David had a fairly normal childhood. He had had a loving family who managed to see past the horns on his head and regarded him as a normal person. Certainly, he was teased and made fun of from time to time at school and so on, but he just shrugged them off as harmless comments. It stayed that way until he was about ten or so. Then, his life was destroyed.
They came for him one cold, lonely winter night. They shot him through both legs and dragged him into the back of a black van with no markings and smoked windows. Then they set fire to his house. His entire family, whom he depended on so much, were completely annihilated. That night, curled up in the back of the van in a pool of his own blood, was the first time he spoke to him. His other half. His shadow.
He looked like David, except that he was soulless, devoid of any emotion except numbing, biting hate. He spoke.
"Does it hurt?" He asked. David stared.
"Does it hurt?" His shadow asked again. David slowly nodded. His shadow smiled, a cold, pitiless slash of white.
"That's right," His shadow said, "Now tell me. Why does it hurt?"
To David, the answer was clear. "They took…everything…" He whispered, crying silently.
His shadow regarded him for a moment, then said, "Yes. They took everything. But you are not like them, David. You are infinitely superior to these vermin. If you wanted to, you could crush them without even thinking about it." He stopped to see David's reaction.
David simply stared back at him. His shadow sighed, a shallow, empty breath that reeked of pain and suffering. "This…is too soon. Your hatred is not mature. Soon, you will come to realise the true ugliness of all humanity. But until that time…" He left the sentence hanging, before he turned and vanished into thin air.
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For the next six years David was incarcerated deep within a secret research lab, although in reality it would be more accurately described as a massive torture chamber. It was here that David learned about his mysterious "talent". He had six vectors in all, making him pretty much average among the diclonius kept in the labs. He knew there were others of his kind there – he could sense them, but he never saw them except for brief periods when they were brought out for experimentation.
The experiments. Daily torture sessions, more like. One time, one of his peers had escaped from his bindings and gone on a massive killing spree, before he was brought down by a high calibre machine gun bullet to the head. David felt envious. He had died and gone to heaven, whilst he and countless others were trapped in hell. His shadow visited him more frequently now, trying to remind him of his suffering and begging him to use his powers to kill. David always refused, biding his time until he could find an opportunity to escape.
But someone else beat him to the punch. It was a normal, pain ridden day in the labs, when, all of a sudden, the lights and computer terminals died. A split second later, red tube lights came on overhead. A faulty fuse had short circuited the system, causing the backup generators to switch on. But there was a massive flaw in the system; everything was now on half power. Including the doors to the diclonius cells. It was only a matter of time until one of the stronger ones managed to pry the doors open.
Only one managed to do it, but one was enough. David was in the cell opposite her. The cell door exploded outwards with great force, partially crushing David's door as it cannoned outwards. She slipped out of the tiny room and ran towards the exit. She was naked, but it didn't matter. Soon she would be clothed in blood.
For the first time, David gave in. He summoned his vectors, effortlessly crushing the partially broken cell door. He turned out of the cell block and into the east wing, where the labs were. Here his attention was distracted by a lab worker, trying desperately to hide under a lab desk. David looked at him. His shadow spoke to him calmly.
"Isn't he pathetic?" He said. David nodded, realising for the first time that he actually was, cowering less than a metre away from him.
"Now…crush him." David calmly obeyed. He slammed all six vectors down on the man's chest, watching it disintegrate into its component parts. It felt…good… David slammed his head against a nearby wall, desperate to get rid of the sensation of killing someone – and feeling good about it.
The previous escapee had taken care of most of the guards, so he could move in relative safety. Eventually he reached the top floor. The wind caught him as he rose out of the stairwell, bringing with it the taste of salt – it was a sea breeze. As he looked around, he realised that he was on an island.
He slumped over. Was this the end? Was his escape really for nothing? He ran to the edge of the land, where the grassy slope fell away and was replaced by a sheer cliff face with the angry, rolling sea at the bottom. He looked back at the facility behind him, then down at the sea. Well, it was better than going back there. David summoned up all his courage, then jumped into the cold, all-cleansing sea.