Episode: 2.2

--- Molly Abigail Grimm ---

The shadows creeped closer, as the scent of blood grew stronger.

She swallowed down her apprehension, as she set the blade down and leaned back in the tub.

(Just have to… have to wait now…)

Unfortunately having to wait meant having to think about the reasons she was doing something so drastic. And given these thoughts had been spinning in her head for several months already…

She was sad. The dark thoughts wouldn’t leave her alone even as she finally gave in…

Once upon a time she’d been a happy girl, something more than the pale shadow that drifted through life that she now was, and if life was kind, she’d still be that way…

Sadly…

(Life isn’t kind.)

It began a few years prior, around the time she’d gotten to high school really.

After her mom died, her father decided to take a company promotion he’d been passing on, for her sake.

And so, she was moved away from the city she grew up in, from the people she called friends, and the place she called home.

Of course, due to moving to a new city so soon after her mother’s death, she became depressed and withdrawn…

(And as everyone knows, a new transfer student who keeps their distance, just has to be a Deviant with parents covering for them…)

And once those rumors were running, her chance at a fresh start ran away with them.

At first it was the kids racist against Deviants, picking fights, laughing at her, stealing her homework, or just making life harder in general.

The first time it got bad enough that she needed help, she would’ve gotten a teacher’s help, but… There was a time about a month in, when one of the teachers had seen a group of kids trip her down a flight of stairs… the bastard just watched.

She tried going to other teachers, to report the bullies or the teacher, at that point she honestly didn’t care, as long as someone got punished, and of course it turned out half-the faculty was anti-Deviant and thought there was nothing wrong with the other party’s behaviors.

(Because it turns out it’s perfectly acceptable to beat up the kid who might be able to murder everyone horrifically. Who knew?)

Of course, people eventually realized, she wasn’t a Deviant when she didn’t lash out with her ‘Deviancy,’ (though that didn’t stop the bullying.)

She let out a dry laugh.

By the time everyone realized she wasn’t a Deviant she had already spent three months as the publicly accepted punching bag, and at that point it didn’t really matter.

What’s worse was she already knew the teachers wouldn’t help her, after all to do so would be admitting what they did was wrong… And it was easier to pretend something didn’t happen if there was no paper trail on their end saying it did.

She’d hoped one day they’d wise up to how petty they were, to the fact none of it mattered, that they’d stop. Or that one of the faculty would put aside their prejudices, act like an adult and, and help her, but… but… (they didn’t…)

She tried fighting, and they’d just hurt her worse.

She tried getting help, and… and…

(Nobody cared…)

She grit her teeth together.

(That’s not true…)

Her friends from back home had cared, (the few who bothered to stay in touch anyway.)

It was a problem, she’d known it would be, keeping in touch with everyone half way across the country, so she knew out of her dozen or so friends, she’d end up losing touch with all but the most important, her truest friends.

She had one.

When everyone else eventually quit calling her… Charlotte didn’t.

For over a year, Charlotte called her near nightly, always checking in, always making sure she was okay, or going on about her day.

For over a year, she was Molly’s only friend, even if they argued about certain… things…

She’d be the first to admit, Charlotte was something of a bully herself, never to her, but still when a girl with a caustic sense of humor, a stubbornness that could move mountains, and an inability to care what people thought about her, met the public… there was friction. The kind that didn’t stop until the other person caved.

She never said, but it kind of stung knowing her best friend was like the girls at her new school.

Then again Charlotte may’ve been sarcastic, with a positively vicious mean streak, but the one time in elementary when she’d actually hurt someone, made them breakdown cry in front of her, she spent an entire month trying to make it up to the girl.

(It was how we became friends…)

Of course, knowing her best friend had that spark of good deep down, she tried to talk her into being more patient with the people around her, that

Sadly, Charlotte had problems understanding other people, so she had trouble changing, though Molly was sure she’d gotten better. At least a little.

Still it was the same problems that caused them to argue. Charlotte just couldn’t understand her issues with her bullies, telling her to ‘Stand up and put those bitches in their place!’ a solution that… didn’t work out well for her. Something she couldn’t bring herself to tell Charlotte, to let her know her advice just made things worse, a scenario that would inevitably hurt the other girl…

And of course, the facts that Charlotte, despite her best intentions, had trouble understanding the first issue, and that she’d kept the consequences of said issue quiet, made it significantly harder for Molly to bring up her other problems… with making new friends… with feeling abandoned by her old… with her… with her father.

Maybe if she had talked to her about it, thing’s could’ve been different.

Maybe Charlotte could’ve helped her with the other things, helped her get somewhere… somewhere better than what she had.

(No, it’s too late for that…)

She shook her head, before letting out a dry laugh.

(Especially since, Charlotte quit calling three months ago…)

Maybe… Maybe the bullying and abandonment wouldn’t have been so bad if she had somewhere, she could be herself, someplace with good memories, someplace she could make new friends… (but all of those places were back home…)

At first she thought she could find someplace of her own she could go to, and she did go out a few times, only… by then her confidence had already been dragged through the mud, so wherever she went she just sat on the sidelines, unable to do anymore than watch as people laughed with their friends. All the while wishing she could join them, make new friends, but knowing she’d just be intruding if she walked up to them out of nowhere.

Eventually it became too much for her, watching other people have the friendship she craved so desperately, until finally she quit going out altogether.

And day after day of abuse, and unable to bring herself to go anywhere else, she’d go to the one place she had left… home.

Not that she’d call it a home…

Maybe if her mom was still alive, she could. But… as it was… she, she just couldn’t.

At first, she thought she’d be okay because she still had her dad… until she realized he loved her mother more than her.

She knew of the two of them, her mom was the one who wanted kids, but she never quite understood just what that meant, until her mom was gone. And all the smiles she saw whenever she and her mother were together just… disappeared.

Eventually she realized, those smiles never were for her, that her father… he…

(He didn’t want me.)

And with that revelation the world grew a little colder as she realized more and more… odd things about her home life.

Her father was always working, sometimes spending the night at the office.

At first, she wrote it off as him trying to keep the bills paid, that she had never really wanted for anything, that he was one of those people who had trouble expressing their affection naturally, so they tried to do so with gifts.

Only… he never technically gave her anything.

She just knew the passwords for the delivery service he used to keep the food stocked, and the one he used to buy anything else. Sure, she added things to the lists every now and again, and he never commented about that, but… he never actually handed her a gift, himself.

Hell, a few months prior she didn’t bother ordering anything for her birthday… thinking maybe he’d react, or wonder why she didn’t order a cake or something when he showed up…

(Too bad he didn’t show up…)

In fact, she spent an entire week worried something happened to him, and when she did finally see him, perfectly fine, she realized… it wasn’t the first time she went a week without seeing him.

He left the same day, apparently only wanting something he had stored away in his room.

(He didn’t even say goodbye.)

In the end, she didn’t either.

With the bullies wearing her down.

An entire city that made her feel like an outsider.

Her… empty home.

(The loneliness…)

In the end, she just wanted it all to stop.

And finally, after a particularly bad week, after seeing her father come and go without a word, after having another microwavable dinner alone, after crying herself to sleep…

She decided to make it stop.

Her eyes opened briefly to watch the clouds of red growing in the water.

Her thoughts were beginning to slow down, though of course her mind had just enough power left to remind her of the one truth of her life that…

(…there is no hope…)

A single tear fell down her cheek, as she closed her eyes, waiting for the end, and resigned to keep living through her worst memories, even in her final moments.

No matter how much she wished she was remembering her mother’s smile, or her

(Mine.)

[…]

Her eyes shot open as she felt a presence drifting just at the edge of her consciousness.

She sat up, her eyes dashing all around as she tried to find the thing hidden as if hiding just outside of her awareness, just an inch past where she could see, a wall further than she could hear, and less than a breath from where she could feel.

(What…?)

(Mine.)

[Desire…] the presence asked, its, not its voice, but whatever it used to communicate brushing against her very psyche, asking her what it was she desired, with the promise that it would give her anything she wanted.

A promise she couldn’t bring herself to doubt.

She leaned back not really sure what she wanted…

(Mine.)

(That’s not true…)

She knew she wanted her mom back, that she wanted Charlotte back, that she wanted all of her friends back, that she just wanted to know her dad to loved her…

But most of all… she just wanted the pain to stop…

(Mine.)

[Agreement…] the presence told her in a tone of finality.

The entity reached out to her, and as its power began to touch her very soul, she saw a being vaster than anything else, its shape so impossibly incomprehensible, that-

(Mine!)

She blinked, at the odd sound.

Before her eyes glazed over once more as the entity continued reaching for her.

(MINE!)

[Confusion…] The entity itself seemed to pause, noticing the sound, before-

“BOOM, BITCH GET OUT THE WAY!!!”

-being kicked away from her awareness by some new and significantly smaller entity.

“You wait for the next one,” the new entity seemed to yell at the old, “I don’t have the patience and I’m fucking bored!!!”

Even in her semi-conscious state, she found it a little odd this entity seemed to use actual English, rather than the psionic speech of the previous one.

“Alright, let’s do this quick I am sick of this place…” A chill ran down her spine as the new entity cast it’s focus on her, as if gazing into her very soul.

“Okay, let’s do this quick. You’re dying. I want out of this hell. You free me, I save your life, sound fair?” the entity offered at a near frantic pace.

Those terms were a little more understandable than the previous one’s non-verbal contract, but with the other entity’s influence dampened by distance, she couldn’t help but remember…

“I don’t wanna…”

She didn’t want to live.

“What?” the entity paused for a moment, before groaning, “Ugh, you’re a suicide case… Okay, okay… I’ll, uh, also, uh… Throw in the power to change whatever part of your life made you call it quits.”

(The power to change things…)

“Yes, now deal or no deal, because you’re clearly bleeding out. So, bit of a timer there, tick-tock, tick-tock…” the entity panicked.

She was bleeding out? Wasn’t that… what she wanted?

In a moment of clarity, caused by the first entity’s daze, and the light headedness from her blood loss she realized.

(No…) It wasn’t, not really…

“Urgh,” the entity whined in frustration, “Then what do you want?”

That was the question… if she didn’t want to die, then what did she want?

(She stood alone in the crowd, no one daring to near the pariah…)

(She ate alone at the table, no sound in her empty house…)

(She sat alone with a blade to her skin…)

It came to her easily enough, now that she thought about it.

(I… I don’t… I don’ want to be alone… want… Charlotte back…)

“Fine, fine, I’ll help you get your friend back. Anything, else?” the entity asked impatiently.

“No…” she told the entity, her eyes growing heavy.

“So, we have a deal then?”

She was too tired to even think of an answer. What was the question?

Her eyes drifted shut.

“Shit. No, don’t die yet!”

Why was the voice yelling?

“Say yes!!!”

(So tired…) She wanted to sleep.

“Please, say yes, or deal, or anything!”

Could she sleep?

“Say something, I’ll take anything as a yes. Come on I’ll be your best friend forever!!!”

“Shhleeeepy…”

“YES!!!”