Cold Blood

❥ Chapter Seven ❥

Written by ChemicalWonderland

Ash's POV

The first time I ever prayed it was a dark, stormy night. Howling wind abraded my bedroom window outside, and scraggly branches scratched at the glass like a screeching monster. It was September 23rd, 2005, a Friday. I will always remember this date better than my birthday, or any anniversary. And that's because it was the night it all started to fall apart. It was the night I started praying.

Getting down beside my bed on my little legs, I held my clammy kid hands together and rested my head against my comforter. At first, I wasn't exactly sure what to do. I'd heard about this strange thing called praying, but had no idea what it was.

"Um, hello," I said quietly into the dark, feeling increasingly stupid. No one was listening to me. So I decided to do it inside my head instead.

I prayed for it to end. For everything to end. I wanted my parents back, my friends back, but I knew it was futile. Even if there was some magical being hiding himself in the sky, why would he care about me? Yet I prayed anyway. And continued to pray. Night after night, year after year, until it became a daily ritual.

And of course my life didn't improve much, in fact it got worse. I used to be able to eat leftovers from my parents' food, but now had been restricted to only moldy, expired bits that they had scrounged around for in the trash. Eventually I got used to the disgusting things I was forced to eat, only eating for the sake of surviving, which I wasn't doing a very good job at either. When I looked in the mirror, I could see the outline of my ribs, and my arms and legs were like sticks. I was clearly malnourished, not that my parents cared very much.

I also used to be able to sleep in my own room, but was soon forced into a cramped closet that reeked and was covered in dust. My muscles ached from being forced into such a confined space, but I was so skeletal that I could still fit.

I thought that was bad enough, and as the days passed by slowly, I spent most of my time praying to fate. Praying for my situation to change, for some saving grace. But that grace never seemed to come.

I trudged on, forcing myself to eat stale food and having nightmares about dark closets. I can't say I was really living. I was just breathing. Wake up, eat, pray, breathe. Each motion I made was disconnected and emotionless, and I learned that I'd rather be disconnected from my thoughts than alone with them. This was my life.

And then, one morning, everything seemed to get worse. My mother had opened up the closet door where I was sleeping and stared at me with cold green eyes like icicles.

"Son," was all she said as she grabbed me roughly by the arm and dragged me to the basement.

At first, I was confused. And a little bit scared, but I figured, what's the worst thing that could happen? I was about to find out.

As soon as we reached the bottom of the stairs, I saw my father standing in the middle of the room. He had a dead expression on his face, his emerald green eyes staring back into mine. I have my parents eyes, and sometimes I wish I didn't. It's a reminder of everything I've endured, and whenever I look into a mirror I feel like he's staring right back.

He held a thick leather belt in his hand, gripped tightly by his pearly white knuckles. My face paled at the sight, and I assumed he was going to beat me with it. I had suffered some minor beatings from my parents before but mostly they just neglected me.

"Come here," he said, beckoning to a chair behind him that I hadn't noticed until he pointed it out.

I'll never forget that chair. It was an old rocking chair that creaked with each movement, made of chipped wood. Some fancy patterns were carved into it, patterns I have memorized simply by the feel of their imprints on my back and arms. I practically lived in that chair.

Being naive and still having the pathetic desire to please my parents beneath my fear and hatred of them, I did as I was told. I watched, just watched, as he strapped the belt across my chest and to the chair. I watched as he sealed me into my figurative prison, doing absolutely nothing to retaliate.

Once he was done, he nodded at my mother and she went into another part of the basement, disappearing into the darkness. By this point, I was extremely nervous, practically shaking. I remember praying to fate. C'mon fate, if there's any time to act, it's now.

But nothing happened. My mother returned with a metal tray with a variety of tools on them. Tiny little hammers, small surgical knives, and a bunch of other things I didn't recognize.

"W-what are those f-for?" I remember asking, my voice breaking in nervousness.

My father had simply smiled in response, which neither answered my question nor helped calm my nerves.

Screams would soon fill the basement for hours.

The first thing he said to me before he grabbed a bucket of bleach was, "This might sting a little," before pouring it over my head.

At first, I felt totally numb, a cold sensation washing over my skin that seemed to swathe me in a smooth blanket. But the next moment, everything was just fire. Not that I was literally on fire, but I felt as though I was, burns starting to form on my pale skin as I screamed. It was like red flames licking my entire body, consuming me entirely in sweltering, boiling heat. Never before had I felt such pain, and it wouldn't be the last time I would feel that kind of pain.

Screaming and howling and making cries that sounded very unhuman, like some monster, I yelled at my parents. Salty tears streamed down my hollow cheeks and into my mouth, and snot dripped from my nostrils. I was covered in my own sweat and tears and snot and blood and burns and. . . everything.

That's the day I changed.

When the remaining bleach had been wiped from my skin and my tears had dried, after what felt like days trapped in the eternal fire, I turned on my father.

"WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME!?" I screamed, pulling against the belt across my chest that dug into my ribs.

He didn't reply, just stared at me without saying any words, as if he really didn't care. Maybe the only thing he did care about was my pain. I vowed to kill him.

Things quickly progressed from then on. I received cuts and scars that I still have to this day, bloody and bruised. I was forced to take pills and drink house cleaning agents, pricked with needles and cigarettes and every sharp object imaginable. Parts of my body are stitched up, still bearing a mark of remembrance. I was chained to a wall like a dog and spit at and punched, and I actually dreamed of my closet upstairs. I was cut with razor blades and my fingers and toes were broken many times until I could hardly walk. One time my shoulder got dislocated because I was shoved against a wall so hard by my mother. But each time, I recovered somehow. My bruises healed, my scars became easier to conceal. Once I was nearly strangled to death by my father, but he let go at the last moment and decided to just drench me in bleach again as punishment.

My eyes have been poked with needles, my chest has been branded, my wrists have been slit just enough for me to stay alive. I've been tied up in all kinds of ways, beaten all over my body. This has gone on for 20 years. And it would've continued, if not for the guy who saved my life.

Everett.

The morning my life changed forever, I had prayed especially hard. Praying was an annoying habit I couldn't let go of. I prayed that my parents would die. And for once, fate listened.

The sound of the bullets sinking into their heads was a noise I will relish in. Seeing them dead was beautiful. All their hatred, all their actions, were finally put to rest. The scars will remain on my alabaster skin, like words carving a poem across my body.

I just wish it was me who had shot them, up close and personal. To see the crimson blood from afar was euphoric, but to see it up close. . . oh god. I know I am a monster for thinking this, but I do not care. I do not feel anger. I do not feel sadness. I only feel fire. Like the deep burning sensation I felt that night, the bleach searing through my flesh. I want to feel the fire because now it's a god-like sensation, one that brings power.

And as I look at the man across from me with the crystal blue eyes and dark hair as black as the night sky, I can put a name to that fire. Everett. He is power. He is a god. And I want to be just like him.

I am a monster.