Single Scars Chapter 1: One in Six, a hey arnold fanfic

Single Scars

a Hey Arnold fanfic series by Pyrex Shards

beta-read by Lord Malachite and Jae B.

A/N: This could be considered like Single Stitches in a way. I only plan on updating this when I feel like it. This allows me to keep focused on Pink Ribbon and Bluebird without holding myself to yet another schedule. Pink Ribbon is still my top priority.

I am separating these stories from Single Stitches because Single Scars is going to be dark, and I am rating it M because of that. These stories will be interrelated in plot, but each story will not be presented in a linear fashion. They will jump around in time.

WARNING: This series of stories is not for the faint of heart. It can and will be considered disturbing. If the darker side of the human condition is not something you like to read about, please do not read this fanfic series.

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"One in Six"

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It was the eighth anniversary of Arnold's death. I sat in my high rise penthouse, drinking Patron Silver tequila. I could afford it so I indulged. Strewn out all around me on my living room floor were newspaper clippings, candid photographs from grade school that Arnold never knew I took, and yearbook pages with his face enclosed in hearts drawn with pink markers.

For that night, unlike the previous seven, I even had torn pages of my poetry books amongst the photographic litter around me. Those books didn't know what they had coming when I tore the pages out of them. I only tore out the deepest, most precious prose to my love. The ones that stood out, the ones that I can recite from memory to this day because they were imprinted on my heart long ago.

Outside of my apartment were the skyscrapers of Hillwood, and somewhere down there beneath the orange glow was his true resting place. Not his tomb, but block upon block of urban memorial to his life; the old neighborhood. It doesn't rain on the anniversary of Arnold's death. It never rains. So I could see it all in the patterns of the street lamps that dotted the crisscrossing streets. A little slice of the world that he fought so hard to maintain with his own blood. An iron red paint that stained the sidewalk that I saw in my nightmares.

In those nightmares I hovered over his body trying to put the blood back in with my hands while the paparazzi swarmed around taking pictures of the scene. But I was powerless. This world in which I was a powerful woman, but I was unable to will even a single drop of that precious crimson liquid into my love's body.

From where I sat on the light-blue carpet of my living room, I could see my company's headquarters, the biggest building in the entire Hillwood cityscape, Pataki Tower. It was an icon, a glass and steel symbol of my rise to power and wealth, and infamy.

They, those millions of souls out there, only knew about Helga Geraldine Pataki, CEO of Pataki Corporation, billionaire, destroyer of businesses, the queen of hostile takeovers, rumored alcoholic and nymphomaniac, mistress of married men. A playgirl with an expensive Aston Martin parked in the garage of a summer mansion.

They didn't know about the boxes of pictures and books in my closet, within the innermost sanctum of my penthouse. It was a hidden shrine cataloging the deeds of the man whom I fought against nine years ago in a court of law because my business needed space for a warehouse. They were photographic and literary manifestations of that stupid football head and his hold on me, even in death.

Covering my body as I sat cross-legged on the floor was the most expensive wedding dress money could buy. I smiled while at the bridal shop when the seamstress took the measurements because my thoughts were lost in a haze of imagining Arnold beside me in a tuxedo, holding my hand. The tabloids held full color pictures on the front pages the next day. "Helga getting married!?"

But the dress, snow white and form fitting, with all the standard trimming, what I felt Arnold would want to see in a bridal dress, was for another purpose. It was all part of my plan. In my lap I held a Colt Python Three-Fifty-Seven revolver, with six chambers, and a single bullet.

I thumbed the safety off and on, again and again, and repeated in my head, "My love spilled his blood for everyone, I will give him mine in return." How poetic, how very poetic. I loved saying it as I sat there, one hand on the gun, and the other clutching the old locket hanging around my neck.

I would separate my life from my body with a bullet, my body would collapse against the pictures and the poetry. For once everyone would know. Without Arnold my life was empty. I was walking dead for eight years. My soul died with Arnold, and I would join him in the ground, and everyone would know.

The tabloids would print the scene, a permanent record of a successful woman laying lifeless, crimson stained poetry matching the color of her lipstick, and her photographic shrine resting underneath her body, a spent bullet casing and a hole where her heart was, only making tangible what already existed behind the illusion. They would print "Billionaire seductress dead from suicide! Was in love with long-dead enemy!"

CNN and MSNBC would have a field day. Analysts would over-analyze and politicians would politicize. A movie would be made. Pataki Corporation would survive but would never be what it once was, but I didn't give two shits about that. An empire without an empress is but an empty shell.

Everyone would see the love I had for Arnold. It would all be very surreal. Arnold would live in the minds of millions for a brief moment in time, and I would be free.

I spun the chambers of the double-action revolver and clicked the safety off and on again. Concealed carry permits were never intended for this, I knew. A solo game of Russian roulette has but a few simple rules. One bullet, six chambers, you have to spin the chambers and hold the gun up to your head, then pull the trigger.

Russian roulette was the poetic way to do it. A dance with oblivion eternal, where death would decide the right time. I would give his messenger my heart first, modifying the game slightly. The men with the cameras and the women with the microphones would only see the picture I painted. They would see the end result of the play as I had written it. In reality I would pull the trigger six times in rapid succession so it would only look like a dance. I would laugh at death and piss him off, deny him the standard contract, that's how a Pataki does it.

I sat the gun down beside me, safety on, of course, then picked up my shot glass and the bottle of tequila. I poured myself one last shot, and drank it down fast. I picked up the gun again, spun the chamber, and thumbed the safety. I wondered, would I hear the gun go off as the bullet tore through my heart? Would I finally get a chance to see the hole that I knew was there before I collapsed?

Into the dark void of the outside world I looked, as I held the cold metal barrel up to my chest, over my heart, careful to keep from scratching my old locket that I gently clutched aside with my other hand. I couldn't help but notice that my hands were still. From the alcohol, perhaps. I was ready. I would go through with it.

"My love spilled his blood for everyone, I will give him mine in return." I chanted, putting pressure on the trigger with my thumb.

"My love spilled his blood for everyone, I will give him mine in return."

"My love spilled his blood for everyone, I will give him mine in return." I could hear a click inside the gun as the hammer pulled back and the chambers rotated around.

"My love spilled his blood for everyone, I will give him mine in return." One last breath as I closed my eyes. I willed my heart to still and wait patiently for its destruction. "Calm now little girl. It's almost over."

"My love spilled his blood for everyone, I will give him mine in return." My voice quieted to a whisper. One last time, "My love spilled his blood for everyone, I will give him mine in return..."

Click....

....Click

Six pulls of the trigger, and my heart was still beating, my skin unbroken, blood still coursing through my veins in rhythm. I could hear its life-sustaining rush in my ears, warm with tequila and estrogen. It was taunting me. I inhaled deeply. My own life, taunting me. Imagine that. I opened my eyes and lowered the gun to my lap, then looked up to see the bullet still resting on the coffee table, its brass casing gleaming in the subdued light.

Perhaps I didn't want to die... Did I?

...Or maybe Arnold didn't want my blood.