Disclaimer: I do not own the Darkest Powers (as much as I wish I did) and I can't take credit for the poem-at-the-beginning idea. I got it from Kayka-chan.

Sorry but I had to do it for this story! The poem was just so perfect.

Enjoy!

And now this change is going to hurt.

Watch as it destroys me.

I'm going to stay this way forever.

I never used to cry but I guess life's unfair.

She tried to get away. She knew it was a feeble attempt, considering how weak she was, but she couldn't give up. Not now.

He kicked her again, sending her sailing a couple feet away. She wished that she were stronger. If only she could just fight back… She reached for a nearby stick to try and hit him but her movements were so sluggish that he noticed before she could even grip it. He kicked her again.

"You little brat. How dare you retaliate! You will do as I say! You don't do anything without my permission!" he snarled. She was so frightened; she didn't know what to do. She'd known for a couple weeks now that he would be the cause of her death. She had been his prisoner for a while, him beating her, starving her. Not to mention the things he made her do that he said was a "blessing". No one would want to do those things with her. He was merely being merciful.

She snorted, thinking about it. It was one of those things that psychopaths tell their victims to make them screwed up in the head. She wasn't so easily manipulated. But, although she could shelter herself from the mental abuse, she still couldn't stop the physical.

He bent down and beat her across the face, blood splattering the rocks and foliage beneath her. She cried out in pain, whimpering. Her vision was starting to black out from her constant pummeling.

She screamed as loud as she could. Sure, it was midnight, but someone had to be out there… right? Hopefully, someone will hear and save me, she thought. He hadn't liked her scream, but it's not like she had anything to lose now.

"Shut up!" he growled, right before giving her another swift kick to the gut. He liked seeing the pain and fear in her eyes. It's what gave him his high. Seeing her crawling on the ground, practically groveling, pleading for her life. He smiled a sick smile. This was the kind of thing people like him lived for. And it made her sick.

She couldn't stand to see that smile. It sent shivers through her and would surely haunt her in the afterlife.

The afterlife.

This was it. There was no more for her. For whatever reason, this seemed to be her time. She definitely didn't like it, but she tried to accept it. It was much harder said than done, but it's not like she had much of a choice.

She tried to crawl away, in one last shot at freedom and life. Pathetic, she thought.

He gripped her hair, knotting his fingers into it and yanking her back, exposing her throat. She hadn't been really paying attention, but at some point between now and when he had shoved her into the forest, he had taken out sharp, hunting knife. More tears trickled down her face.

Life was unfair.

That was a lesson that everyone needed to learn. She had thought that she had all the time in the world, all that time to hang out with her friends, to go to school, to… live. But, here she was, one second away from her death.

With that second, she ran through things that she wished she could've done. She wished that she had hung out with her baby brother more. He had always wanted to be like her and hang out with the "big kids", but she had shunned him. She wished that she had spent more time with her friends on the weekends instead of blowing them off just to watch a stupid television show that didn't even matter. But most of all, she wished that she had told her mother that she loved her more, instead of the constant butting of heads that she induced. That's what she wanted right now. Her mom. She had always thought that it was corny in movies when someone would get scared and say that they wanted their mom, but now she knew that feeling.

She wanted the warm sense of security that you can only get from a mothers' arms. She wanted the smell that always clung to her mother's clothing to fill her nostrils. She wanted to hear the comforting words her mother would utter when something bad happened.

She wanted to see the look on her mother's face when she finally came home, after all this time of having been taken.

But that day would never come for her. Because life was unfair.

Good people get everything taken away from them in a second because it's convenient for the universe. Bad people get everything for nothing. And why? she thought. Because life is unfair.

She couldn't help the strangled sob that escaped her mouth as the knife came slashing down. She closed her eyes at the last minute, but she still felt the blade tearing through her esophagus, severing her two main arteries. She tried screaming, but she couldn't because of the cut cords. She could feel the blood pouring down her neck, pooling, in a way, at her collar bone. She was already so weak, and she became even weaker within milliseconds. Her vision started to go fuzzy around the edges, complete black outs in between. She was trying so hard, with every fiber of her being, to hold on, to make it… to survive.

Finally, she couldn't take it anymore. She was tired of the pain this world caused. She was being tossed aside like a piece of trash, like she wasn't even a human being anymore. She didn't want anything more to do with this level of existence. It was madness.

She fell to the ground, finally giving in. Finally giving up.

Finally letting the darkness consume her.

Would it kill you to comment? Oops. Bad choice of words.