock, her unseeing eyes not even focused on the ceiling she was so fixated on, three long, bloody gashes across her throat.
"Oh, my God," I muttered, wishing I could return to this morning when I couldn't see in total darkness. "Mom, no..."
The adrenaline pumping through me must've given me the strength to carry my mom out the back when I heard sirens in the distance. Once again due to the monster, when I ran through the forest out back, I knew the exact location of every rock and root and river, so I didn't fall.
I kept going until I ran out of breath, then laid my mother down in a small clearing. I let my tears fall freely as I touched her face and her hair so lovingly. I couldn't accept this... My mother was dying.
"Kim... your pain... is my pain," she rasped, lifting her hand to touch my face. "So don't... don't cry. Be the strong woman you are. And always remember... that I..."
Before she could finish her sentence, her hand went limp, her eyes closed, and she left. She was gone. She was never coming back.
"Mom, no," I begged, squeezing her hand, as if trying to hold her here. "Mom, just you can't leave us behind! We need you! Mom!"
When she didn't answer, I threw her hand back down, stood up, and turned away in one motion. I dried my tears, eyes closed tight against reality, and tugged my hair at the roots. I started panting again, this time out of panic rather than exhaustion, as if, by taking up enough oxygen for both of us, I could fool the world. If nobody knew I killed her, maybe she'd come back... I couldn't just let this... there was no way this was happening...
This is my fault, I told myself. This is what I get for harboring that parasite, letting it feed off my life force. I get what I deserve.
Slowly, trembling and crying, I turned back to her, knelt down, and grasped her hand again. Mom, come back, I prayed in vain, hugging her arm close to my chest. Mom, please...
When she stayed just as dead as she had been, I closed my eyes and bowed my head low, hiding behind my hair as I always did when I cried. I'd taught myself to be silent; I was too afraid of people learning my weaknesses.
I felt my breath stop as my heart broke. I couldn't speak. I couldn't think. I couldn't even move. I could barely recognize my sister's voice as she screamed in horror, "What the hell did you do?"
I looked up at Tori, never happier to see her. At least there was someone I hadn't killed! But I dared not approach her; I was much too dangerous. I could never make any kind of contact with anyone ever again. I never wanted to see a night like this again.
"Kim, come on, let's get outta here!" Tori hissed, gesturing emphatically 90 degrees west of the sirens. "We have to go!"
"No," I said quietly, still clutching Mom's hand. "No, I'm not leaving."
"Have you lost your mind?" Tori said incredulously. "I can't leave you out here alone with whatever -- did this..." Tori closed her eyes, massaged her temples, and glared authoritatively. "Dammit, Kim, I'm three years your senior, now get your ass in gear!"
"Tori, I can't go," I repeated, looking up at her seriously. "Please, just trust me on this! Have I ever lied to you?"
Tori was silent. Yes, we pulled vicious pranks. Yes, we beat each other up. Yes, we slammed each other's heads through the walls of the trailer. But one thing we never did was lie.
"You can't stay out here alone," she said finally, quietly. "I can't let you."
"Tori..." I sighed, looked at the ground, and glared back up at her. "Tori, you have to go, and you have to do it now. I can't explain, just go."
Tori was silent again, her eyes wide in silent horror as she finally understood.
"You didn't," she murmured, then screamed at me, "No! How could you do this to me? You don't even know how much I hate you right now! I swear to God, if it's the last fucking thing I do, I will KILL YOU!"
"Hey!" a man's voice shouted, and everyone in the audience gasped as the chapter drew to a close.
Ha! You weren't expecting that plot twist, were you? Well, tell me what you think. ja ne