CHAPTER IV: HATRED
Okey, Pokey, these next couple chapters should clear some stuff up for you. If you're REALLY slow, then they probably might not...ummm....yeah...and I've vowed to shut up more often in the story too, so :( :( :( :( :( no more randomism...
Jasmyne silently grasped the Grecian-style doorknob to her brother's expansive mansion, and quietly opened the large door. It squeaked on its rusty hinges as the door swung open, and she sauntered inside, slamming the door behind her, making the room around her rumble somewhat. Being now aware that someone was finally home and there was somebody other than grouchy servants to talk to, a merry Mokuba bounced up to her. His bright grey eyes, a few shades darker than hers but still unquestionably the same eyes, blinked up at her happily. She ruffled his unruly mass of black hair and he grinned. She managed a small but meek smile, for him.
"Hey, Mokuba."
He piped up quickly, "Hiya, Jazzy. Seto's kinda doin' work right now at his company, so he's not here. He said somethin' about a big project that he was busy on...some sorta virtual reality game..."
"That's nice, Mokuba..." she murmured melancholically.
"He even let me look at some of the stuff and it's really cool!! You could come later with me when I go back to his lab even though I'm not s'posed to but Seto doesn't mind...not all the time, anyway... he sorta ignores me a little bit an' says 'don't touch anything unless I say you can, little brother,'" Mokuba imitated his older brother CEO's deep masculine voice down to the smallest detail. "You wanna do somethin', Jazzy? Seto said not to come back for a while, so I hafta leave him alone..."
"Sorry...I gotta go upstairs and do my homework. See you, squirt."
"You wanna do somethin' later?" he asked hopefully.
She sighed. "Sure, maybe later."
Mokuba shuffled away with his endearing little sneakers dragging across the hardwood floor as he watched his older sister trudge up the elegant marble staircase that led to the upper level of the house and locked herself up in her room, like she always did. He was beginning to detect a pattern in his siblings' behavior: they were constantly shutting themselves away from the world, away from him. They rarely had any time to do anything with their little brother anymore. This was not out of the ordinary, but he was starting to wonder why they continuously acted this way. "They weren't always like this...at least I don't think so...Seto was sorta nicer before Jazzy came ta live with us...but Jazzy was always like this, for as long as I can remember...at least after Mom an' Dad died..." he cringed at the few scattered, stabbing memories. "Seto isn't as bad...I guess...at least he talks to me and sorta eats stuff...he kinda drinks a lot of coffee, though...but Jazzy doesn't even always come down for dinner...I should probably try to figure out what's wrong...but she won't talk to me anyway...I better do my homework first...Seto'll get mad if I don't..." as he passed his sister's room and entered his own, he took one last worried look at the blank, staring face of her closed door, and then slowly shut his own.
Hey, does anyone know how to work a coffee machine?? I'm kinda havin' a craving for coffee and my parents aren't here and I really want some coffee but I'm not supposed to have any...
Jasmyne sighed heavily as she opened her leather backpack and proceeded to do her daily laborious homework task.
'Why am I doing this pointless crap, anyway? Nothing matters. Especially not this shit.'
She carelessly threw the books onto the floor and snapped her pen in half by the middle, grasping either end and increasing the tension until the tube of plastic splintered into debris and tinkered onto her dark wooden desk.
'We're all going to die anyway. Who cares about anything? Why do I bother to even go on living? I should just kill myself now...that'd show the world...'
She then pulled open one of her cherry finish desk drawers and drew out a long, silver dagger. The sheer, polished surface of the blade shimmered in the artificial electric light emanating from her lamp. She ran her fingertip down the murderous edge, seeing the blood seep out of the cut and down her fingers, dripping down the pale skin of her hand, the vivid scarlet liquid contrasting greatly with her flesh.
'I should just stab myself now, and spare myself from the torture of living. Nobody loves me or would care the least bit if I disappeared forever...except for maybe Mokuba...what'll happen to him if I...' She faltered for a moment. "He has Seto," she declared firmly to herself. 'He probably won't even notice when I'm gone and I never return...they'll probably bury me in the backyard with a plastic shovel! Then they'll bury me in one of Seto's briefcases from his never diminishing supply of them so he doesn't have to pay for a coffin!! He probably has a whole room devoted to them. That's just like Seto...he can't spend any decent amount of his precious profits on anyone he pretends to care about...but I know the truth...he's despised me ever since I came and disrupted his blissful life at this mansion...I was an agonizing reminder of his distant past...one that he had tried so hard to suppress and forget...and I just had to wander in from the streets and beg to live with my only family...the only people I thought still cared about me...he doesn't even know what I went through trying to survive on those streets...I can't believe I was tricked into being used by that damn bastard Stanley to help him with his filthy business and do his dirty work...I was naive and impressionable, and he used me for all his cons and heists and everything...and then he left me...all by myself...'
"Stanley, are you sure we're not breakin' the law_"
"What'cha mean?" the tall, dark haired Italian man cast her a sadistic look. He spun around in the darkened alleyway and came closer to his youthful companion. He towered over the child in the shadows. A few rodents scampered around, and a stray striped cat pillaged a nearby trashcan, filled to the rim with grimy refuse.
"I mean, I think my Mommy told me that stealing and selling drugs is bad and that you're not supposed to-"
He seized her by her frayed collar and sneered, spit droplets spattering on her face, "Listen, kid, forget what ya damn mommy told ya. Ya ain't with her no more. You're with Stanley now an' I musta tol' ya a million times that if you wanna get fed an' have clothes than ya gotta do what I say! Otherwise, I'm gonna hafta get rid o' ya! Got it, sweet cheeks?!"
She lowered her head, dark brunette locks drooping into her misting eyes. "Yes..."
"That's a good girl. Now listen up good. We ain't stealin', we're... borrowin' some money from the nice people at the bank. Here's the plan: once we get there, you blow up the back wall with your little fireball power and then we go in. I say that they gotta hand over all the money in their vaults and if they don't cooperate, you blast up anyone ta smithereens that don't listen."
Timidly, "But...Stanley..."
"Shut up, ya little brat!"
She sobbed, "But somebody could get hurt..." her round eyes brimmed with tears.
"Exactly! Now-"
"But I don't wanna kill anybody, Stanley..." she wept.
"You don't gotta kill nobody, just hinder 'em so I can get the money. Have I ever made you kill anybody before? No."
"Yes you have...'member that guy last week who-"
"He was different. He cheated me outa ten thousand bucks and said I owed 'im. So...I had ta get rid of 'im. An' if that meant havin' you do it, too bad."
"You made me light him on fire..."
"Well, you're too little ta get a gun. Legally, anyway...now listen. You're special, kid. You might be some kinda freak to some people, but I don't mind. You're a great help ta me, ya know that? I mean, I could never do the kinda stuff we've done by myself or with some other stupid goon. You're smart, kid. Whiny, sometimes, but hey? Who am I ta choose who ya are? An' on top o' that ya have that firey thing an' you read people's minds."
"Then how come you yell at me so much if you care about me?"
" 'Cause you piss me off with all this 'goin' righteous' crap! You used ta just do whatever the hell I told ya without arguin'! Now you do this whole 'but it's wrong, Stanley,' routine. If ya wanna be good, fine!! We'll just starve!"
"But why don't you just work and get some money?"
"Look, sweetie, money don't grow on trees. You're smart enough ta know that. Ya gotta get it somehow, an' I really need a lot o' money if I'm gonna start my crack business up again that those damn cops shut down...don't worry, after that, we won't need ta steal no more; we can just sell coke ta stupid kids who don't know no better an' make it cost way more than it should. Then you won't have to kill anymore people...not often, anwway. Now c'mon. If we can keep this goin' we'll go buy a nice house in the country when we got enough money an' we'll have lotsa flowers an' you can spend the rest o' your life havin' fun like a real little kid." He placed his callused hand lovingly on her shoulder and kneeled down to look at her levelly in the eyes.
She looked up at him with a renewed respect for the man, staring sadly into his cold black eyes. "R-really, Stanley?"
"Sure, cutie. I just...don't have enough money right now, but with you helpin' me, then we can sure as hell get plenty enough for us to live the rest of our lives filthy fuckin' rich. Now, c'mon."
She tugged lightly on his sleeve. "You promise we won't have to hurt anyone else?"
He chuckled. "Yeah, I already tol' ya that." And she pattered after him, trying vainly to keep up with his long strides as they traveled down the dampened street together. She stomped playfully in a mucky puddle of water spread across the avenue, giggling as the tiny droplets splashed all over her.
"Hey, quit playin' around, kid! Ya can play later! Right now we got work ta do. Get goin'."
"'Kay, Stanley." And she trotted back over to his side, readily assured now that she was insured with a better life to come in the near future.
Jasmyne and Stanley now stood in his grubby apartment downtown. The faded, off-white paint whose color by now somewhat resembled a mixture of mud and algae water was peeling off the walls, and bits of it curled on the floor as it dropped off. The soiled rug that covered the miniscule, so-called family room had bits of undistinguishable odds and ends clinging to it, including old cigarette ashes and hair. Jasmyne had never thought of it to be very "familyish." A slightly cracked, ancient television with bent antennae sat on a three-legged makeshift table made of plywood in front of the musty, sagging beige couch. The kitchen was but a corner of the apartment, with a stout refrigerator and the only contents being three 6-packs of beer, a half-empty bottle of mustard, and a few three week old slices of pizza with hints of green fungus growing on them. A square metal table was set up about 2 yards in front of the fridge, with two non-matching wooden stools. It looked like it had been constructed at least three decades ago, and terribly abused as well. The bedroom, a small space adjacent to the main room, had but one bed with stained sheets and a smelly, slightly moldy, closet, where a few of Stanley's clothes were stored. A cot in the living room designated the spot where Jasmyne slept on the floor, with a smudged pillow for her to rest her head on. The entire residence reeked strongly of cigarette smoke, vomit, and human urine. The bare, curtainless windows smeared with fingerprints and smog looked out onto the lighted city, with all of the buildings incandescent and glittering brilliantly against the ebony sky. Jasmyne sat curled up by the window, forehead pressed against the glass, gazing out at the limitless beyond.
"Hey, kid, go get me a beer outa the fridge." He gestured to the kitchen corner. Stanley was slumped on the couch, avariciously counting the day's heist from "the nice people at the bank." She picked herself up and walked over to the whitish contraption, (the refrigerator door was somewhat disgusting and brownish as well), pulled out a lukewarm bottle, (the fridge didn't work very well because Stanley didn't regularly pay the electric bill), and handed it to the man. "Thanks," he grunted as he slipped out a pack of Marlboro cigarettes and struggled to create a flame in his tiny rusted silver lighter. "Hey, come gimme a hand here."
She solemnly walked over to him, obediently created a small, flickering, orb of flame in her palm, and he touched his cigarette end to it, igniting the crushed leaves inside. The end of the cylinder turned a bright orange color, and a transparent smoky trail spurted out of it. He leaned back on the couch again, contentedly, and commenced his counting of the greasy green bills. She shambled back over to the windowsill again and plopped down on the floor.
"All, right...hey, these are all unmarked bills...there's gotta be at least ten grand in here..." he looked up. "Hey, you, what the hell is your problem? Ya look like someone just like killed your family o' somethin'..."
"..."
"What's ya damn problem, kid?"
"..."
"Goddamn it, do I gotta sock you?! Why won't ya say anything?!" he demanded.
"My parents already are dead, Stanley, an' my brothers are gone..." she mumbled gravely.
"Yeah, well they always been dead!! Never bothered ya before!!!"
She rose from the floor, backing closer to the wall away from him.
"Fine...the real problem is...I'm sick of this!!!" she yelled in definite question of his authority. "You've been tellin' me for two years now that we'll have nice home an' I won't have to kill anyone!! Didn't you see the people at the bank?!?! You made me blow the whole place up afterwards so they wouldn't find our fingerprints and nobody could say anything!! You lied to me, Stanley!! You're always lying to me!! You didn't even care about all the people who died!! An' you won't get caught now 'cause nobody lived to see us in the smoke an' even if they did it was too thick an' smoky!!! And it was the same when-when we were selling drugs and you had me kill a bunch of people and I don't even know why...an' with-with the person that you owed money and the-the-all the places we had to rob, and-"
"Calm down. I already tol' you, it'll all be better soon. Just think, Jasmyne, with all this money-"
"I don't want any more money!" she shrieked, and threw the bills all around the room, kicking at them with her feet. "I don't want to hurt anybody else or steal anymore or ANYTHING!! You used me for all your stupid cons and cheating people!! You USED me so you can get more money and smoke all you want and drink all your beer an' beat me up an' scream at me when I don't wanna!!! An' then you say everything'll be fine!! When, Stanley? When will everything be fine? All your sick little games and plots to steal people's money...'member the old sick guy at the hospital?! You made me pretend to be his long-lost retarded daughter so I'd get his will!! And when the people found out we hadda run really far away so we wouldn't have to end up in jail!! An' 'member when you made up the really big scam to rob the school? Well, that one failed too, an' you tried to blame me for it!! An' when I went ta juvenile jail ya hadda make up a bunch of lies ta get me out!!! I hate you Stanley!!"
"No you don't!! If it weren't for me, you'd still be livin' in that dumpster on Main Street I found ya in!"
"Then maybe I coulda died an' wouldn't have to have ever met you!! The only reason I stayed with you all these years is 'cause you promised that if I helped you we could eventually become a happy family and live together in a nice pretty house!! I had nowhere else to go, so I went with you! You promised!!! An' you know what? You lied to me...you were lying the whole time!! I bet you were never gonna buy us a house...you were just gonna spend it all on your stupid scams 'til you had so much money you didn't need me anymore, and then you were gonna kill me or leave me on the streets!! That was your plan all along, wasn't it Stanley? Wasn't it?!?" she gasped for breath after ranting out her speech.
"No...look, I don't know why you're sayin' all this crap..." he inhaled deeply on his cigarette and took another swig of his beer; this was his 6th bottle that night.
" 'Cause its true! Admit it! Fine, I don't care! I should just call the cops on you right now-"
He quickly got up off the couch. "You little bitch, don't you even think about it!"
She grabbed the chipped plastic black phone and prepared to press the buttons. She had no idea which buttons to dial, and hastily tried to determine a number to call. (she was never taught 911) As she struggled to settle on a number, he pounced on her, pinning her to the floor, the phone flying out of her hands to the ground; her salvation lost. She smelled the strong odor of alcohol on his breath; he was heavily drunk.
"You damn bitch; I'll kill you!!"
His fists smashed at her delicately formed face again and again, forming large violet bruises and blemishes across the soft flesh. He picked her up by her shoulders and threw her gruffly against the wall and smacked her face roughly, and she cried out. Many other children would have been instantly killed by his first assault, but she was toughly molded, a street kid. She perceived the sour flavor of a thick, pulpy liquid seeping into her mouth; a bright crimson river flowed out of the corner of her swelling lips and swept down her face. She tried to fight back, but her meager attempts at stopping him were no match for his brutal physical waves of attack. The sharp blow to her stomach sent her spinning backwards in a daze into the wall, and she felt another throbbing fist crash into her abdomen again, bumpy, thick knuckles driving into her belly. She felt the stinging, acidic, wretched presence of vomit spewing up her throat and into her mouth, and she heaved the mess onto the rug.
"Damn it, look what ya did, ya little bitch!"
He cuffed her narrow jaw and sent her plunging to the ground. She tried to pick herself up by propping herself on the palms of her hands, but he interrupted her and smashed her again in the face relentlessly. He then pulled a long, jagged switch blade, with a shot-black hilt out of his coat. He dove at her with a speed she could not outdo and rammed the knife into the child's thigh to the smoothed handle, and then abruptly yanked it out, reveling at the sticky film of blood that had accumulated on it.
She screeched loudly in agony, and began to weep, clutching her leg in pure anguish. A low whimper gurgled from her lips, and she uttered defiantly,
I could get you put in jail for that! Jus' you wait! I-"
"You jus' can't learn, can ya?" And he dove towards her again, brandishing the weapon still, ready to strike with the deadly aim of the battle stance of a viper, ready to pierce its victims with its toxic mandibles of death.
His rampant, drunken rage would have proved most definitely fatal, had Jasmyne not been driven to the window by trying to dodge his assault.
He must have noticed, because he finally screamed, "Fine!! I don't give a damn!! I'll get rid o' you if you think that's the truth!! I'm sick of ya damn preachin's anyway!! Good riddance, ya fuckin' bitch!!"
And he shoved her though the panel of glass to the pavement below. Tiny shards gouged her skin and she covered her aching face with her bloodied hands to shield it from the little knives. She was plummeting down...down...down...until she was halted by a hard surface and collided with the ground; smashing into stupor on impact.
She later awakened, with her feeble body crumpled in a heap in an alleyway. She had landed in a dumpster, in a heap of grungy, greasy, black trash bags, so she had managed to outlast the fall. She felt her thinly formed jaw, and her fingers came across a thin trail of something brittle and crusted over that had somehow formed over her flesh. A bit of it flaked into her palm, and it was a dull, coppery red hue. She could still detect that sourly grotesque vomit enduring from the night before, when Stanley had...she stopped herself, not preferring to recall the happenings of the evening before. She groggily sat up and recoiled as she sensed a sharp twinge in her left leg, a feeling she had never experienced before. She could barely move and certainly couldn't walk anywhere with it. She slowly moved her eyes toward the source of the sensation, and noticed a deep wound there, her ragged clothes tainted with a series of deep claret blotches, heavily embedded into the fabric. She tore open the thin material, and shrunk back in horror at the ghastly mutilation of her thigh. The sore had healed itself slightly, and was now a reddish brown spot caked in a crumbly substance. Her leg stirred a bit when she attempted to right herself, and she whined pitifully.
'I shouldn't have said that stuff last night...I really need Stanley...he was just a little drunk. Happens all the time. He'll take me back; he needs me; he told me so. I better go talk to him. Knowing him, he'll still be havin' a hangover from bein' drunk last night, and he prob'ly won't 'member a thing. I'll just be super sweet an' then he'll listen to me. Maybe I can even get him to stop stealin'...I just can't ever mention the cops again. I better go back to our apartment...'
Jasmyne somehow managed to limp unsteadily back up to her and Stanley's apartment, stumbling up the stairs frequently. She finally made it to the heavy door and pushed it open. There was Stanley, sprawled across the floor, cigarette and empty ginger-colored bottle still in hand. He didn't stir at all as she crept silently over to him.
"Stanley? Psssst, Stanley? I-I'm sorry about the stuff I said last night...'bout callin' the cops an' stuff...I didn't really mean it...an' I don't hate you either...you're right, I wouldn't be anywhere without you...an'-an' I don't really wanna be dead instead of with you..." she hesitated.
Stanley hadn't responded to a single word she said. A few flies buzzed around his open mouth, sucking up the sweet sticky film of beer and blood that had collected on his lips. Blood. Her blood. Or was it? A yellowish puddle of liquid had flowed out of the bottle, and now lay, solidifying, on the rug. She tiptoed closer to him.
"Stanley? St-st-stanley? How come you're not sayin' anythin'?"
She nudged his shoulder with her shoeless foot. He didn't budge. His chest failed to rise and fall, which would have indicated he was breathing. But he wasn't. His once piercing black eyes now stared blankly ahead, a hollow expression in them. They were glazed over in an opaque substance. "Oh my God..." she breathed. Stanley was dead. An alcohol overdose; that was one hell of a hangover. His one weakness had destroyed him. He was gone. She had no one to protect her now. No one. She didn't even have a home now; she couldn't possibly afford to pay for the apartment all by herself. She was only a little kid. Stanley had always paid for the apartment and the food and all the other essential, messy, things; she'd earned her keep by helping him get the money.
'Now what am I gonna do? And what if somebody finds me in here with this body...I hafta get outa here...' she backed away from the rotting corpse of Stanley. She was unafraid; she must have seen at least a hundred bodies, and she had been the cause of most of them. But none of them...none of them were someone she knew...or cared about...and certainly none had been Stanley.
She took one last look at her one final beacon of hope in the surging storm of life lying dead on the floor, and then ran out the door as far as she could, away from those staring eyes of death, clamped forever in his decaying skull.
Oh, yeah, just to tell you, I don't like hate Italian people and I don't like stereotype them as druggies and evil...actually, I really like them and I'm living in Venice if I don't get to run off to Egypt and be an archaeologist. [that's my lifelong dream]. Well, I'll definitely have a summer home in Venice...not that anyone CARES!!! Rrrrrgh! That damn Stanley guy really pisses me off...I'm mad at myself for creating him...I had to kill him off... Shutting up...
'That damn bastard...he just had to beat the crap outa me that night an' then up an' die...good riddance to him is what I say...' "Damn it!! He always despised me, just like everyone else!! He played me for a sap because I was one just because I was little kid and I didn't know any better. He was partially the cause for my life being absolutely ruined. I hope he's having a wonderful time being roasted and scalded eternally in hell."
At this point, her slender, sleek black cat silently padded into the room perkily with a joyful spring to her step.
"Hey, Celeste."
She hopped gingerly into Jasmyne's lap and a light rumble echoed from her throat. Jasmyne lightly stroked the graceful feline's silken fur, bits of light from the window reflecting off of it in glittering rainbow highlights. The cat blinked coolly at her friend with her shining emerald eyes with flecks of golden hues. Her sandpapery tongue stroked Jasmyne's hand amorously, and Jasmyne smiled down at her and lightly kissed her nose. Celeste mewed sweetly, and then slipped off of Jasmyne's lap and pranced over to her bed to take a peaceful nap.
'That cat is my only friend in the world...everyone hates me but her...none of the world would ever care if I killed myself...' Jasmyne raised the blade over her chest, ready to thrust it into her neck, ending her life forever.
"No, don't..." reverberated a wavering, eerie voice that seemed to originate from no place at all.
She stopped instantly and spun around on her heel. The figure of a tall, slim woman stood before her, her wispy auburn hair flowing down over her shoulders. The calm, sky blue eyes gazed furtively yet fondly at her. The figure appeared unreal...supernatural. Its shape undulated in place like a ribbon in the breeze on a windy spring day, and its outline quivered. Her-Jasmyne assumed the figure was a she- wore nothing but a simple white gown that waved in the air, even though the atmosphere was perfectly still. It seemed as if a divine, heavenly, aura surrounded her; she did seem somewhat angelic. Jasmyne wasn't in fear of the spirit, which is what it obviously was; she'd seen numerous entities such as this one before. But not quite like this one...no, she was...different, somehow... Being a witch and a seer of spirits, Jasmyne was very well acquainted with experiences with wandering souls...but this one...something was...odd...about it...familiar, almost... The woman was definitely someone she'd seen before...but who could it be? Why couldn't she recognize her? Another possibility was that the spirit was trying to trick her into believing that she knew her...this didn't even have to be her true form...spirits were misleading like that many times...but what did this particular apparition want with her? They always had some sort of reason for not crossing over or appearing to the living...whether it be evil, to show or tell them something, to get revenge...but they never just showed themselves to humans with no motive.
'Maybe it's about time that I ask her why the hell she's in my house...but what if she isn't the kindly type of spirit? What if she died a treacherous death...or what if she is a disturbed, angry soul and is out to kill me for some reason I'm unaware of...hmmm...I wonder if it's strong enough to pick up that knife and stab me with it...? Well, she'd be doing me a big favor if she killed me, I guess...gets rid of my dirty work...what the hell. If she wanted me dead, she definitely would have tried something by now.' She hesitantly moved closer to the wiggling shape. "Umm...you probably already know that I'm, uhhh...Jasmyne Kaiba and I can see you very well. Umm...don't take me the wrong way, but why are you here?"
The woman laughed in her high voice. Shaking her head, "Darling, you're just as silly and unsure as you always were. Don't you recognize me?"
Jasmyne blinked confuzzedly a few times. 'What could this spirit possibly be talking about?'
She bit her lip. "Well,...no offense, but...I..." she was extremely careful not to insult the phantom; they could be easily provoked; she'd had personal experience with that. It wasn't pretty. "To tell you the truth...I have no idea who you are or why you're at my house..." realizing her mistake not ever tell a member of the dead that you'd forgotten them because they might have been insane and thought they knew you, she quickly added, "I'm sorry! I-"
The woman laughed again, this time smiling broadly afterwards. "There's no need to be sorry, dear. I didn't expect you to know who I was, anyway. It's been so long, and you've been through so much..."
"How do you know about everything I've been through?" she inquired suspiciously., raising an eyebrow.
"You really have no idea who I am, do you?"
Jasmyne rotated her head in a negative motion, never moving her gaze from the specter. She cocked an eyebrow.
"Well...I'm...your...mother..."
OK, so this sappy ending part was sorta weird...but it was sad writing about the whole Stanley bit. I hadn't even planned on that originally...but it was really cool anywho. auuuuugghghhhh!! Now I'm saying anywho!! First spiffy, now this! What has this world come to...die, Mystic Kiwi! Look what you've done to me!
Okey, Pokey, these next couple chapters should clear some stuff up for you. If you're REALLY slow, then they probably might not...ummm....yeah...and I've vowed to shut up more often in the story too, so :( :( :( :( :( no more randomism...
Jasmyne silently grasped the Grecian-style doorknob to her brother's expansive mansion, and quietly opened the large door. It squeaked on its rusty hinges as the door swung open, and she sauntered inside, slamming the door behind her, making the room around her rumble somewhat. Being now aware that someone was finally home and there was somebody other than grouchy servants to talk to, a merry Mokuba bounced up to her. His bright grey eyes, a few shades darker than hers but still unquestionably the same eyes, blinked up at her happily. She ruffled his unruly mass of black hair and he grinned. She managed a small but meek smile, for him.
"Hey, Mokuba."
He piped up quickly, "Hiya, Jazzy. Seto's kinda doin' work right now at his company, so he's not here. He said somethin' about a big project that he was busy on...some sorta virtual reality game..."
"That's nice, Mokuba..." she murmured melancholically.
"He even let me look at some of the stuff and it's really cool!! You could come later with me when I go back to his lab even though I'm not s'posed to but Seto doesn't mind...not all the time, anyway... he sorta ignores me a little bit an' says 'don't touch anything unless I say you can, little brother,'" Mokuba imitated his older brother CEO's deep masculine voice down to the smallest detail. "You wanna do somethin', Jazzy? Seto said not to come back for a while, so I hafta leave him alone..."
"Sorry...I gotta go upstairs and do my homework. See you, squirt."
"You wanna do somethin' later?" he asked hopefully.
She sighed. "Sure, maybe later."
Mokuba shuffled away with his endearing little sneakers dragging across the hardwood floor as he watched his older sister trudge up the elegant marble staircase that led to the upper level of the house and locked herself up in her room, like she always did. He was beginning to detect a pattern in his siblings' behavior: they were constantly shutting themselves away from the world, away from him. They rarely had any time to do anything with their little brother anymore. This was not out of the ordinary, but he was starting to wonder why they continuously acted this way. "They weren't always like this...at least I don't think so...Seto was sorta nicer before Jazzy came ta live with us...but Jazzy was always like this, for as long as I can remember...at least after Mom an' Dad died..." he cringed at the few scattered, stabbing memories. "Seto isn't as bad...I guess...at least he talks to me and sorta eats stuff...he kinda drinks a lot of coffee, though...but Jazzy doesn't even always come down for dinner...I should probably try to figure out what's wrong...but she won't talk to me anyway...I better do my homework first...Seto'll get mad if I don't..." as he passed his sister's room and entered his own, he took one last worried look at the blank, staring face of her closed door, and then slowly shut his own.
Hey, does anyone know how to work a coffee machine?? I'm kinda havin' a craving for coffee and my parents aren't here and I really want some coffee but I'm not supposed to have any...
Jasmyne sighed heavily as she opened her leather backpack and proceeded to do her daily laborious homework task.
'Why am I doing this pointless crap, anyway? Nothing matters. Especially not this shit.'
She carelessly threw the books onto the floor and snapped her pen in half by the middle, grasping either end and increasing the tension until the tube of plastic splintered into debris and tinkered onto her dark wooden desk.
'We're all going to die anyway. Who cares about anything? Why do I bother to even go on living? I should just kill myself now...that'd show the world...'
She then pulled open one of her cherry finish desk drawers and drew out a long, silver dagger. The sheer, polished surface of the blade shimmered in the artificial electric light emanating from her lamp. She ran her fingertip down the murderous edge, seeing the blood seep out of the cut and down her fingers, dripping down the pale skin of her hand, the vivid scarlet liquid contrasting greatly with her flesh.
'I should just stab myself now, and spare myself from the torture of living. Nobody loves me or would care the least bit if I disappeared forever...except for maybe Mokuba...what'll happen to him if I...' She faltered for a moment. "He has Seto," she declared firmly to herself. 'He probably won't even notice when I'm gone and I never return...they'll probably bury me in the backyard with a plastic shovel! Then they'll bury me in one of Seto's briefcases from his never diminishing supply of them so he doesn't have to pay for a coffin!! He probably has a whole room devoted to them. That's just like Seto...he can't spend any decent amount of his precious profits on anyone he pretends to care about...but I know the truth...he's despised me ever since I came and disrupted his blissful life at this mansion...I was an agonizing reminder of his distant past...one that he had tried so hard to suppress and forget...and I just had to wander in from the streets and beg to live with my only family...the only people I thought still cared about me...he doesn't even know what I went through trying to survive on those streets...I can't believe I was tricked into being used by that damn bastard Stanley to help him with his filthy business and do his dirty work...I was naive and impressionable, and he used me for all his cons and heists and everything...and then he left me...all by myself...'
"Stanley, are you sure we're not breakin' the law_"
"What'cha mean?" the tall, dark haired Italian man cast her a sadistic look. He spun around in the darkened alleyway and came closer to his youthful companion. He towered over the child in the shadows. A few rodents scampered around, and a stray striped cat pillaged a nearby trashcan, filled to the rim with grimy refuse.
"I mean, I think my Mommy told me that stealing and selling drugs is bad and that you're not supposed to-"
He seized her by her frayed collar and sneered, spit droplets spattering on her face, "Listen, kid, forget what ya damn mommy told ya. Ya ain't with her no more. You're with Stanley now an' I musta tol' ya a million times that if you wanna get fed an' have clothes than ya gotta do what I say! Otherwise, I'm gonna hafta get rid o' ya! Got it, sweet cheeks?!"
She lowered her head, dark brunette locks drooping into her misting eyes. "Yes..."
"That's a good girl. Now listen up good. We ain't stealin', we're... borrowin' some money from the nice people at the bank. Here's the plan: once we get there, you blow up the back wall with your little fireball power and then we go in. I say that they gotta hand over all the money in their vaults and if they don't cooperate, you blast up anyone ta smithereens that don't listen."
Timidly, "But...Stanley..."
"Shut up, ya little brat!"
She sobbed, "But somebody could get hurt..." her round eyes brimmed with tears.
"Exactly! Now-"
"But I don't wanna kill anybody, Stanley..." she wept.
"You don't gotta kill nobody, just hinder 'em so I can get the money. Have I ever made you kill anybody before? No."
"Yes you have...'member that guy last week who-"
"He was different. He cheated me outa ten thousand bucks and said I owed 'im. So...I had ta get rid of 'im. An' if that meant havin' you do it, too bad."
"You made me light him on fire..."
"Well, you're too little ta get a gun. Legally, anyway...now listen. You're special, kid. You might be some kinda freak to some people, but I don't mind. You're a great help ta me, ya know that? I mean, I could never do the kinda stuff we've done by myself or with some other stupid goon. You're smart, kid. Whiny, sometimes, but hey? Who am I ta choose who ya are? An' on top o' that ya have that firey thing an' you read people's minds."
"Then how come you yell at me so much if you care about me?"
" 'Cause you piss me off with all this 'goin' righteous' crap! You used ta just do whatever the hell I told ya without arguin'! Now you do this whole 'but it's wrong, Stanley,' routine. If ya wanna be good, fine!! We'll just starve!"
"But why don't you just work and get some money?"
"Look, sweetie, money don't grow on trees. You're smart enough ta know that. Ya gotta get it somehow, an' I really need a lot o' money if I'm gonna start my crack business up again that those damn cops shut down...don't worry, after that, we won't need ta steal no more; we can just sell coke ta stupid kids who don't know no better an' make it cost way more than it should. Then you won't have to kill anymore people...not often, anwway. Now c'mon. If we can keep this goin' we'll go buy a nice house in the country when we got enough money an' we'll have lotsa flowers an' you can spend the rest o' your life havin' fun like a real little kid." He placed his callused hand lovingly on her shoulder and kneeled down to look at her levelly in the eyes.
She looked up at him with a renewed respect for the man, staring sadly into his cold black eyes. "R-really, Stanley?"
"Sure, cutie. I just...don't have enough money right now, but with you helpin' me, then we can sure as hell get plenty enough for us to live the rest of our lives filthy fuckin' rich. Now, c'mon."
She tugged lightly on his sleeve. "You promise we won't have to hurt anyone else?"
He chuckled. "Yeah, I already tol' ya that." And she pattered after him, trying vainly to keep up with his long strides as they traveled down the dampened street together. She stomped playfully in a mucky puddle of water spread across the avenue, giggling as the tiny droplets splashed all over her.
"Hey, quit playin' around, kid! Ya can play later! Right now we got work ta do. Get goin'."
"'Kay, Stanley." And she trotted back over to his side, readily assured now that she was insured with a better life to come in the near future.
Jasmyne and Stanley now stood in his grubby apartment downtown. The faded, off-white paint whose color by now somewhat resembled a mixture of mud and algae water was peeling off the walls, and bits of it curled on the floor as it dropped off. The soiled rug that covered the miniscule, so-called family room had bits of undistinguishable odds and ends clinging to it, including old cigarette ashes and hair. Jasmyne had never thought of it to be very "familyish." A slightly cracked, ancient television with bent antennae sat on a three-legged makeshift table made of plywood in front of the musty, sagging beige couch. The kitchen was but a corner of the apartment, with a stout refrigerator and the only contents being three 6-packs of beer, a half-empty bottle of mustard, and a few three week old slices of pizza with hints of green fungus growing on them. A square metal table was set up about 2 yards in front of the fridge, with two non-matching wooden stools. It looked like it had been constructed at least three decades ago, and terribly abused as well. The bedroom, a small space adjacent to the main room, had but one bed with stained sheets and a smelly, slightly moldy, closet, where a few of Stanley's clothes were stored. A cot in the living room designated the spot where Jasmyne slept on the floor, with a smudged pillow for her to rest her head on. The entire residence reeked strongly of cigarette smoke, vomit, and human urine. The bare, curtainless windows smeared with fingerprints and smog looked out onto the lighted city, with all of the buildings incandescent and glittering brilliantly against the ebony sky. Jasmyne sat curled up by the window, forehead pressed against the glass, gazing out at the limitless beyond.
"Hey, kid, go get me a beer outa the fridge." He gestured to the kitchen corner. Stanley was slumped on the couch, avariciously counting the day's heist from "the nice people at the bank." She picked herself up and walked over to the whitish contraption, (the refrigerator door was somewhat disgusting and brownish as well), pulled out a lukewarm bottle, (the fridge didn't work very well because Stanley didn't regularly pay the electric bill), and handed it to the man. "Thanks," he grunted as he slipped out a pack of Marlboro cigarettes and struggled to create a flame in his tiny rusted silver lighter. "Hey, come gimme a hand here."
She solemnly walked over to him, obediently created a small, flickering, orb of flame in her palm, and he touched his cigarette end to it, igniting the crushed leaves inside. The end of the cylinder turned a bright orange color, and a transparent smoky trail spurted out of it. He leaned back on the couch again, contentedly, and commenced his counting of the greasy green bills. She shambled back over to the windowsill again and plopped down on the floor.
"All, right...hey, these are all unmarked bills...there's gotta be at least ten grand in here..." he looked up. "Hey, you, what the hell is your problem? Ya look like someone just like killed your family o' somethin'..."
"..."
"What's ya damn problem, kid?"
"..."
"Goddamn it, do I gotta sock you?! Why won't ya say anything?!" he demanded.
"My parents already are dead, Stanley, an' my brothers are gone..." she mumbled gravely.
"Yeah, well they always been dead!! Never bothered ya before!!!"
She rose from the floor, backing closer to the wall away from him.
"Fine...the real problem is...I'm sick of this!!!" she yelled in definite question of his authority. "You've been tellin' me for two years now that we'll have nice home an' I won't have to kill anyone!! Didn't you see the people at the bank?!?! You made me blow the whole place up afterwards so they wouldn't find our fingerprints and nobody could say anything!! You lied to me, Stanley!! You're always lying to me!! You didn't even care about all the people who died!! An' you won't get caught now 'cause nobody lived to see us in the smoke an' even if they did it was too thick an' smoky!!! And it was the same when-when we were selling drugs and you had me kill a bunch of people and I don't even know why...an' with-with the person that you owed money and the-the-all the places we had to rob, and-"
"Calm down. I already tol' you, it'll all be better soon. Just think, Jasmyne, with all this money-"
"I don't want any more money!" she shrieked, and threw the bills all around the room, kicking at them with her feet. "I don't want to hurt anybody else or steal anymore or ANYTHING!! You used me for all your stupid cons and cheating people!! You USED me so you can get more money and smoke all you want and drink all your beer an' beat me up an' scream at me when I don't wanna!!! An' then you say everything'll be fine!! When, Stanley? When will everything be fine? All your sick little games and plots to steal people's money...'member the old sick guy at the hospital?! You made me pretend to be his long-lost retarded daughter so I'd get his will!! And when the people found out we hadda run really far away so we wouldn't have to end up in jail!! An' 'member when you made up the really big scam to rob the school? Well, that one failed too, an' you tried to blame me for it!! An' when I went ta juvenile jail ya hadda make up a bunch of lies ta get me out!!! I hate you Stanley!!"
"No you don't!! If it weren't for me, you'd still be livin' in that dumpster on Main Street I found ya in!"
"Then maybe I coulda died an' wouldn't have to have ever met you!! The only reason I stayed with you all these years is 'cause you promised that if I helped you we could eventually become a happy family and live together in a nice pretty house!! I had nowhere else to go, so I went with you! You promised!!! An' you know what? You lied to me...you were lying the whole time!! I bet you were never gonna buy us a house...you were just gonna spend it all on your stupid scams 'til you had so much money you didn't need me anymore, and then you were gonna kill me or leave me on the streets!! That was your plan all along, wasn't it Stanley? Wasn't it?!?" she gasped for breath after ranting out her speech.
"No...look, I don't know why you're sayin' all this crap..." he inhaled deeply on his cigarette and took another swig of his beer; this was his 6th bottle that night.
" 'Cause its true! Admit it! Fine, I don't care! I should just call the cops on you right now-"
He quickly got up off the couch. "You little bitch, don't you even think about it!"
She grabbed the chipped plastic black phone and prepared to press the buttons. She had no idea which buttons to dial, and hastily tried to determine a number to call. (she was never taught 911) As she struggled to settle on a number, he pounced on her, pinning her to the floor, the phone flying out of her hands to the ground; her salvation lost. She smelled the strong odor of alcohol on his breath; he was heavily drunk.
"You damn bitch; I'll kill you!!"
His fists smashed at her delicately formed face again and again, forming large violet bruises and blemishes across the soft flesh. He picked her up by her shoulders and threw her gruffly against the wall and smacked her face roughly, and she cried out. Many other children would have been instantly killed by his first assault, but she was toughly molded, a street kid. She perceived the sour flavor of a thick, pulpy liquid seeping into her mouth; a bright crimson river flowed out of the corner of her swelling lips and swept down her face. She tried to fight back, but her meager attempts at stopping him were no match for his brutal physical waves of attack. The sharp blow to her stomach sent her spinning backwards in a daze into the wall, and she felt another throbbing fist crash into her abdomen again, bumpy, thick knuckles driving into her belly. She felt the stinging, acidic, wretched presence of vomit spewing up her throat and into her mouth, and she heaved the mess onto the rug.
"Damn it, look what ya did, ya little bitch!"
He cuffed her narrow jaw and sent her plunging to the ground. She tried to pick herself up by propping herself on the palms of her hands, but he interrupted her and smashed her again in the face relentlessly. He then pulled a long, jagged switch blade, with a shot-black hilt out of his coat. He dove at her with a speed she could not outdo and rammed the knife into the child's thigh to the smoothed handle, and then abruptly yanked it out, reveling at the sticky film of blood that had accumulated on it.
She screeched loudly in agony, and began to weep, clutching her leg in pure anguish. A low whimper gurgled from her lips, and she uttered defiantly,
I could get you put in jail for that! Jus' you wait! I-"
"You jus' can't learn, can ya?" And he dove towards her again, brandishing the weapon still, ready to strike with the deadly aim of the battle stance of a viper, ready to pierce its victims with its toxic mandibles of death.
His rampant, drunken rage would have proved most definitely fatal, had Jasmyne not been driven to the window by trying to dodge his assault.
He must have noticed, because he finally screamed, "Fine!! I don't give a damn!! I'll get rid o' you if you think that's the truth!! I'm sick of ya damn preachin's anyway!! Good riddance, ya fuckin' bitch!!"
And he shoved her though the panel of glass to the pavement below. Tiny shards gouged her skin and she covered her aching face with her bloodied hands to shield it from the little knives. She was plummeting down...down...down...until she was halted by a hard surface and collided with the ground; smashing into stupor on impact.
She later awakened, with her feeble body crumpled in a heap in an alleyway. She had landed in a dumpster, in a heap of grungy, greasy, black trash bags, so she had managed to outlast the fall. She felt her thinly formed jaw, and her fingers came across a thin trail of something brittle and crusted over that had somehow formed over her flesh. A bit of it flaked into her palm, and it was a dull, coppery red hue. She could still detect that sourly grotesque vomit enduring from the night before, when Stanley had...she stopped herself, not preferring to recall the happenings of the evening before. She groggily sat up and recoiled as she sensed a sharp twinge in her left leg, a feeling she had never experienced before. She could barely move and certainly couldn't walk anywhere with it. She slowly moved her eyes toward the source of the sensation, and noticed a deep wound there, her ragged clothes tainted with a series of deep claret blotches, heavily embedded into the fabric. She tore open the thin material, and shrunk back in horror at the ghastly mutilation of her thigh. The sore had healed itself slightly, and was now a reddish brown spot caked in a crumbly substance. Her leg stirred a bit when she attempted to right herself, and she whined pitifully.
'I shouldn't have said that stuff last night...I really need Stanley...he was just a little drunk. Happens all the time. He'll take me back; he needs me; he told me so. I better go talk to him. Knowing him, he'll still be havin' a hangover from bein' drunk last night, and he prob'ly won't 'member a thing. I'll just be super sweet an' then he'll listen to me. Maybe I can even get him to stop stealin'...I just can't ever mention the cops again. I better go back to our apartment...'
Jasmyne somehow managed to limp unsteadily back up to her and Stanley's apartment, stumbling up the stairs frequently. She finally made it to the heavy door and pushed it open. There was Stanley, sprawled across the floor, cigarette and empty ginger-colored bottle still in hand. He didn't stir at all as she crept silently over to him.
"Stanley? Psssst, Stanley? I-I'm sorry about the stuff I said last night...'bout callin' the cops an' stuff...I didn't really mean it...an' I don't hate you either...you're right, I wouldn't be anywhere without you...an'-an' I don't really wanna be dead instead of with you..." she hesitated.
Stanley hadn't responded to a single word she said. A few flies buzzed around his open mouth, sucking up the sweet sticky film of beer and blood that had collected on his lips. Blood. Her blood. Or was it? A yellowish puddle of liquid had flowed out of the bottle, and now lay, solidifying, on the rug. She tiptoed closer to him.
"Stanley? St-st-stanley? How come you're not sayin' anythin'?"
She nudged his shoulder with her shoeless foot. He didn't budge. His chest failed to rise and fall, which would have indicated he was breathing. But he wasn't. His once piercing black eyes now stared blankly ahead, a hollow expression in them. They were glazed over in an opaque substance. "Oh my God..." she breathed. Stanley was dead. An alcohol overdose; that was one hell of a hangover. His one weakness had destroyed him. He was gone. She had no one to protect her now. No one. She didn't even have a home now; she couldn't possibly afford to pay for the apartment all by herself. She was only a little kid. Stanley had always paid for the apartment and the food and all the other essential, messy, things; she'd earned her keep by helping him get the money.
'Now what am I gonna do? And what if somebody finds me in here with this body...I hafta get outa here...' she backed away from the rotting corpse of Stanley. She was unafraid; she must have seen at least a hundred bodies, and she had been the cause of most of them. But none of them...none of them were someone she knew...or cared about...and certainly none had been Stanley.
She took one last look at her one final beacon of hope in the surging storm of life lying dead on the floor, and then ran out the door as far as she could, away from those staring eyes of death, clamped forever in his decaying skull.
Oh, yeah, just to tell you, I don't like hate Italian people and I don't like stereotype them as druggies and evil...actually, I really like them and I'm living in Venice if I don't get to run off to Egypt and be an archaeologist. [that's my lifelong dream]. Well, I'll definitely have a summer home in Venice...not that anyone CARES!!! Rrrrrgh! That damn Stanley guy really pisses me off...I'm mad at myself for creating him...I had to kill him off... Shutting up...
'That damn bastard...he just had to beat the crap outa me that night an' then up an' die...good riddance to him is what I say...' "Damn it!! He always despised me, just like everyone else!! He played me for a sap because I was one just because I was little kid and I didn't know any better. He was partially the cause for my life being absolutely ruined. I hope he's having a wonderful time being roasted and scalded eternally in hell."
At this point, her slender, sleek black cat silently padded into the room perkily with a joyful spring to her step.
"Hey, Celeste."
She hopped gingerly into Jasmyne's lap and a light rumble echoed from her throat. Jasmyne lightly stroked the graceful feline's silken fur, bits of light from the window reflecting off of it in glittering rainbow highlights. The cat blinked coolly at her friend with her shining emerald eyes with flecks of golden hues. Her sandpapery tongue stroked Jasmyne's hand amorously, and Jasmyne smiled down at her and lightly kissed her nose. Celeste mewed sweetly, and then slipped off of Jasmyne's lap and pranced over to her bed to take a peaceful nap.
'That cat is my only friend in the world...everyone hates me but her...none of the world would ever care if I killed myself...' Jasmyne raised the blade over her chest, ready to thrust it into her neck, ending her life forever.
"No, don't..." reverberated a wavering, eerie voice that seemed to originate from no place at all.
She stopped instantly and spun around on her heel. The figure of a tall, slim woman stood before her, her wispy auburn hair flowing down over her shoulders. The calm, sky blue eyes gazed furtively yet fondly at her. The figure appeared unreal...supernatural. Its shape undulated in place like a ribbon in the breeze on a windy spring day, and its outline quivered. Her-Jasmyne assumed the figure was a she- wore nothing but a simple white gown that waved in the air, even though the atmosphere was perfectly still. It seemed as if a divine, heavenly, aura surrounded her; she did seem somewhat angelic. Jasmyne wasn't in fear of the spirit, which is what it obviously was; she'd seen numerous entities such as this one before. But not quite like this one...no, she was...different, somehow... Being a witch and a seer of spirits, Jasmyne was very well acquainted with experiences with wandering souls...but this one...something was...odd...about it...familiar, almost... The woman was definitely someone she'd seen before...but who could it be? Why couldn't she recognize her? Another possibility was that the spirit was trying to trick her into believing that she knew her...this didn't even have to be her true form...spirits were misleading like that many times...but what did this particular apparition want with her? They always had some sort of reason for not crossing over or appearing to the living...whether it be evil, to show or tell them something, to get revenge...but they never just showed themselves to humans with no motive.
'Maybe it's about time that I ask her why the hell she's in my house...but what if she isn't the kindly type of spirit? What if she died a treacherous death...or what if she is a disturbed, angry soul and is out to kill me for some reason I'm unaware of...hmmm...I wonder if it's strong enough to pick up that knife and stab me with it...? Well, she'd be doing me a big favor if she killed me, I guess...gets rid of my dirty work...what the hell. If she wanted me dead, she definitely would have tried something by now.' She hesitantly moved closer to the wiggling shape. "Umm...you probably already know that I'm, uhhh...Jasmyne Kaiba and I can see you very well. Umm...don't take me the wrong way, but why are you here?"
The woman laughed in her high voice. Shaking her head, "Darling, you're just as silly and unsure as you always were. Don't you recognize me?"
Jasmyne blinked confuzzedly a few times. 'What could this spirit possibly be talking about?'
She bit her lip. "Well,...no offense, but...I..." she was extremely careful not to insult the phantom; they could be easily provoked; she'd had personal experience with that. It wasn't pretty. "To tell you the truth...I have no idea who you are or why you're at my house..." realizing her mistake not ever tell a member of the dead that you'd forgotten them because they might have been insane and thought they knew you, she quickly added, "I'm sorry! I-"
The woman laughed again, this time smiling broadly afterwards. "There's no need to be sorry, dear. I didn't expect you to know who I was, anyway. It's been so long, and you've been through so much..."
"How do you know about everything I've been through?" she inquired suspiciously., raising an eyebrow.
"You really have no idea who I am, do you?"
Jasmyne rotated her head in a negative motion, never moving her gaze from the specter. She cocked an eyebrow.
"Well...I'm...your...mother..."
OK, so this sappy ending part was sorta weird...but it was sad writing about the whole Stanley bit. I hadn't even planned on that originally...but it was really cool anywho. auuuuugghghhhh!! Now I'm saying anywho!! First spiffy, now this! What has this world come to...die, Mystic Kiwi! Look what you've done to me!