5-25-05

"The scariest thing is a kid who can't take it anymore."

Long ago, a kid snapped. He was at skool one day and something went wrong. It wasn't his fault. There was just too much to handle, and he struck out in the only way he knew how. It wasn't the best decision of his life; in fact, it was probably the worst any human being could have done, but he had to live with it. There was no going back and trying to fix things. What he had done would shape the rest of his life in ways he could never have imagined.

Then again, had he known what lay in store for him, he probably wouldn't have pulled the trigger.

Johnny didn't like guns. They were cheap. Guns were unfair. Most importantly, there was no effort in it. One movement of one finger could kill. A gun could drop a being at a hundred yards. It wasn't fun; it wasn't exhilarating in the way a swordfight or just a plain disembowelment by spork was. He vowed never to use a gun-except on himself, but even that was hard to do.

After all, he hadn't found any answers last time.

Johnny didn't much like killing. He had to kill them. They were the scum of the planet, the bane of countless unfortunates' existence. They tormented him, ridiculed him, thought nothing of causing an innocent person irreparable damage. Parasites, they fed on others' pain and grew stronger with each mental scream from their victims. They desrved to die for their sins.

That, and because he had to feed the Wall, and he would rather use the blood of irritants.

Johnny didn't like people. In fact, most of them he downright loathed. They were a constant source of irritation, always saying exactly the wrong thing. Very few of the humanoid creatures Johnny came in contact with did not deserve to have their intestines pulled out through their mouths and be strangled with said intestines. The select ones he deemed "good" always went away.

The good ones never stayed for long, and they left behind a greater void than the one they tried to fill.

Johnny hated sleep. The mere closing of his eyelids left him nearly breathless with fear. Any time he fell asleep, he woke up with that horrible sense of disorientation. He didn't know where he was or how he'd gotten there. At times, he couldn't remember who he was for a few seconds. There was always that fear of never regaining the shreds of certainty he valued above all else.

And of course, sleep rendered him defenseless.

Johnny never really felt happiness. Those brief glimmers of some emotion not entirely negative in nature were always only the beginning of more pain. He tried to find something that would make him happy, but his own fear of the inevitable descent always destroyed any chance he ever had.

But of course, try as he might, there was no way to erase the emotion, no way to become the insect he so admired.

Johnny...didn't see the world as beautiful. He always saw its flaws, the pain, the sadness. As desperately as he wanted to see something innocent, all he found was the sad faces of those so young, yet already so corrupted. He saw nothing beautiful. Just the horror that was the lives of Johnny and the people around him. And if anything beautiful did exist, he had probably destroyed it himself years ago.

Then again, maybe he just didn't know where to look.

Johnny liked children. The infants were too naive to see the horrors of the world around them. They held no promise, but their brief innocence was a small spark of light in the darkness of Johnny's mind. He knew that by the time they reached adulthood, they would probably turn into the ones he so hated, but for now they were good. And as hard as he tried to keep them from turning into monsters, his efforts always ended the same-madness or fury.

Maybe that was why parents kept their children so far out of reach.

Johnny loved to paint a long time ago. He loved the feeling of creating a living, breathing work of art on a canvas, the rich colors making the image come to life. The pictures in his head were unleashed through the brushes, the paints, and they came out screaming. He could almost remember the times when he worked until he finally passed out at his easel, the effort exhausting but worth it. Even the paint coating his arms and face was a source of joy, evidence of his favorite pastime. He loved to bear the label of artist.

But of course, Johnny hadn't painted for a long time.

Johnny died a long time ago. It was an accident. Sort of. He hadn't really meant to pull the trigger again. He had threatened to, had held delusions that he would free himself from his personal hell, but something in him knew that he would never carry through with it. But that time, he had made a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes. Usually, though, the mistakes people make aren't enough to kill them.

But it didn't really matter, as they sent him back anyway.

Johnny never found the answers he was looking for. Not really, anyway. He was given an answer, but not THE answer. Some things are just not meant to be known. That wasn't much of a consolation for him, but it was still something. The question that had consumed him so long ago simply faded away, leaving behind yet another void, another blow to the fragile shell he had become.

In the end, he just stopped caring.

Johnny can't remember what happened to him years ago. His past ends at the day he moved into house 777. There is nothing behind that day. Johnny has always lived in house number 777. That's just how things go. He probably wouldn't have cared anyway whether he remembered anything at all. Perhaps living only today would have been better. Perhaps it would save him pain.

But he can't block it all out forever.

Johnny has changed since that day so long ago. His mind has warped to the point of implosion, and if he has a soul, it has retreated far into his being. Most of his tools lie rusting in the levels beneath the house, and only one of the rooms is still open. Johnny caved in the rest. He doesn't need such an extensive amount of space anymore. He has tried to pick up his paint brushes again, but no pictures want to be revealed.

Perhaps he hasn't changed as much as he thought.

Johnny still wonders what went wrong. All he ever finds is a blank canvas, a span of time that could yield the answer, time that he chose to forget. He will probably never fully remember that day, the day a kid snapped. And if he does, even he couldn't say if he would be able to handle it. The first time around, the consequences had been dire. Johnny never really wanted to pull the trigger. He had hated it so much that he never wanted to use a gun again. He hated it so much that he used it on the only thing he hated more-himself. Johnny can never be happy. He can never see the beauty in the people he sees every day. He can never escape himself, and he can never find the answer.

Johnny picked up his paints today. The image of a child breathed for the first time on a black canvas of pain and sadness. Haunted eyes mirrored the artist's as the brushes flew across the painting. Fatigue set in, but the fevered pace never slowed. The image refused to let him go until he was finished. And at last, his strength spent, Nny fell to the floor, as much paint drying on his figure as on his creation, and the image of a young boy on the verge of collapse smiled sadly out into the darkness.

author's note: hello again. i almost didnt add a note to this one...i really dont want to ruin the flow. i just thought i'd drop a quick word, say that i hope you liked this little exercise in insanity. i wrote this in about ten minutes of constant typing. it was weird. please to drop a review, and feel free to contact a neptunian psycho. au revoir, and again, hope you liked it.

raven, your friendly neptunian pyro
(oh, and by the way, i no ownie, you no sue me. )