"911, what is your emergency?"
"There are two bodies on the outskirts of town! I…I think one of them's pregnant…Oh, god…"
The words that began it all.
Emergency vehicles were sent to look at the two ravaged bodies, mutilated beyond any hope of recognition - no fingerprints, no faces, no eyes, no hair…the corpses were practically shredded.
With one exception: The bulge in the stomach of one of them - what appeared to be a baby bump, of a woman at least well into her third trimester - was completely untouched.
Why? No one would ever know.
The Caesarian Section was invented because Caesar had decreed that dead infants in utero had to be buried separately from their dead mothers. First responders to this scene had no idea what to expect, but the principle was the same; maybe the baby was unharmed? They cut open the stomach, and took out…
A living baby boy. Calm, its eyes closed, but it was alive. The child took a breath, opened its eyes, and then immediately started screaming, closing its eyes again right away. They had been open just long enough for the paramedic who had birthed him to see that even though he was a newborn, his eyes had already changed their color from blue - dark gray eyes, bright as steel gleaming in the sun.
He had only seen eyes like that in one other place: His brother, Mark Jameson. As soon as he saw the baby's eyes, he thought of his brother, and he called the baby Mark.
Of course, he couldn't keep it, so it was put up for adoption, but the name stuck - by then, the child was already used to it.
~X~
Mr. and Mrs. Marshgood were a happy family of two. They had money enough to live comfortably even in times of economic recession (though they technically weren't rich), they loved each other very much, they had no unhealthy habits, and they very, very much wanted to be parents. Unfortunately, they couldn't - conceiving a child was impossible for Mrs. Marshgood.
Then one day, they saw the story in the newspaper about the child born of the Jane Doe and John Doe. If any baby needed a loving, stable home, it was that boy, and immediately, they sought to adopt him. They had already been working on permission to adopt a child, so they were able to catch the baby before it slipped through the cracks of the system, bringing him home within two days of the news.
Their beloved cat, Rita - a very sweet, good-natured cat who was extremely tolerant of small children and babies - came running at the sound of the door, ready to greet her humans. When she saw what they carried, however, the hair on her back stood on end, and she gave a menacing hiss. Something about that bundle was wrong - she could sense it already.
Mr. and Mrs. Marshgood looked at each other, completely baffled. Since when did Rita hiss?
Still puzzled, Mrs. Marshgood crouched down, to try and show Rita that it was just a baby. Rita hissed again at the sight of him, her tail sticking straight up, her shoulders back as though to pounce. Something that looked like anger and alarm - and hatred - manifested in her.
Of course, Mr. and Mrs. Marshgood, though they loved their cat, didn't really understand cats especially, so they couldn't tell that what Rita was responding with was actually fear. Rita feared that baby - every instinct, every fiber of her body, told her that that baby was a direct threat to her life and well-being, and she was preparing to fight whatever beast she was being confronted with, adrenaline pumping through her system to facilitate the "fight" response of instinct.
But before she could do anything, Mrs. Marshgood lifted the baby back up to her height again, completely confused.
They had to keep the door to baby Mark's room closed so Rita wouldn't do anything, as she threatened to do. Rita would stand at the door for hours on end, hissing and scratching at the barrier, as though trying to dig through the wood and get to the baby.
If only she had. The world would have been a lot better off…
~X~
Mark never used "baby talk", immediately going from cries to full words. Some of his words didn't make sense, though - he would say things like "too light" when there was barely a night light on, "too much" when only a speck of milk or food fell on his tongue, "too loud" when there was music and one or more people speaking. In fact, the word "too" seemed to be his favorite word.
His motor skills developed apace; he never crawled, instead going immediately to walking - unsteadily at first, yes, but he quickly got the hang of it. Of course, he was kept in his room because of Rita, but his parents made sure his room had more than enough to keep his developing brain occupied.
At six months old, his long-term memory began to function. His parents were quite taken with how smart he was, and they wanted to encourage him as much as possible, so they decided to see if they could teach him to read. They could, as it turned out, and Mark learned fast, soon reading his storybooks on his own - just a little past his first birthday! Impossible, but he was as real as could be.
~X~
"Why does the cat hate me?" Mark asked his mother one day.
"I don't know, Markie," she sighed.
He tilted his head, as though thinking (it looked weird on someone his age), then asked, "What are cats? How do they think?"
The questions surprised his mother - they seemed very thoughtful for a pre-toddler.
"I want to know things about cats," Mark told his mother.
"Uh…"
"Do you know things about cats?"
No, she didn't, not really. "I'll…find out some things about cats for you, Markie," she told her strangely intelligent son.
She looked around and found a factual book about cats that was still for children; she didn't know if Mark would understand any of it, but his storybooks were no challenge to him, and she wanted to encourage him, so she got it for him.
As Mark learned facts from what he read, he discovered a strong thirst for knowledge. He begged his parents for more - first about cats, then just about everything. He demanded a dictionary, books with more words, more knowledge - he devoured facts like he wouldn't his own food.
A little while after his second birthday, Mark decided to use the things he had learned to try to befriend Rita. He crouched down, held out his hand, and approached her as slowly as he could, stopping every few inches.
Rita flattened her ears, and when he was two feet away, she gave a warning growl. Still, this was progress from how she usually acted around him, or so it seemed. His parents held their breaths as they watched him get closer…closer…
He was close enough for her to sniff his hand. Cats did that, sort of to check for a person's intentions. Her nostrils flared; he felt her wet pink nose against his finger-
And suddenly, with a snarl, Rita darted forward with her head like a snake and bit down on Mark's hand, hard.
Mark screamed - physical pain was new to him, and this was something else. He could sense every ruptured cell, every strand of torn flesh, every molecule that flowed out of the wound when he fought his way free.
Mark's parents descended upon Rita, trying to stop her, scolding her and doing everything they could to get her to stop. In a frenzy no one present could understand, Rita began clawing at Mark's parents in her desperate bid to reach him. Having smelled him, learning what he was through scent, she knew that this creature needed to be destroyed, and there was nothing that could stop her from trying. She worked her way through Mark's parents and leapt at him.
Mark watched her coming, and it was almost as though she was moving in slow motion as she leapt, extending her claws, aiming for his face. He knew that she would try to claw at his eyes - the universal weak spot for an animal - and before she could, he put his palms over his eyes, then curled into a ball to provide her with as little surface to ravage as possible.
And then she was on him, scratching, biting, snarling; he felt every individual rip in his flesh, knew exactly how many cells deep each cut or bite was. His senses, though he didn't know it then, were far higher than those of any living thing the world had ever seen. It was why he had cried when he'd first opened his eyes as a baby - because the light, the input of visual information, had been too much. He could taste things molecule by molecule, and taking whole bites of food presented an overwhelming amount of input from his taste buds. He could hear everything - everything - going on around him, though it would be a while until he learned to be able to process the auditory information with enough focus to hear and understand all the different sounds at the same time. Everything had a smell, and he could smell everything at once, discern each individual scent and understand it, though it didn't overwhelm him like the other senses did. And each scratch, each bite, from an attacking cat, every strand of fur that brushed his skin, he could feel all of it at once, down to a molecular precision.
And then Rita was pulled off of him. Still hissing, spitting, and struggling, she was locked in a cage.
Mark's parents debated what to do, and finally decided that Rita would have to be put down - their first priority was their son. They were sad, they didn't want to do it, but they did, got it over with.
At the little mock funeral his parents held for the cat, Mark felt a strange sense of pleasure. His parents had never seen him smile, and they were too distraught to see it then, but something about the death and sadness felt good to him.
~X~
Mark was five when his mother went to visit a friend and brought him along - she didn't really trust babysitters, and Mark was so quiet and calm; surely, there would be no harm.
A grand piano stood in the entryway. As Mark's mother greeted her friend, Mark approached it. He tilted his head, considering…This was a piano, yes? He reached out and depressed one of the white keys, producing a single note, one that was familiar to him.
"Oh, Mark, sweetie, don't touch that," his mother said quickly, hurrying over to him, but her friend stopped her, saying, "No, it's alright, we don't really use it anyway." Mark's mother gave her son a worried look, then went with her friend into another room. Soon, they were talking about things he neither knew nor cared about and laughing…Why did their laughter bother him? It made him unhappy…
He pressed down on another key. Another note, slightly different from the last. He pressed each of the keys in turn, including the black ones, one at a time, from left to right, memorizing their sound. He'd heard those sounds before, but in a different order.
He cursed his small size - he saw the bench on which the player of the instrument was clearly supposed to sit, even brass pedals near the floor that probably created different sounds if pressed with a foot, but he was too small to reach everything at once.
But that didn't matter. He wouldn't be able to go as fast as an adult, but he could press the notes in the right order. He thought for a moment, reflecting on the music his parents played to him at night. He chose a piece, then pressed the first note.
Yes, that was right. And the next was…
He pressed the next key. Yes! That was it!
He had to push relatively hard on the keys to get the sounds he wanted, and he had to virtually run back and forth along the piano's length at times to reach all the keys. The tempo was significantly cut, and sometimes he had to choose one key or the other if they were too far apart for him to reach both at the same time, but…it was the song. It was.
So this was how music was made. Other things made other sounds, he knew…
Mark was so immersed in what he was doing, he didn't even notice that the sounds of his mother and her friend talking had completely stopped, nor had he heard them slowly walk back to the entryway where he was, nor did he see or sense them staring at him, their eyes wide.
The piece ended; there were no more notes to play. As soon as he realized this, he registered the sounds of two women's breathing as they stood perfectly still not far away from him. He turned…and for the first observed time in his life, he smiled.
The looks on their faces were priceless. Shock, awe, confusion, disbelief…He could see, in their reaction, that he had done something they had thought impossible.
Really? It had been so easy, his physical setbacks notwithstanding…
But he liked that. He liked that he was more than they thought. He liked the idea that he was strange to them, that he had abilities he shouldn't. He remembered how fast his reflexes had been in the incident with Rita. Was this more of the same?
It was on that day, at that moment, that, just as Mark's mother realized her son would be a child prodigy, Mark first asked himself a question that others would ask of him many times in his life, and which he would relish one day answering:
What am I?
~X~
As Mark got older, he was better able to articulate his problems, so his parents soon figured out that his senses were too strong. They took him to a doctor, but he could only diagnose "hypersensitivity", if an absurdly extreme case of it, unlike anything he'd ever heard of. Mark heard him telling his mother this from two rooms over and smirked to himself. He was impossible.
What am I?
Shortly thereafter, his parents had him take an IQ test. The questions, the puzzles, were all so laughably easy, Mark swept through them with only the limits of physical speed as hinderances.
The psychologist who tested him was astounded. He made some calls, some officials met - what was to be done about this boy? The IQ scale didn't really go high enough to rank his intelligence.
Eventually, and with much pressure from Mrs. Marshgood, they settled on giving him an IQ of two hundred and fifty - impossibly high. Mrs. Marshgood immediately went to court and ordered restraining orders for psychologists, neurologists, sociologists - anyone who would try to turn her son into a scientific experiment. Just because he was born smart shouldn't mean he can't live his own life, she argued, and the judges she approached sympathized.
In return, however, many psychologists who had become invested in the whole deal told her that she would be stunting his growth, essentially torturing him, if she forced him to go through grade school - he was much too smart for classes. Mrs. Marshgood insisted that Mark at least earn his high school diploma, and she didn't want to put an eight-year-old boy in the twelfth grade - she knew of bullying full well, and Mark would be such an irresistible target for any negativity from teenagers. The argument went on until Mark forced himself into the matter and told his mother that he didn't care what people thought of him, or what they might do to him - he just wanted to learn things, and if twelfth grade was the place to do that, then that was where he wanted to be.
Mrs. Marshgood sighed, then conceded, and Mark was fast-tracked to twelfth grade at the start of the next school year. He knew the intelligence that had landed him there was impossible, something no one had been able to explain, and he liked that.
What am I?
~X~
First day of twelfth grade, and Mark was only eight. His parents were very worried, but he insisted that he would be okay. His backpack was almost bigger than he was, but he could sense its center of gravity and support it in the right enough way to carry.
Hallways were crowded; never before had Mark been presented with so much information all at once - voices, movement, smells…He closed his eyes for a minute, struggling to comprehend it all. He'd been trying to teach himself to focus his senses so that they didn't overwhelm him, but this was a lot, and intelligence aside, he was only eight.
He got control of his sense of smell first: Every individual person and thing has a scent, that he already knew, and after a minute, he could pick out each scent and identify them all, if vaguely (for instance, he smelled different people, but he couldn't attach any names or faces to them yet).
Second, sound. So many voices, so many noises - lockers slamming, books dropping, and talking, all the constant talking…Do these people have nothing better to do than stand around and talk about how glad they are to see each other again? Mark thought contemptuously, for that was the topic of conversation in numerous places. No wonder it takes them this long to get here - they don't even bother trying to take advantage of what schools provide! As he picked out and followed more and more conversations, he became increasingly disgusted.
At last, he opened his eyes. Aided by his now-controlled senses of sound and smell, he could better process the visual input from his surroundings. He watched the pattern of movement among the people, then began squeezing his way through. He was so small, few people even noticed him, though the ones who did seemed offended that he pushed past them in an attempt to get where he was going. Maybe you should be in class right now, he thought as he heard "Maybe you should watch where you're going, kid!" for the third time. The fourth time, he turned and said it.
"You're wasting your time talking about nothing of consequence, when you could be learning things," he said to the boy twice his height, three times his size, and not even a hundreth of his intelligence. "I am trying to get where I need to be; if you are in my way for no reason except to talk for the sake of talking, don't expect me to yield to you." And he walked on.
He didn't know he'd just insulted one of the worst bullies in the school. He didn't care. He knew he would have to confront that boy again; apparently, logic and reason were lost on him.
But he made it to his first class all the same…and found that, even in the twelfth grade, the first day of school involved doing nothing useful at all. He watched his fellow students, processing things…Society wasn't based on reason or facts, it seemed, and the more he watched, the more he began to pick out patterns of behavior - patterns he knew he would have to imitate one day, if he ever wanted to have friends.
But did he want to have friends? He was surrounded by lamebrains; why would he want to associate with any of them?
"Hey, kid!" a boy behind him called; a different boy from the one he had told off in the hallway, but clearly one of the same mindset.
Mark turned. "Yes?"
"What are you doing here?" the boy demanded. "You look like you're still in diapers!"
"That's enough, Tom," the teacher began to scold, but Mark wasn't at all offended.
"Perhaps the better question is, why did you take so many more years to reach this grade than I did?" he replied casually.
"What?" Complete and utter bafflement - not just on Tom, but also on the teacher. He smiled at both of them silently, wordlessly encouraging the teacher to continue what she had been doing, trivial though it was.
I might actually have fun here, he thought as she did so, something about her affect slightly different from before.
~X~
People tried to trip him up or shove him in the hallways, but he could sense their intentions as he had sensed Rita's and avoided them all with impunity. Names intended to be insulting shouted at him were utterly meaningless; if they couldn't at least accept that he was smarter than them, nothing any of them said was of consequence. Besides, their insults weren't even words. Then again, I suppose all words were made up by someone, he thought. They have no significance they aren't given. If these idiots think these names are significant to insult me, they are wrong, because I disagree.
To him, it was simple.
Nothing else happened that day, by some miracle. His extremely worried parents were waiting outside school when the final bell rang, but Mark assured them that all was well. He did tell them about the name-calling, actually asking what the words were supposed to mean in some cases. His parents were surprised by his indifference, and his reasoning seemed beyond them, almost. Apparently, words were taken for granted by most people. Just not him.
What am I?
In fact, Mark's parents were rather concerned by their son's indifference. It made him seem…cold, almost. Concerned for his mental health, they hired a psychiatrist - one who wouldn't try to treat Mark like a science project - who could help him relate to people better.
Mark explained his reasoning to his psychiatrist as best he could, but the man didn't really seem to understand.
"Doctor, here's what I don't understand," he said at last: "Do you want me to be hurt by these meaningless words?"
The doctor blinked. "Well, no, Mark," he replied; "it's just that it's…unusual for people to not feel offended when people try to offend them. You see, the words themselves are meaningless, it's true, but the intent behind them is unkind, and it's the intention that counts."
Mark blinked. "I think you just said something that made perfect sense to me," he commented. "No one has ever done that before."
The doctor chuckled in spite of himself. "You're very smart, Mark," he said, "and your outlook on the world is unusual besides. This makes it hard for you to relate to others, and that is what your parents - and I - are concerned about. In some cases, this sort of social isolation can lead to, or follow from…well, do you know what a psychopath is?"
"A psychopath: A person with the inability to feel empathy or, in many cases, any emotion at all," Mark recited.
The doctor nodded. "That's right," he said; "your parents are afraid of you being, or becoming, a psychopath."
Mark considered this for a minute. It seemed wrong, somehow, but then again…
"Doctor…am I a psychopath, do you think?" he asked.
"I don't think so," the doctor replied; "I think you're just having a hard time understanding people."
Mark nodded. "Yes," he said. "I want to understand…Why do people talk about things that don't matter?" he asked abruptly.
The doctor blinked. "Are you referring to 'small talk', as it's called?" he asked.
"Do you always answer a question with a question?" Mark asked.
The doctor chuckled. "Humor," he observed; "not the sort of thing a psychopath can use."
Mark smiled, somewhat relieved.
"Now, as for small talk - exchanges such as 'Hi, how are you?' 'I'm doing fine, how are you?' 'Fine, thanks.'…It's sort of a social ritual, if you will," he told Mark. "The words could not be more meaningless - in fact, you're supposed to say you're doing well regardless of how you are actually feeling - but it helps establish a connection between two people, and opens the way to a more meaningful conversation."
Mark considered this. It made sense, for the most part, but… "What sort of meaningful conversations are there to be had between two people who have nothing better to do but talk to each other?" he asked.
"Well, people want to know how each other's lives have been going," the doctor explained. "They tell each other stories about things they've seen or done that they think will amuse their companion, or that they feel they need to talk about before they can understand it…In any case, the point is to have fun, Mark."
"Fun," Mark repeated. He knew the word. "When one is enjoying whatever one is doing." He tilted his head. "Learning is fun for me," he told the doctor.
"Well, you're a very rare sort of person in that sense," the doctor told him, and Mark felt a flicker of annoyance - there were others, even if they were few? "Most people find learning to be a chore," the doctor went on; "you'll find most students feel this way."
"But why?" he asked. "Do they not want to know things?"
The doctor sighed. "Mark…learning comes naturally to you," he said; "for you, understanding information you are given is easy, effortless even. You're very gifted to be so smart, and I look forward to seeing what you accomplish in your adult years, truth be told. But what you have to understand is, what comes so easily to you is a struggle for most other people. To most people, understanding, say, social rituals comes as naturally as learning comes to you."
"Oh," Mark said, and he began to see. "And it's a struggle for me to understand social rituals and such, so I have to work at it. I understand now."
The doctor beamed. "Well, I think we've made a lot of progress today, Mark," he said, standing. "I'll see you again next week."
"It's time for me to go, then?" Mark asked.
"Yes," the doctor replied, not unkindly.
Mark stood and walked to the door…but before he crossed the threshold and reunited with his parents, he stopped and looked up at this man who had helped make so many confusing things easier to understand.
"Doctor…there's something I've been wondering for several years now," he told him.
"Yes?"
"What am I?"
The doctor blinked. "You are…a very intelligent and gifted young man," he replied.
Mark tilted his head. "That doesn't answer my question."
"Then I'm afraid I'm not sure what you're asking."
"Am I human?"
The doctor laughed, nervously, as he could see that Mark genuinely wasn't sure. "Of course you are, Mark," he said.
"Are you sure?" Mark asked, and he was expressing an emotion now, some level of distress.
"Quite sure," he reassured him, and he patted Mark on the back. "Now, run along."
Mark went home, thinking about everything. He seemed even more pensive than usual that night, and his parents tried to get him to talk about what had happened. He gave them a summary that was just detailed enough to satisfy them, but he couldn't stop thinking about the last thing.
"Am I human?"
"Of course you are, Mark."
But did he want to be? And if he wasn't, then what was he?
What am I?
~X~
It actually wasn't until two weeks had passed - and classes had truly begun - that Mark confronted the boy from before. The boy was standing very deliberately in Mark's path as he made his way through the hall, so Mark stopped instead of pushing past. It had to happen sooner or later, he thought resignedly.
"Get out of my way," he told the bulky teenager.
"Or what?" he sneered.
Mark blinked. "Or I'll make you," he replied, fully aware that this response was both standard and rude.
The hulking figure laughed, as though he thought Mark was joking. Mark remained emotionless for the time being.
When the laughter finished, the foe crossed his arms. "Listen, kid, you're not welcome here," he told Mark. "You don't belong here. Go back home to your mommy."
Mark registered that things around them had gotten very quiet and still, the students forming a virtual wall on all sides as they watched.
"Mommy?" Mark repeated, raising an eyebrow. "Is that really what you call your mother?"
There were some mutterings, which, if Mark interpreted them correctly, meant that he'd just made a greater offense than he had even meant to.
"You need to learn some manners," the kid snarled.
Mark tilted his head. "Am I supposed to be afraid of you?" he asked.
It was fascinating; he could see the muscles tense, the tremors, the blood rushing through vessels, as the boy got angry. "I didn't want to have to beat up a kid," he said in a low, dangerous voice, "but you've asked for it."
He lunged at Mark, and just like with Rita, Mark reacted as though his opponent was moving in slow motion, stepping out of his way easily. He dropped his backpack.
"If you want to fight, I suppose there's no other way to settle this," he said.
"Shut up!" the boy snapped, lunging for him again; again, Mark dodged easily.
"Make me," he taunted, fully aware that this was a challenge. "Make me shut up, if you can!"
The kid roared with fury, but Mark wasn't intimidated. He watched the muscles tense, the tendons stretch, the veins bulging with blood as the boy's instinctive "fight" response pumped adrenaline through his system. The fight response was an animal instinct, something human society frowned on, he knew that by now.
But compared to me, you are but a simple animal, he thought. Act like one, and this will be too easy.
He let the boy lunge around pointlessly for a while, barely getting his hair ruffled. At last, he sighed, and with another dodge, he leapt on his opponent's proffered back, and before the kid could respond, he quickly jabbed his thumbs in a quick pattern near the boy's spine.
The boy collapsed, his muscles immobile. Mark stood and looked down at him with contempt.
"You think age and size determines a person's worth," he sneered. "You couldn't be more wrong - you are nothing compared to me. Accept it!"
"You…little…!" the boy's muscle function was returning, but Mark wasn't scared.
Suddenly, the boy's arm reached out and grabbed Mark's ankle. He pulled, trying to bring Mark to the floor; Mark didn't resist, instead dropping gracefully to his knee, his balance unaltered for even a second. He smiled, then calmly reached over and pressed a spot on the boy's shoulder. The grip loosened as the hand went numb, and Mark took his foot back and stood again.
"Will you behave?" he asked the boy. "Or am I going to have to hurt you? I can, you know. It doesn't take brute force to cause pain."
"You bastard kid!" the boy shouted, his rage blinding him. "I'll kill you, I swear-"
"You're lucky I haven't killed you yet," Mark sneered. "And if this is how it's going to be…well…I'd hate to demean you by forcing you through agony by my hand, but you asked for it."
He reached forward, then plunged his thumb and first finger into the boy's jacket and flesh, pinching a certain spot as hard as he could.
The boy screamed. Mark laughed. "And I can do so much more," he said, enjoying this immensely.
And he could, and did. By some miracle (or whatever the opposite of a miracle is), no teachers in the building heard the cries. Mark hit one pressure point after another, forcing incomprehensible pain on the kid and loving it almost more than reading textbooks.
This is truly fun, he thought.
Eventually, the boy couldn't scream anymore, and he was reduced to lying on the floor, panting and helpless.
"Will you behave now?" Mark asked. "I won't hurt you again if you don't try to hurt me." He looked up, acknowledging his audience for the first time. "That goes for all of you," he said; "I would rather not fight you, but if you try to hurt me, I will hurt you. This is your only warning."
"Okay," the boy gasped. "Okay…just please…no more…"
Mark laughed, retrieving his backpack. "Reduced to screaming helplessly by someone less than half your age," he said. "You must feel ashamed." He turned around and looked at the boy again. "But there is no shame in this, I will tell you that right now. I could have killed you; regardless of how old I am, how tall I am, I am dangerous, if I want to be. Don't give me a reason to do this again." He looked around. "Any of you!"
Several people flinched, and Mark smiled. He turned to the side of the crowd that stood between him and his next class. "Now," he said, "get out of my way."
The people he addressed parted, silently, wordlessly…fearfully.
You're right to fear me, scum, Mark thought smugly.
"Hey!"
Mark turned around. The boy he had just tortured was trying to push himself up, but there was no more fight in him.
"Yes?" Mark asked, raising an eyebrow at the boy.
The kid shook his head. "What are you?" he asked.
Mark's smile faded, and he tilted his head. "You know, I've asked myself that question many times over the last few years," he replied; "I still haven't found an answer."
"You're a freak, that's what you are!" someone in the crowd shouted.
Mark turned, his eyes finding the one who had spoken without hesitation or difficulty. "Am I?" he asked.
The brave individual cowered, too intimidated to answer. Mark looked around at the others, and saw the answer on everyone's faces.
He smiled, truly happy for the first time in his life. "Thank you," he said. "I've been grappling with that question for years, and at last, I have an answer." He focused his smile on the daring soul. "I won't forget this," he told him gratefully.
And then he walked away, happier and more proud than he had ever been before in his life.
What am I?
I am a freak.
~X~
No one tried to go against Mark after that. No one tried to trip him, hurt him, knock him down; no one called him mean names or jeered at him for his age or size. When forced to collaborate with him for classes, they treated him like he was their age and size, and he, likewise, treated them as peers. Respect me, and I won't harm you, Mark thought, and they all received the message.
He cooperated with teachers, no matter how ignorant they were in comparison to him, because he recognized that they were authority figures he could not usurp with threats. Bending people to his will through kindness and politeness was as much of an art as instilling fear, and Mark was pleased to watch everyone around him end up doing his bidding, one way or the other. The students in the school feared him as a monster, and the teachers thought he was just the most brilliant, perfect angel - no one could have tried to report him, for Mark found that he was easily able to feign gentleness. But the truth was, he loved being feared.
As for the boy he had tortured, he feared Mark, truly feared him - he ran at the sight of him, or, if he couldn't, shook, and sweated, and tried not to look at him as though he might attack at any moment. Mark enjoyed the sight, and he never got tired of it. Something about being feared felt good, even better than being respected, as he was by his teachers.
Despite all that, the rest of the school year progressed uneventfully. Mark graduated with high honors and just about every award possible apart from extracurricular activities, which he had simply been too small to participate in for the most part, and the ones he wasn't too small for involved interaction with others, which both he and his fellow students were more than happy to go without.
For the next year, until he was ten, Mark worked to apply to virtually every college in existence, and fully intended to attend each and every one of them, all at the same time if he could. His parents were alarmed, but by now, they had a better idea of what their son was capable of - he had never been challenged by school, and if attending several colleges at once was what it took to give him a challenge, then they were behind it.
~X~
Mark was ten years old, and the next morning, he would be going to his first college. He was excited. So much more to learn, so much more to see! Every moment in time presents an infinite number of new facts, though most are useless, and he wanted to learn as much as he could. His brain was a still a dry sponge for information - he would go a long time before his hunger was sated.
Before he went to bed, his parents, their expressions grave, told him that they needed to talk to him. They sat him down in the living room, and then sat themselves.
"Mark…your father and I love you very, very much," his mother began.
Mark forced a smile, though in truth, he was disgusted. Love wasn't so different from pity, and if there was anyone in the world who didn't deserve pity, it was he. All the same, he responded as he knew he should.
"But…" His mother sighed.
"But what?" he asked. He had never seen her like this, and he became genuinely concerned - she seemed to be trying both to and to not tell him some very bad news.
"We aren't your biological parents," his father said, when it became apparent that his mother was beyond words.
Mark blinked. "I know," he said. "I know more than enough about genetics to know that I couldn't possibly be yours. It doesn't matter. You raised me, gave me the world - you are my true parents, and I am deeply grateful." And he was.
His parents seemed surprised, but they were used to surprises from their brilliant son, and recovered quickly.
"I admit I am curious, though," Mark went on; "why was I not raised by my biological parents?"
His mother took a deep breath. His father patted his mother on the back. And then, with some difficulty, they told him. About the corpses, Jane Doe and John Doe to this day, about how he had been the only thing untouched about the couple, birthed via a Caesarian section at the crime scene, dubbed 'Mark' by the one who brought him into the world…
Mark took this all in with passive curiosity, or so it seemed at the time. He didn't seem horrified, though he didn't quite seem indifferent, either. There was a light in his gray eyes that his parents couldn't read at first.
Then they were done. There was silence for a minute.
"So…I was born of death, then," Mark said in an odd tone of voice.
"Mark, sweetie, it's a miracle you weren't harmed," his mother said. "It's a miracle you survived!"
"I came from something no one else has ever come from…My parents are unknown and unknowable to this day, and always will be," he said. And then, to his parents' surprise and confusion, he smiled. "I knew I was different," he said. "I was even born different, then? That's nice. I like that."
"Mark…the circumstances of your birth were-"
"Horrible, yes, I understand that, but lamenting about it now would change nothing - it would not bring my parents back to life or help us find out who they were," Mark said, cutting his mother off. "It's healthier to focus on the positive aspect of this, and that is that I'm different even in the way I was born."
His parents both let out deep breaths. Mark wasn't traumatized, and he wasn't indifferent about it, either; he was just wise, far beyond his years, as he so often was.
Then Mark said, "I want to change my last name to 'Doe'."
His parents looked up at him in surprise, their eyes wide. "Why?" his mother asked.
He shrugged. "It's my name," he replied. "It describes where I come from, honors the dead who first brought me life. Besides, I don't like my current last name anyway - 'Mark Marshgood' never sounded eloquent."
"Mark, you're our son," his mother said, "and you will not change your last name, especially not to 'Doe'."
Mark blinked. His mother had never told him 'no' before - not because she was indulgent or trying to spoil him, but because he simply had never asked for anything she shouldn't have been happy to give him: knowledge, education, means of growing up…
"Mother, I have never asked for anything but knowledge and growth," he told her; "many times, you tried to buy me toys or games, give me a true gift that I would want only for myself, and you have always failed; now, I am asking something of you that I want only for myself. I am not selfish - this is the only thing I ask. Let me change my name."
"No," his mother said firmly.
Mark stood. "Then I will do it without your permission," he said; "to those who know who to call, there is no age too young to make a request to the court."
"We are your legal guardians, and we say no," his mother said sternly, standing as well.
Mark turned to his father, a more submissive sort of person. "Father?" he asked. "Will you please help me talk mother into this? It's the only thing I will ever ask of you."
But his father shook his head. "It's not healthy," he told his son; "you shouldn't name yourself based on how horrific your origins are - you shouldn't base who you are as a person on it! I'm sorry, Mark, I realize this is tough, especially since we've never had reason to say 'no' to you before, but in this, we wouldn't be doing our jobs as parents if we let you change your name."
Mark's eyes narrowed. "So be it, then," he said coldly, and he went to bed without another word.
~X~
Eight years passed, during which Mark's darkness grew as fast as his intellect - he experimented on people, secretly teaching himself how best to cause pain and fear, just subtle enough to not get caught. It was fun for him - not in a sick way, fun the way some people found video games fun, some people found sports fun. He was secure in the knowledge that he was a freak, but as time went on, he began to suspect he was something more than that.
His overpowered senses had always been a hindrance to his nutrition - he'd had to force food down bit by bit, unable to do anything else. Once he was on his own, however, he started working on ways to nourish himself intravenously, a trick he took a while to perfect. Still, once he had it, he never ate again, and when he drank, he would drink three drops, no more, of whatever beverage, mixed with a full glass of water - water was stimulating enough, virtually tasteless though it was.
Then, Mark was eighteen. He had been battling with his parents for the right to change his last name for the past eight years as well, and they had always won out over him. He was frustrated, and confused - they had always given him whatever he wanted, and he had never asked for anything they shouldn't have been happy to give him except this one thing; why couldn't they let him have this one thing for himself?
Then one day, he received a notice from the colleges he was attending; he needed to pay their bills. He called his mother, and she told him she and his father were withdrawing financial support. When he demanded to know why, she told him that he had plenty of degrees already and it was time for him to get a job and support himself.
This wasn't unreasonable, but time is precious, as Mark knew only too well. Each moment in time presents an infinite amount of new facts, and he wanted to learn as much as he could, as fast as he could. He wanted the power of knowledge.
Knowledge and a name that was rightfully his. All he wanted. And his parents refused to let him have either. Even his father, who was easier to reason with, refused to listen. His parents had gone from being assets to being hinderances.
He had long suspected his true nature - ever since that day in high school, when he had tortured a boy and terrorized all the students, though his teachers never suspected him of any sort of malice. He had had some experience with intimidation since, even grown physically, enough to use brute force against people, though he was unnaturally elegant about it. He loved their fear, he loved their pain…and he suspected that he would enjoy ending a life. Not content with crushing capillaries to make bruises, he wanted to spill blood, watch someone's life pour out of their body. He didn't really want it to be his parents - he was grateful to them for all they had done for him, after all - but he had tried asking nicely, done so for eight years, and they were only taking things from him now.
So, he went to his mother's house and found an enormous knife - the biggest and sharpest he could find - and hid it on his person. He waited until his father went out, then tricked his mother into her bedroom - which had only one door - and locked himself and her in.
"Mark?" she asked. "What are you doing?"
He allowed his mask of kindness and humanity to fall away, for the first time. It was liberating, to not have to smile at a living person, to regard them with contempt.
"You are trying to keep things from me that are rightfully mine," he told her. "Stop being a hinderance to me, and I won't harm you."
She blinked. "Mark…are you…?"
"Threatening you? I most certainly am," Mark hissed, and he took out the knife. Her eyes widened. "You've been so good to me all my life; the least I can do is offer you a chance to save your wretched self."
"Mark, this isn't like you!" his mother exclaimed.
He gave a cold, evil laugh, a laugh which would develop over the course of several years before becoming the sound that would haunt Teresa Lisbon's nightmares, but which was dark now all the same.
"You know nothing of me," he sneered. "You're so determined to see me as an angel, it wasn't hard to make you believe I was. But I'm not. I'm a demon." As he said the words, he fully realized their meaning. "I am a monster," he went on, the truth of the words giving him strength as he finally understood what he was. "I am a living nightmare. You allowed a beast to grow and flourish, the day you took me in. That's why Rita hated me so - she could sense about me what I myself had not yet begun to guess at." He smirked. "One day, the world will fear me," he declared; "for now, I'll settle for you."
His mother shook her head. "Mark…please stop this," she said. "You're not a monster - I raised you better than that, I know I did."
"Had you raised anyone else, you would have produced an exceptional human being, it's true," Mark agreed. "But I was born the way I am, as evil as I am intelligent. However, as I said, you have treated me well, or you did until now, and I am grateful; it would be highly dishonorable of me to not offer some mercy. Let me have my education and my name, and you may live."
"Mark, stop this," his mother said, stern now. She reached for the phone.
In a flash, Mark leapt forward and cut the power cord on the phone with his knife; it split easily under his strength.
He heard his mother gasp as he pulled the live wire out of the wall - he didn't want to start a fire, after all - and he chuckled, turning to her.
"You didn't know I could do that, did you?" he taunted. "You have no idea what I'm capable of - physically, mentally, or otherwise. I hid it all from you, so that you would continue to give me what I needed to grow and thrive. Now, you will not give it to me no matter how good I act, so I will pretend no longer." He raised his knife and pointed it at her. "This is your last chance," he said; "give me what's mine, or you will die."
"Mark, stop talking like this!" his mother cried. "This isn't you!"
"This is me!" he sneered, his contempt rising in the face of her disbelief - could anyone really be this stupid? His mother had been a lowlife all along! "This is who I really am! You're such a stupid, blind little worm; it was so easy to trick you." He tilted his head. "Do you refuse me what is rightfully mine?"
"Mark, you need to learn to support yourself," his mother told him; "you can go back to school once you have your own money. And no, you may not change your last name!"
"So be it," he hissed, and without another moment's hesitation, he leapt at her and buried the knife in her stomach, intentionally sliding the blade between organs.
She screamed…and oh, what a glorious sound! Sweeter than any music he had ever heard. He couldn't help but grin, grin as he never had - sincerely, with true happiness.
Looking at her, he could see each individual strand of muscle, each bone, each organ, underneath her skin - he knew the human body very well…and as he looked, he saw a pattern of cuts that would cause a great deal of pain but also a slow, agonizing death. He pushed her to the floor, holding her down with his own weight, and began cutting, hacking at her, drawing blood - so much blood - and screams and agony and terror - yes, terror! She was afraid now, deathly afraid, as well she should have been; and that made it all the more beautiful. Blood spattering everywhere, screams of terror and agony…oh, he could get used to this.
When he had made all the cuts he saw, he stopped for a minute. His mother was crying now, wailing, gasping…
"I won't defile you," he told her; "that much, at least, I will spare you." Though he was very aroused at this point…Huh. So he'd found his sexual trigger. Interesting. "I will tell you, however, what you'll be leaving behind." His lips curled into a sneer. "You are the first, but there will be many more," he told her. "Many will die under my hand, my blade, my body…One day, the world will learn to fear me. Husbands will come home dreading what they might find of their wives and children, that they'll find my work done on them. Women won't feel safe at home, would rather be on the streets than someplace they can be taken easily, isolated from others. My name will strike terror into the hearts of every sane being in the world…" He chuckled. "Not Mark Doe, that will be my alias, my cover, for my day-to-day life. The name the world shall fear, and the last words you will hear…" He'd been thinking about this for a while, actually. The color of death. A tribute to his origins, his birth. The perfect name:
"Red John."
He saw a flicker of understanding in her eyes before he raised the knife and plunged it through her throat, ending her.
He watched the life in her eyes wink out, extinguished by his blade, and it was beautiful. He pulled the knife out and ran his tongue along one side, licking the blood off. He could taste every cell, every molecule, and for a change, the taste didn't overwhelm him. Instead, he could sense the adrenaline, the cold sweat, the terror that had pumped through the sliced veins and arteries, mixed with the salty, metallic taste of lifeblood, of the very symbol of life itself, taken from a body, as he had taken her life; for him, it was more delicious than any dessert.
I was born to do this, he thought proudly.
He stood, knife in hand. There was just one more little obstacle.
He was careful not to leave a blood trail as he walked out into the entryway of the house to wait for his father. He didn't have to wait long.
"Hello!" his father called as he walked in.
"Hello, father," Mark said maliciously.
His father shut the door behind him, turned around…and dropped the bags he was holding.
"Mark…?"
Mark's lips curled into an evil smirk. He laughed, as he had only begun to do.
"Who…whose blood…?"
"Whose do you think?" Mark sneered. "Your wife went from being an asset of mine to a hindrance, so she had to go. I tried to give her a chance - she had been so good to me, after all - but she just wouldn't listen…" He trailed off in a mocking, singsong voice.
"Mark…I…I don't understand…" His father was clearly in shock.
Mark laughed again. He looked in his father's eyes, then wiped his tongue along the other side of the blade, licking off more blood. His father's eyes widened in horror.
"The person you allowed to grow and thrive by taking him in is a monster," Mark told him. "For what it's worth, I was born this way - as evil as I am intelligent, though I took measures to make sure you wouldn't see it. I told your wife this before she died, and I will tell you: She was the first of many. Someday, the world will learn to fear me." He tilted his head. "Are you afraid, father?" he taunted, putting sarcastic emphasis on the last word.
His father stood frozen.
Mark laughed again. "Your terror is beautiful," he told him; "more beautiful than any work of art. I was born to make people afraid, to hurt people and end their lives, and it's time for me to live up to that purpose. Thank you, for giving me everything I needed until I legally became an adult to grow and thrive." He laughed again.
He was met with silence.
Mark shrugged. "Your wife is upstairs," he told his father at last; "she's already dead, but maybe her soul is still there, waiting for you to bid her goodbye." He smirked. "Go!" he ordered his father, and the man flinched and, thus unfrozen, bolted up the stairs.
Mark cleaned the blade and handle of his knife so there would be no fingerprints or DNA. He quickly washed off, changed his clothes, took every precaution he'd already planned to make sure no one would know he was the killer. Oh, the police would ask, but they, like his parents, would see only what he wanted them to see.
He smiled as he heard the agonized cry of his adopted father as he saw his wife's mutilated body.
Sweet, sweet music, he thought.
~X~
When the police came at Mr. Marshgood's call, they found him hanging from the banister, a note in his pocket that simply read "I'm sorry". As he had told the people on the phone, his wife's body was in the bedroom, horribly mangled, though there were no signs of sexual trauma. The knife was found, a bit of blood still on it, and the only fingerprints were those of the adult Marshgoods.
Their son, their only heir, Mark, was devastated when he heard…but, he told investigators, he wasn't surprised. He had known this would happen, he said - he'd been struggling to change his name for the past eight years, and his mother was against it, while his father had been on his side and had only agreed with his mother because he always followed her lead. In private, though, the two had begun to fight, and more and more, especially as Mark wouldn't let the issue go himself. He blamed himself, he told the police; it was his fault they had come to this. He seemed genuinely sad and guilty, and his story wasn't particularly suspicious - no evidence went against it, at any rate. He even passed a polygraph test.
The case was determined to be a murder/suicide and closed. Shortly thereafter, Mark again applied for a name change, saying he wanted to leave the whole mess behind him. "My parents died because I wanted this name; the least you can do is let me have it now."
And so, Mark Doe became his legal name. He continued to attend colleges, now that he had the Marshgood funds all to himself, and earned degrees all over the world.
But he always came back to California every few months, and there, he began his true work: A collapsable knife that could disrupt molecular bonds cataclysmically enough to turn metal to dust, with a handle which would later hold a number of drugs he synthesized himself; a full-body suit that absorbed light and was more bulletproof than kevlar; a vehicle, light as a feather, stronger than steel, faster than the wind, which could run on entropy; and, every so often, prey. A woman, chosen at random, hunted, and killed, as only he could kill. The first time, he used an accomplice, giving him the name, a name he knew would be heard when the idiot was arrested. After that, he started leaving a signature - a smiley face drawn in blood, to express just how much he enjoyed what he did. He got stronger, better, smarter, started leaving the name behind himself.
He would be known to all, and he would be feared.
What am I?
I am a monster. I am a living nightmare.
I am Red John.