Monster

A monster, they called him. A freakish person, doomed to never understand the term "human". He had always been different from others, seeing things in a light that most people never bothered understanding. But she did. She was the only one who understood him, who took care of him when his father left them. He knew that she was upset, but she put forth all of her effort into taking care of him. He knew he had made her hurt more than his father ever did. But she still loved him regardless, and raised him.

She fell sick not too long after his 12th birthday. "It'll be okay, _____," she had told him. He soon learned to care for her as well as himself. Her condition became worse, spiraling closer and closer to the end. As he stood beside her bed, she told him "Smile when you feel down, it can help you remember the good things in the world." He had cried and hugged her for saying this, for both knew that she had little time left. The next day, when he visited her, he found her asleep in her bed.
He hugged her and sat down beside her. He stayed like that for a few hours until the doctor came in. As he did, his eyes widened and he began yelling for a nurse.

He was confused. She was sleeping peacefully, so why were they panicking? He looked over to her and frowned. She wasn't waking up. The realization crept up on him. He grabbed her shoulder and shook her, but she was still asleep. Her head bounced a little and went to the side. He cried out to her, but it was too late. She was pronounced dead minutes later. As he was being driven to her funeral, he remembered something she had told him: to smile when he felt down and to remember the good times. He did his best to remember and smile, for her sake. But no one else thought of it as such. They whispered about him, about how her own son was smiling at her funeral. He tried to ignore the whispers, but he couldn't. He began crying, all the while smiling and trying his hardest to remember the good in the world.

Years passed, and he could never forget her words. He hated mirrors because of them. He hated having to look at his own pitiful smile. Whenever he looked into them, he would see himself, smiling back. One day, he finally snapped. He had woken up and gone to the bathroom to get ready. As he looked into the mirror, he saw it once again, that smile. That damned, cursed smile. He looked to it's eyes. All he saw was pity. Directed at him. Something inside him snapped, and he began bashing the mirror with his fists. All the while, he screamed of his resentment, of his hatred, of his sadness. When he came back to his senses, he looked at his hands. They were bleeding profusely and there were several large gashes across them. He looked up toward the mirror, not realizing that he had fallen to the floor. It was shattered, with cracked webs spreading from where his fists had impacted it. From the remains, he saw his reflection again. It was the same as always, but it also seemed to be laughing directly at him. (Useless garbage) it said to him. (You should never have been born). He closed his eyes and cried for the first time in years. He could never escape himself, no matter how much he wanted to. He could never escape his monster.