Chapter :1 Alone

Alone is something I have always been. Not so much in the physical sense , I have a family. Well family is a term I use loosely , suffice to say my parents aren't quite up to the task of my upbringing. Seeing as both of them aren't quite mentally stable to begin with. Drug addiction would do that to you, methamphetamine was the poison of their choice. I don’t really think I've ever seen them off it, then again I haven't truly know them that long, our conversations usually end with some form of physical trauma being inflicted on me or abusive language. A child my age would cry loudly, but I have long since learnt that it makes it worse, trying to be as quite has reduced the frequency of my beatings considerably. don’t make too much noise , don’t ask for anything that you can't do yourself and keep your head down. these are the words I've lived by for my short existence here on this planet. Due to the nature of my relationship with my parents, my social skills are less then stellar , so I sit In our corner of the room ,with my knees to my chest staring into the rotting wooden floorboards of my "home". Well I say my home, but in actuality I doubt my parents have the funds necessary to own a house, seeing as we tend to move from place to place I guess we don’t really have a home. but for now this dilapidated bungalow in the slums is mine. not the prettiest place, but then again I have no reference of what a "good" home is. beats sleeping outside I guess, but not by much.

From the cracked glass window I can see the slow fall of snow, a low blanket of white covers the broken uneven asphalt road, it seems road maintained isn't on the list of important things for the government in this area, who can blame them honestly no one cares about these people not even themselves. there are quite a few people outside, it's not quite evening yet, the sun has yet to set on another evening in the slums, the light burns the sky orange making me feel a sense of awe of the beauty of the world through my shattered viewing glass. my ears perk up to the sound of a shifting body inside my house, it tears me away from the scenic view outside

My birth mother is sleeping in her camping roll, I get a ragged patch worked cloth, I'm starting to think they don’t want me around, especially as the patchwork was done by me ,my hands still bear the scars of my achievement. She doesn’t seem to have woken up quite yet, I try not to move too much. the way they live their lives means they sleep lightly and the consequences of wakening them up will not be pleasant for me at all. So I sit there trying not to breath to loudly for fear of waking her up. moments pass and she stops stirring. I release the breath I was holding in relief, I don’t want to be hit again, my eye is still swollen up from yesterdays beating. it seemed my father found out that his stash of money was beginning to dwindle , leading him to be poorer than before, if that were even possible.

How does he get his money ? I ask myself delving back into my mind again. he has no skills that would make him employable to anyone, his appearance doesn’t exactly suit that of a working man. he owns a firearm that he keeps on his person at all times so it isn't a stretch to imagination it is involved in his trade to some extent. He brings in money is varying amounts so either he sells some of the drugs he gets or he might be committing some form of robbery . either way my father is not going to win any awards for being a model citizen. I am surprised in honesty that were still alive with the money he brings in. it barely supports him and my birth mother.huh ? him and my birth mother, ha even in my thoughts I don’t count myself in with them. I honestly don’t understand why they've kept me around . I guess it helped when I was a child, my birth mother would use me to gain money when I was still small and cute. guess everyone cares about the baby and the poor woman begging for money. it worked less and less as I grew older, I'm still sure I net a higher amount of money by simply standing by my birth mother whilst she tries to get money but it’s a smaller amount than I would have got when I was younger . that was another reason for them abusing me, I guess they’ve been victims all their life and they found something that is even more useless then them they're more than happy to vent their frustrations out on me. I would leave but as much as I hate them I need them, they give me the scraps of what they don’t need, which isn't much but it keeps me going. No that’s a lie, I could leave they wouldn’t try to find me, I could seek help and id find it, a better life could be mine if I just leave it all behind. but I don’t. I won't.

As alone as I am here will be even more alone out there. another lie . trying rationalizing my own cowardice , I'm sacred. so very afraid that what I find out there might even be worse than what I find here. I don’t know for a fact but just the threat of being even more alone out there is just about enough to silence my thoughts of a leaving. its irrational but it's something I cannot shake. bound to these people by my own shackles and fears. I don’t want to be even more alone.

The front door is thrown open, the screech of the rusted hinges causes e to jolt out of my daze, my birth mother shoots up awake. My eyes travel to the door . My father stood in the doorway his disheveled hair looking even more disorderly than usual, my eyes widen. my birth father was not an attractive by means, a receding hairline, scruffy brown beard a terrible comb over, short fuse and general bad attitude made him the type of person you'd walk down the street to avoid passing by even if it made your overall journey longer. well it wasn’t his less than pleasing appearance that caused my eyes to widen it was the blood on his ragged faded green overcoat that made me do that. my mind blazed into action I could feel my gears turning as my brain raced to process the information.

Father . panting for air , he's run considerably exhausted his body. Pupils dilated, he's in shock ? Gun in hand, blood splashed on the barrel of the revolver , indicating it's been fired at a close range to the target as backed up by the splash of blood on his front side , wounds on his face and tears on his sleeves shows struggle. All leads up to one thing. My father has shot someone and he is panicking.

It's strange seeming him not look so confident and smug, if the situation was less severe I would be laughing at the gap in my reception of him. My birth mother is up her blond hair looking as bad as my father , he words come out with a whistle of air through the gap in her front incisor

"what happened?"she manages to speak out after her initial shock wears off

My birth father moves into the house quickly , slams the door in , pushes aside the couch and begins to pry at the floorboards.

"Jesus, Marry ", he speaks out in a panic stricken voice "fucking cop , the guy was a fucking cop.

Greg said he was good, HE WAS A FUCKING COP" he all but shouts out at the end. My birth mother is less than happy at his reply and grabs his hand stopping him from tearing out the floorboard.

"what do you mean" she screams

"The fuck do you think it means you crazy bitch" he screams

They both start screaming at each other . I watch on in horror as I realize what this means, my father killed another person. Now this wouldn’t normally mean much to me, one begins to lose value in the sanctity of life once shown the ugly face of humanity. I've seen people do terrible things murder is one of the least troubling things I've seen in my terribly short life. But this time it's different. When a person dies in the slums no one bats an eye, nobody cares these people are hardened by life's worst experiences if anything the dead ones are luckier to get out of this hellhole. Now law enforcement , people care about. That’s not to say they're angels themselves I've seen a number of horrors committed by them too. But cops have a code, not too long ago one of my father's "friends" killed a police officer. A few hours later they came in mass. I hid away and watched as they tore the slums apart looking for them. they didn’t leave for 3 days. Searching every corner even to this day the police influence is greater here, now that I think about it I wasn’t allowed out much after that.

I stopped spinning off in a tangent and got my thoughts together and came to one conclusion. they're coming for us and they're going to come now. Snapping back from my thoughts I see my father has pried up those floorboards. He reaches inside and pulls out a box wrapped up in white cloth. Knowing my father its probably money or drugs… definitely both.

My birth mother is in hysterics , clearly she hadn't quite come to terms her..husband? boyfriend? The true dynamics of their relationship is never really bought up, I don’t really know how they do differentiate between the two. But considering that most of my knowledge about anything is picked up here and there I suppose it doesn’t really matter at all . Anyway my birth mother isn't calm and she's panicking , I guess it's weird not to panic in this situation?

"Cop? you killed a cop? what the fuck Rick" she yells into my father's face as she clings on to his arm. "What are we going to do? fuck, fuck ,fuck"

"Calm down you stupid bitch" he said removing his arm from her grip rather forcefully. he isn't exactly calm himself… "We just need to leave . Now" he grabs her hand and begins to drag her to the door. "I know where Tim and his bitch went , the fucker owes me so if we can just leave th-"

"What about the kid Rick" my birth mother remembers me.

My birth father seems to recall my presence, but I'm still too lost in thought to notice his gaze.

I know how this ends, the only reason my father's friend got any was sheer dumb luck. Police never came to the part of the neighbourhood before but now they come more frequently. were bound to get caught . I'm going to be all alone. By myself . Fear trickles into my body, panic sets in. I was unconcerned about the fate of another person but my own fear of loneliness elicits horror in me.

If my mind was calm I'd think how selfish I was, how messed up my own sense of morals were. nut my mind isn't calm, it isn't. So I freeze up. I don’t move , my mind grinds to a stop, I hear nothing , my eyes are open but I see nothing. All senses lost , just emptiness…. and then.

Like a splash of cold water, I find myself back to the house, the smell of rotting wood, the sound of creaking floorboards , the feeling of my back against the tattered wall paper covered wall, the feeling of weightlessness on my body…weightlessness? I look up. Instant regret. My birth father staring right into me. Angry. More than I've ever seen him.

"What? You think you're too good to talk to me? You ungrateful little shits stain, listen to me you fuck" he roars into my face , spittle flying in my direction his rank breath filling the space between us. He shakes me as his grip around my shoulders tighten. I stare back at him. I don’t know what he's shouting at me for but it seemed looking into his eyes was a bad idea.

"You grim faced little fucking bastard" A line he's called me many, many times. It took a while but I learnt that my face doesn’t show any outward emotion, none, I always have a cold and detached look on my face, no matter what I'm really feeling inside and it pisses my birth father off considerably. I never understood why. Until now that is.

"You always were a freaky little fuck, weren't you. So fucking weird" he continues. it seems his sense of urgency is being overshadowed by his feelings towards me. I'm almost flattered he'd think getting out of here was second to our father to son chat we are having. "Stop staring at me you beady eyed fuck". Or maybe he's just venting again.

No its different this time. The anger isn't going away, he's getting even more angry, it was plain to see his fury was turning into something much more sinister. My mind began to formulate an escape route. No good, can move. Struggling seems to have made it worse, he's past angry and just plain homicidal. His hands grasp around his throat my breaths stop, the pressure increases.

"I've always hated you , always staring you creepy shit, judging me with your eyes, you think I don’t see it? You think you're better than me ? You're fucking NOTHING, YOU HEAR ME,

NOTHING!!", he screams, his face distorted by his sheer hatred towards me. I struggle pointlessly, my legs kick out beneath me, my arms scratch his, my eyes started going dark , my struggles weakening. It dawns on me I can't escape his grip, he's stronger than me by a wide margin. I need help, my birth mother?

"Kill the shit Rick , it freaks me out the way he stares at us. KILL HIM!", (et tu mother?)she says as she laughs hysterically, guess all the bottled up aggression is broken and so is she.

No good, my vision is almost gone. I can feel my heart rate slow down, my hearing is getting fuzzy, their shouts become distant and soft. What have I done to deserve this? what have I done to be hated to so much. I just didn’t want to be alone, did I deserve to die because I didn't want that? I've never done anything to them, never said a word out of place, always kept my head down. I've never done anything to you so.. why..why are you hurting me

….why are you killing me…..

What..

…..Gives..

You..

…The…

Right.

I stop struggling .My father thinks he's done it. But then my eyes open fully.

And then, for the first time in my life. I experienced.

Rage