ACT 2 START

WARNING THIS CONTAINS BLOODY IMARGY AND MENTIONS OF SELF HARM AND SELF NEGATIVITY

If someone asked me what I was most familiar with, I would answer with the smell of my own blood.

It is not as dramatic as it seems. I tend to get injured and hurt a lot throughout my entire life and thanks to my ‘ability,’ I can generally recover fairly well from it. In most cases, I would not even get a scar on my body.

The sources of my injuries tend to come from my carelessness and other times my obstinacy and disobedience. Some things I, fortunately, outgrew a long time ago.

I dislike being in pain, but... I deserve it.

I have always deserved it and when I saw what I had done to Auntie Laura, to smell her blood instead of my own for the first time.

To reach, as much as I tried to hide it and pretend to not feel it, such a state of euphoria, it took days for me to come down to my sinful senses. Her screams sent a shiver down my spine.

I’m disgusting.

I deserved what they do to me.

As I stared back at that ugly reflection in the water, licking away the familiar red liquid from my heavily bitten fingers, and numbly watched as the bleeding stopped and the mangled fingernails gradually healed. I realized it would take longer than usual for them to be fully back to their original state and not badly bruised.

“Loui! How long is this gonna take? “

That irritated voice snapped me back to reality.

How long was I standing here?

I was in the empty private kitchen. I turned to the stove, internally praying that I left nothing on during my time spaced out. Thankfully, I had already taken everything off the fire and was more or less waiting for the newly prepared braised lamb stew to cool off enough to serve.

“I’m coming, I’m coming, Cherry Berry, You don’t rush things like these,” I called out back to my brother, keeping away any negative thing I felt from my body language and tone. He did not deserve to get involved.

As I picked up the prepared bowl, my thoughts once again slipped away from me.

I got… I got my first friends involved instead… I got people who had nothing to do with anything involved, and now they are just as culpable as me.

“Earth to Loui, I thought you wanted me to taste test this,” Cherly’s voice brought me back once again.

“Oh sorry about that,” I chuckled, “I guess my mind is all over the place today.”

I ruffled the hair at the back of my head for good measure as Cherly dryly replied, “Loui, in all my years of knowing you, your mind has never been in ONE place.”

Cherly took a spoonful of the meal and took the stew into his mouth, and not even a moment passed when his eyes widened at the taste and the spoon immediately went in for another.

I leaned over and gave him a sly smile, “So, I think it’s okay enough to serve? I was planning to give it to some stray dogs outside.”

Cherly gave me a sharp glare at my mere suggestion, “You would do no such thing, period.”

I smiled innocently, “So meal for everyone?”

Cherly sighs, “Loui, I do not know why you even bother with taste testing, you make lunch better than the maids here, to be honest.”

“What can I say, I’m insecure about my cooking skills.”

Cherly rolls his eyes as he waggles his spoon accusatorial at me, “Sure you are. Loui, next time learn to tell a more convincing lie. Because I’m rating that lie a 2 out of 10.”

With that, he smirked, and we laughed at the whole thing.

Cherly was my brother, 11 months apart, always entwined with me at the hip. Even when he was at that boarding school to ‘straighten him out’.

We still tried to be close.

Thus… I would lie.

Lie, my best 10/10 lie, I do not deserve him.

He does not deserve to know what I’m doing, will do, or going to do.

And I would make sure he never will.