((A/N: First real chapter. Enjoy. And note, this may not be suitable for some ages.))
I can't remember when I met her.
She has always drifted with me, the way a shadow stalks a man, she'd follow me.
I always thought of it as a she, that is. It's genderless, faceless, and unswervingly loyal. And it wasn't until I was older that I learned her name was madness.
Madness was, and remains, a sarcastic little bitch. She was like that little voice in your head that gives you righteous orders, but instead of advice, you'd get whispers. Nonverbal, unemotional whispers, like a craving for food after years of hunger, or air for a drowning man. They had that little voice, and I had mine. Madness.
Madness was my internal twin, opening it's eyes likely at my birth. She was always there. Always.
I lived in northern New England as a child, born into a perfectly straitlaced conservative upper-middle class family. Our house, the Stein house, was crisp and white and perfectly picturesque. We had a garden with a birdhouse, a quiet neighborhood with lots of trees and manicured lawns and little statues of angels by every plant. My mother was a housewife and a social climber. My father a local politician. I don't remember what. I never really cared. My sister, Jessica Stein, was a cheerleader and class president.
Sounds pleasant. It was, I think. For them. For my mother, and sister, and father as well, that house embodied everything that they could of ever wanted. My sister had thousands of friends that all looked exactly like her, my mother's friends an older equivalent. And they were happy.
I was never happy.
No, I never cared. From the time I was three years old, I found I only needed my parents when I injured myself or wanted food. I never needed my sister. I had her in my head, and she was the only company I needed. A friend? No. Merely something to be there, that was all I ever needed.
The other children were not fit to be my companions. Stupid, the lot of them. Playing pointless games, their fat faces smeared with cookie crumbs and dirt. They'd yell and cry and giggle and run around in circles. I did hate them. They were so ignorant, so blind to the very simple world around them. I did not mind that they didn't speak to me. I perfected it. She hated them to. And back then, she never once screamed at me, never doing anything to lose my faith. So I trusted her wholeheartedly. And she hated the children. So, therefore, I did as well. She was creative, even when we were young. She'd picture them laying at the bottom of the monkey bars, faces frozen. I pictured what she pictured. I found it interesting.
I never needed my parents, either. I never needed my father, aside from an instance in which I asked him for a new pair of scissors. He likely assumed I was speaking of art supplies. I wasn't. He never guessed, never once. I can't for the life of me remember what he looked like. I don't know if I ever took the time to look at him. I might not have. He was tall, and wore a suit. A blue suit. And he spoke like a fool, s if he knew everything there was, and was content and confident in his meager abilities. I never needed my mother, woman my sister lovingly refereed to as 'Mama'. I don't remember what she looked like either. Just that she wore too much lipstick, and that her stockings never quite matched her skin tone well enough. She laughed a lot. A conceded, self-assuring laugh, not one of any humor. She was never alone, always with my sister, or my father, or her friends that she kept like a collection of dolls. Vain, gullible and misinformed. I think she meant well. She never once understood why I didn't get along with her friends children, and understood even less when my new 'friends' ran out of my room crying and screaming that they never wanted to see me again. She did care for me, though. She used to cry, when I was never invited to parties, or when I would lock myself in my room for hours drawing pictures that scared her. I tried to care about her. I did. But I did not.
And then to my sister Jessica. The most memorable member of my family. Jessica, I hated. Jessica, I loathed. I hated her clones, her boyfriends, the constant smile on her face. I remember Jessica. Light hair tied in a perfect braid, frilly skirts and pink lips. I remember her two 'Besties', an identical copy of herself with nothing but hair color as differentiators. I remember the athlete she took home when mother and father were away, and how she told me not to tell as he whisked her off to her bedroom, locking the door behind. She made odd sounds. I hoped he was killing her. I hoped she killed him back. I hated that bastard too. But most of all, I hated how much my parents loved her. They adored her, waiting on hand and foot, making such a fuss about finding the perfect prom dress and congratulating her for her petty achievements. I wasn't jealous. I was disgusted. They GROVELLED, bent over at her every demand, throwing away time and money and important matters for her every whim. It made me nauseous.
I was likely about seven years old when it started. When she got the idea. She, the thing in my head. Madness. It had this plan, this glorious plan, this plan to expand my knowledge and indulge in my inner fascinations. It was my equivalent of a cookie stolen from a cookie jar, or a knight's quest for a grail.
For those who are unaware, I am what one may classify as a 'sadist'. One who gets off of the pain and suffering of another person or thing. I am also what one would classify as a 'scientist'. One who get off of giving into curiosity that the human mind stirs up. I am a 'sadistic scientist'. Therefore, this seemed to be the most amazing idea ever thought of.
I wanted to know what makes something feel the most pointless emotion of love. I simply could not comprehend this fact. And I wanted to know. I HAD to know, it took everything I had not to scream about how much I fucking needed to know why the hell such a pointless thing tormented the human mind. Or, as the romantic fools stated, the heart. And my goal to find this would curb my scientific lust. But another component was needed to fill the other insatiable urge. I had to make it hurt.
And, as any sibling in the world would do, I turned to my sister for this ingredient.
I did not kill my sister.
I can guess that that would be the initial perception, but such an act hadn't occurred to the seven year old me. Five months previous, my mother gifted my sister with a kitten, a living, breathing token of my mother's love for my sister. My sister in turn loved the kitten, and the kitten my sister, so it had to be the kitten in which I would kill.
Catching the thing was easy enough. It was fast, yes, but relatively weak and small, so therefore it didn't take much effort to trap it. I brought it to my room, carried it to a pillow, and put cotton balls into it's mouth to keep it from making noise that could potentially awake my family.
I took my little scissors, the ones my father bought me, and cut away at the fur of it's belly, tracing a little triangular shape. Quivering with anticipation and slightly shocked at all the blood, I peeled away the skin, straining to hold still the little beast who choked out screams through it's cotton ball muffler. And with the scissors, I dug away, snipping every rib, pulling out it's little pink lungs and laying them on the pillow next to it's head. I prodded everything, utterly entranced by the shear beauty of the little thing. For something so stupid, it was mighty complex on the inside to younger me. I can remember finally pulling out it's heart, a tiny, reddish color blob, so little and unimpressive. No magic love transmitters, none of that. Merely a vascular organ. I than came to the conclusion that love was a delusion of the mind, nothing more. And satisfied, I dropped the heart next to the lungs, before giving into the temptation of playing with the rest of the cat's remains.
I was stopped by a scream.
Jessica stood in the doorway, a look of horror and dismay and disgust on her face. Mother and father both stood behind her.
I narrowed my eyes. How dare they, I probably thought, how dare they come and interrupt my play. They could get me later.
My sister screamed again, my mother held her, my father stormed into the room and lifted my, dragging me away from my masterpiece.
It was one of the rare instances in my life that I cried.
Mother and Jessica never spoke to me again, their voice dropping to a whisper whenever I walked into the room. Father spoke very little, voiced strained in anger or disappointment or fear. They made me speak to doctors, thinking I was sick. But I was not sick. If it was her they were looking for, they'd never find her. Never. My madness was my greatest attribute, and without it, I'd be totally alone.
Father made me live at the hospital for a month, and they noticed no changes in behavior. As if I'd let them see. As if they deserved it. She was what made me special, superior in a sense. But when I was at the asylum, I ignored her every need, playing the role of good boy in order to get out of that boring white room.
She got very, very mad at me.
My first madness attack was when I was eight. My fever ran at 107 degrees. My parents thought I was going to die. I remember none of it, the majority of the time spent in feverish dreams that she made to make me hate myself. I wanted to die. Or at least, I've wanted to die every time since. And my death came for me in the form of a quirky man in a mask knocking on my parent's bedroom window.
I don't know what was said, what was done in that conversation.
But my parents did not want me, and Death was offering a safe place for me to stay where they would never have to see me again.
I have not seen them since.