Miles
"Harry this can't be right. There has to be some kind of mistake." The feminine voice sounded imploring as if was begging for whoever she was talking to to tell her something different.
"There's nothing wrong with the results. I checked them personally." Replied a male voice.
"This is a mistake, you can't do this, he's our son!" Begged the woman.
"Elizabeth! Miles is not our son!" The man yelled hoarsely. "We have a son, our real son. Think About Alex, please."
"Harry please," She whispered sadly. "There has to be another way." Tears started running down on her cheeks, forming thin shining rivulets.
The male wrapped his arms around her thin frame and embraced her. "I know this must be hard for you, but you have to understand, Miles is the son of a homicidal cannibal. And we have to get rid of him."
From the corner of the opened door, a small blue eye was watching and absorbing all the events as they played out before him, and behind the eye and cracked door stood the five years old Miguel. His mouth hung open slightly as he watched his foster parents argue about him. He had a little knowledge of what they were talking about, but he knew that whatever it was, it was bad.
"You're Right Harry. We need to get rid of him." The mother suddenly agreed in a cold tone.
His parents broke the hug and turned their gaze towards Miguel. Their faces were expressionless and blank as they slowly walked towards him. Knowing whatever was about to happen wasn't going to be good, Miguel's eyes widened and quickly tried to run back to his room, but he couldn't move a single muscle of his body. Panicked thoughts swirled within him as he watched his parents move towards him without showing any signs of emotions. Fear squeezed him until he felt sure that he was going to burst until-
Miguel's eyes popped open and he gasped as he forcefully woke himself from his nightmare. Fighting to sit up, Miguel dragged in steadying breaths until his heart rate slowed and his body no longer in desire to run. Once he felt under control, he got up and walked to his bathroom mirror. When he met with his reflection he found his face was as red as a tomato, and he was sweating profusely.
He had been having these dreams for multiple years in a row, but he never knew why. Sure the idea that his true parentage could be so dark was shocking at first, but it kept getting worse and worse. He was smart enough to know that his foster parents would never go that far yet still the nightmares instilled this choking, irrational fear in his mind that wouldn't leave him alone. There was something about those nightmares that he could never figure it out.
Miguel Miller was 17 ready to be 18 in a couple of months. Tall for his age the teen had striking blue eyes and raggedly cut blond hair. Despite how normal he appeared, Miguel would never have described his life as normal. Tortuous and grueling were more accurate descriptions. He had no friends and no social life. Add to that the eldest child of his foster family who seemed to think his sole mission in life was to make Miguel miserable and you end up with something pretty deplorable indeed.
Knowing that more sleep was impossible Miguel decided to cut his losses and get ready for school. His clothing consisted of his usual dusty blue hoodie and grey pants. He came down to the kitchen and found his parents sitting around the table.
"Morning." He called.
"Morning," Harry, his 'father' said dryly in response. As the chief of police, Harry had never been one for idle chit chat. His 'mother', Elizabeth, didn't say anything. It has been more a decade and neither of his adopted parents had ever revealed his past or that night to him. Maybe it would have been fine but Miguel found himself always plagued by the what-ifs
Miguel sighed and grabbed an apple before heading for the door. "I'm going to school." He called as he was about to leave.
"Okay." His father called without taking his eyes off his newspaper. His mother didn't even acknowledge the fact he had spoken, choosing instead to stare sightlessly into her coffee.
He sighed again before finally leaving and starting his solitary walk to school.
On the way, his eyes suddenly caught a specific car that was stopped in front of the red light. It was a white convertible car with two people sitting in it, a girl and a boy. He couldn't have cared less for the girl, his attention was fixed more on the dark haired boy that sat beside her. His name was Alex, but Miguel knew him as his 'brother'. Miguel felt his blood starting to boil as his hands clenched into fists and a strong feeling of rage rose in his gut. If he had but a single chance, he would have given this boy back all the years of torment and pain he had suffered. However, he knew that it would never happen.
The car's engine started, snapping Miguel back into reality and giving him the chance to calm down. Revenge was stupid, and wishing for it was a waste of time. Shaking his head from those crazy thoughts, He decided to forget all about it and continue his trip to the school.
During lunchtime, Miguel walked around the cafeteria with his hood up. Walking silently, he endeavored to find an empty table to sit at. Miguel never found any difficulties throughout his days in the classes. His classes went fine as always. He was a straight 'A' student with an IQ of 180, but sometimes logic and reason weren't the answer for everything.
Suddenly, without any warning, he tripped on something and quickly lost his balance. The next thing he knew, he had fallen face first on the floor. At first the air was filled with contemptuous mirth but it suddenly cleared and was replaced with silence. He didn't know why the tone died so suddenly until he started to get up. When he was finally on his feet, he looked up and his eyes widened in horror when he spotted the cause of the gasps. His food that had gone flying during his tumble, had splattered across a tall, imposing, dark haired boy that sent chills down his spine, his brother. He wanted to flee, but he couldn't. His body was in completely numb state and his heart started to pulse painfully in fear.
Alex angrily walked towards him, and when he reached him, he didn't think twice. He grabbed him by his hood and looked him straight in the eyes.
"You really have lots of nerve to pull a stunt like that." He said, a cruel malicious smile curling around his cold features.
Miguel fearfully stared into those angry almost soulless black eyes "I-I-I swear it-It was an acci.." He was quickly cut off with a fist delivered to his jaw.
"Come on Alex! Show him who's the boss!" Bobby, his friend, shouted.
"Yeah! Kick his ass!" Drake, his other friend, cheered as well.
"P-please don't do this." Miguel begged while his eyes teared up and bright red blood streamed from his busted lip.
Even if someone had cared enough about Miguel to do something, nobody in the cafeteria dared to interrupt.
"Shut up!" Alex shouted and delivered another punch to drive the point home. "I'm going to beat the living hell out of you, you piece of shit." With that he punched him in his face several times until he fell on the ground, but he wasn't done there yet. He started to kick him in the stomach, chest, and anywhere his foot could get to. The sound of bone cracking was heard along with the screams of agony and the pleads for mercy.
Miguel's pain was only ended when he at last fell unconscious. Alex finally stopped and left the boy in a pool of his own blood just barely clinging to the edges of life.
As a result of that incident Miguel spent the next weeks in the hospital recuperating from the beating. At last, the day of release finally came. He was in his room preparing himself to leave the hospital when he suddenly spotted two defibrillator paddles on a counter nearby. His heart started to beat faster as his desire of vengeance began to rise. He knew that he shouldn't do it, but his lust for revenge was stronger that the common sense he had so often relied on. He quickly grabbed them and shoved them in his bag.
The door suddenly opened as a nurse walked in. "Is everything Okay sir?" She wondered.
Miguel didn't think twice before answering, "Yeah, just preparing to leave." It was a lie, but a well delivered one.
The nurse nodded and left him alone.
The moment Miguel walked out of the hospital, he was greeted by first the jubilation that he was okay, quickly followed by stern admonishment for getting into fights with kids at school. Miguel didn't care about what lies Alex told them, he had work to do and no time to lose.
Miguel spotted Alex leaning back in his chair, dozing in the empty classroom. It was break time in any normal day in school, but today was not any normal day. Today was the day where Miguel was getting his hands on Alex at last. Quickly he plugged the defibrillator into the nearest electric source and raised the paddles up high above Alex's chest as they started to emit their telltale hums.
Briefly he questioned his decision, but quickly shoved the doubt away, Alex needed to pay. With a last thought, he slammed the paddles on Alex's chest, sending waves of electricity into his beating heart. Alex's eyes suddenly popped open as he fell on the ground and letting out a chain of screams. Miguel ignored his screams and kept shocking him, sending multiple jolts of electricity through his chest and into his body and nerve systems. When Miguel was finally done, he threw the paddles away and looked at his brother. Unsurprisingly, Alex didn't respond, his only movements being the quick shallow rise and fall of his chest. Sitting on the floor, Miguel tried to process the million thoughts that were running through his head.
He didn't regret it, not for a second. This is what joy feels like. He realized. I finally did it.
It didn't take long for students and teachers to rush into the classroom and survey the scene of the almost dead man and the maniac.
His foster parents got the news about the incident and were shocked the most. They never knew about Miguel getting constantly beat up by his own brother. The police were ready to take Miguel away, but Harry stopped them and talked them into sending him to a therapy due to his life difficulties. Miguel spent an entire month in the therapy and under drugs. During that period, Miguel was slowly regained his senses and began to recover, but not fully.
No one is able to remove all of the insanity in a human mind.
Miguel's new life was away worse that before. Everywhere he walked he could hear whispers and gossip from every student in the school. All of them seemed to revolve around him. They kept their distances from him and didn't dare to say a word directly to him. He could feel his mind filling up with regrets, but he didn't agree with it. So what if they kept talking about him and gave him weird looks. They were just words, actions speak louder.
It wasn't until several days before prom that his spell of isolation came to an abrupt and unexpected end when he was approached by Maria Green, one of popular girl in the school.
Miguel could feel that this was not right. Other than being Alex's boyfriend, she had no reason to risk being caught dead within twenty feet of him, and yet here she was.
"What do you want?" His tone was almost threatening as he tried to get rid of her.
"Take it easy tough guy." She chuckled playfully as she casually stood next to his locker. "I just wanted to ask you if you would like to go to the prom with me." There was a smirk playing across her lips that he didn't like the look of.
Miguel thought about it for a second. What is her agenda. Knowing that there was only one way to find out, he replied "Prom eh? Why not." His voice was carefully even.
"Great! I'll meet you there then." With that, she left.
The night of the prom had finally come as Miguel waited outside the school for Maria. It took her longer than he expected so it wasn't hard to realize that she wasn't going to show up. Naturally, after a half an hour or so of waiting, he gave up and decided to call it a night. He was walking towards his home when he was unexpectedly jumped on in the middle of the empty street. He suddenly felt something heavy hitting the back of his head, and fell on the ground unconscious.
Miguel woke up with a groan and blurry visions. He tried to move his hands to fix his eyes, but he found that he was incapable of doing so. He blinked a few times to gain his visions and looked around to see that he was in the middle of the forest. He felt something cold and heavy around his body limiting his movement. So when he looked down, he noticed that he was tied to a tree with metal chains.
He tried to struggle himself free, but the chain were too tight around his waist. He was trapped with no chance of an escape.
"Oh! Look who finally decided to wake up." He heard a very familiar and hatred voice.
He looked up and met face to face with the man who had made all this possible. "You!" He venomously hissed, adding enough force to the word to give it a life of its own.
Alex raised his hand in front of him and revealed a knife he was caring. A sadistic smile covered his face as he slowly walked towards him. "You really thought you would get away from what you have done to me, didn't you."
"Set me free and find out!" Miguel barked with a grin.
Alex grabbed him by his face and looked him in the eye. "Well, well, little brother. It seems that you can finally stand up for yourself."
"As if I'm open my eyes for the first time." He replied with a chuckle and a confident smirk. The only thing that he could've done, was buying for himself a little bit of time. A park ranger or someone bound to show up at some point.
A sick grin covered Alex's face as he brought the knife closer towards the tip of Miguel's right eye. "Then let's fix that shall we."
Miguel held his head back trying to keep the distances between his eye and the knife, but the back of the tree stood as an obstacle.
Knowing that he finally reached his limit, Alex slowly pushed the knife into his eye. Miguel screamed at the top of his lungs. He tried to move his head away, but Alex had it pinned against the tree with full force. He took his time and enjoyed every second of it as the blood rushed out of the socket. Once he got deep enough, he started rotating and twisting the knife 360 degrees around the socket repeatedly. The knife tore almost every skin and flesh around the socket and the orbital muscle, leaving nothing behind. When he was done, he roughly pulled the knife out of the socket and what was left of the eye.
Blood rained down on Miguel's face as he lost the half of his vision and most of his consciousness. He was whimpering and suffering from the sudden amount of pain he just felt. His body was completely loosen up and every muscle of his body was numbed, he didn't even have enough energy to scream anymore.
"Don't start the show without me." Suddenly said a feminine voice close by.
He knew exactly whom the voice belonged to but it didn't matter anymore. He was a fool not to have seen this coming. So this is how I die, like a complete idiot!
"I would never." Alex drew back momentarily, granting Miguel a brief respite.
Panting, he tried to put enough pieces of his mind back together to escape but it was no use. This is really it.
Just as Alex turned back to once more begin the torture, there was a blinding flash of light, followed instantly by the deafening crack of thunder.
Alex leaped back, escaping the bolt narrowly. Miguel however wasn't so lucky. Traveling through the tree, the lightning hit Miguel with almost as much force as if it had struck him directly. He and the tree were set ablaze. Panicking, Alex and Maria ran into their car, leaving Miguel to burn.
5 months later
Alex sat on his bed, with his gun between his shaky grips. His sweaty palms held it as if his life was depending on it. It had been almost three months since his parents were brutally massacred, a few days since Maria had been violently mutilated. Everyone who he had ever been close to or was related to him had been killed.
Alex knew he was next.
The atmosphere outside was a cloudy pitch black night, with no illumination of any sorts. Just great, his chances seemed to only be getting worse. If this wasn't the perfect night to be murdered, he wasn't sure what that night would look like. You're panicking. You don't know you're going to die. You might not. He tried to force himself to calm down but it was pointless. Think about it, you're holding a loaded gun in your hands. If someone shows up, they would think twice before they take another step.
Suddenly a knock on the front door was heard that made his heart skip a beat. His grip on the gun became tighter as he walked slowly out of his room. The knock on the door became louder. His heart kept on racing and his palms started to sweat to the point his only weapon might slip off. Fast but low pants were coming from out of his mouth. As he took his first step on the steps, he could he the rhymed knocked more clearly. He made sure the safety was off before he took another step. Slowly and cautiously, he took small step until he got downstairs. By the time he got down to the lower level, the knocks stopped.
Then he heard the shattering of one of the windows not far away from him. His heart started to race once again, the lights started to rapidly flicker. He couldn't take it anymore. He ran as fast as he could towards the door not bothering if the stranger was on the other side. The second he touched the handle of door, it busted so hard against his face that it broke his nose. He fell on the ground, letting out a groan as he held his wounded nose.
"Oh Alex, I'm home!" A voice sing-songed in a twisted cadence.
Alex looked up with wide eyes to see a ghost, no it was a walking corpse. Miguel Miller stood there wearing his old dusty blue hood, covered with recent and fresh stains of blood. It was dark and Alex couldn't see his face cleary, but he knew his voice, and knew what stood in front of him was his brother.
He started to crawl away from him, wild desperation in every move. Miguel grin as he watched his brother helplessly trying to escape. Letting out a small murmur of mirth, he walked towards the discarded gun. He picked it up and fired a shot. The bullet flew, hitting Alex in the leg. Alex's eyes widened and he shouted from pain as he held his leg. The metal bullet burned inside of his wound and slowed his movement. Miguel took another aim, and fired another shot, then another, and another. The bullets hit him in the legs, taking turns, until he was crippled and unable to move. Eventually he emptied the magazine preventing his brother's escape. He threw the empty gun away and walked towards him.
With a painful grip on his hair, Miguel dragged Alex's head up. The bleeding boy screamed out in pain as he was forced to look into his brother's face, and it shocked him. The face he was looking into was inhuman, as if it had drowned in a pool of piranhas. His eye socket had a huge gash in it and it was hollow, nothing but blood caked on in layers. The skin surrounding his face was translucent, stretched tight over pulsing blood vessels. The rest of his skin wasn't quite as see through but almost as pale, giving him the appearance of a ghastly ghost.
With a mirthless smile, Miguel dryly asked, "Do you know what does one hundred million volts of electricity do to a human body under the temperature of sixty thousand Fahrenheit?" Pausing, Miguel mockingly waited for an answer. However, Alex couldn't even talk.
"I'll answer that for you. It fries him under three milliseconds. Even faster than a bullet to the head."
Alex didn't break eye contact and was still unable to find the words.
Miguel looked at him deep in his eye and went on, "let's say the person who was stuck by lighting survived. You know what the side effects would be." He paused as he waited for an answer, but the answer never came. "Disfigure. Skin burns. Paralysis. Heart failure. Parkinson. Lichtenberg scars. And most importantly..." He lightly tapped his head with his finger and continued with a twisted look "Brain damage. It fries the brain like an egg and kills almost the entire brain, driving him insane and causing him to lose contact with the world and the reality." He grabbed Alex's head with both hands and kept staring into his eye with an expression of a madman.
"M-Mig…"
"Shhh," He gently pressed against his lips with his finger. "Don't call me by that whimper's name. Call me by my real one, Miles."
This isn't the same boy I used to know. He's insane! Alex thought weakly.
"Tell me Alex, why did you do this to me. All those years of pain you inflicted on me." He wondered in a low cold and yet somehow politely tone. "Was it because you were jealous? Jealous that Harry and Elizabeth would prefer me over you, you miserable lying sack of shit!" The volume of his voice rose until the end of his sentence came out as a scream. Without warning, he burst out laughing. It was unlike anything Alex had ever heard, it was choked with anger and paid tribute to the madness that had clearly claimed the boy's mind.
As the crazed mirth petered out, it morphed into gut wrenching sobs. "You did this to me!". The sobs suddenly turned into groans of agony and anger "You killed what was left of MY LIFE!" He growled.
All manner of crazy thoughts rushed into Alex's mind as he tried to find an escape. He tried to struggle his way out of his grip but Miles quickly punched him in his face as hard as he could.
Alex painfully fell on the ground with quick strings of pain spreading across his face. Miles watched his brother groan and cry in pain as he laughed from the amusement. He grabbed his face once again and looked him deep in the eyes.
"Don't be shocked Alex" He manically said.
The blood vessels of Miguel's arms started to become visible as an unearthly blue glow seemed to spread down to his hands. As the light intensified, Alex could feel small shocks stringing together and connecting with his face. Soon the small stings turned into painful electric shocks that sent near constant jolts of agony through his body.
He screamed from the top of his lungs. He tried to use his hands to fight him, but he couldn't move them. Soon his body gave up and refused to listen to his brain's orders to move. Finally, Miles let go of his brother's face and watched him helplessly hit the ground.
Searching his pockets, he took out a knife very familiar to Alex. "You know what they say Alex, an eye for an eye." He got on top of Alex's numb body and delicately almost tenderly sunk the tip into the corner of Alex's eye. He used his free hand to hold his brother's eye open and slowly dug the knife around the orb of the eye, careful not to damage the organ itself.
Alex couldn't shout or scream but that wasn't any surprise, his entire body was nothing more than dead weight now. However, he could still feel the pain, the same pain he had once caused the man who was sitting on top of him now.
Miles kept on circling the knife around the socket cutting the cord carefully without hurting the eye itself. When he was finally done, he threw the knife now stained crimson with blood away and carefully plucked the eye out of its socket leaving quick well of blood behind. He carefully placed the glistening orb into his own empty hollow socket. And despite the unrealistic sound of the phenomenon, his vision was restored the moment it entered the socket.
Miles turned himself around so he was facing his brother's abdomen. "And now, for the grand finale!" He raised his hands and plunged them into his brother's stomach. Digging through the flesh like two sharp knives digging into a tender steak, he slowly began opening his guts. Alex couldn't take the pain anymore and somehow managed to overcome his numbness to let out a throat tearing scream. Miles ignored his cries and kept on widening the hole he had made until his brother's intestines and abdomen were completely exposed.
Alex began coughing out blood between his screams as the life started seeping from his battered body. Seeing that he didn't have much time, Miles quickly held a grip of his intestines and wrapped it around Alex's neck. He closed the knot and pulled as hard as he could. Though the meat was stretching more than it could probably withstand, Miles kept on pulling the two ends until he was sure that if he pulled anymore, the intestines would snap.
Alex finally couldn't fight the darkness anymore and suffocated to death. Miles let go of the intestines after a few moments when he realized that Alex's heart had stopped beating a while ago. He looked down at the dead body and announced in a elated tone "And now, to claim my trophy."
He reached his hand inside the hole in his dead brother's stomach until he could feel what he was looking for. He grabbed the dead heart and pulled it with sharp yank. As arteries snapped and blood spattered Miles grinned, allowing the euphoria of the act to wash over him.
It had taken over a decade of patience to finally set right what he had been fighting. Those questions that had been building up for years had finally been answered. For the first time in twelve long years, Miles finally understood the purpose of his life.
Satisfied, Miles bit into his brother's heart at last.