Spoiler! :
“I was not born intrinsically evil,” he began, his grotesque mouth working as he spoke in a deep, guttural and almost primitive voice. I cringed at the disturbing sight of his crumbling, yellowed teeth, plucked by my own sinner’s hands from the yawning mouths of corpses. I instinctively recoiled from his hideous visage, made even more gruesome in the flickering firelight, sinking back on the wooden bench. If he noticed my reaction, he gave no indication, and continued on.
“As you must know by now, I was impressionable but pure when I was shocked into life. It was your kind that corrupted me, for the hated can feel nothing but hatred. To shun someone based on looks… it is a trait of your race I will never understand. So I fled. I knew that to stay would mean certain demise at the hands of either you or a herd of your fellows. And though I realized this early on, I still narrowly escaped that village with my newly minted life.
“For a while, I survived on the outskirts of the village, stubbornly clinging to the environment I’d briefly grown used to. There was a cave… in the middle of a shroud of trees… that shielded me from the civilization that scorned me, burned me. I subsided on a diet of vegetables, torn from neighboring farms, and forest game, which I was able to capture with my bare hands. For a bit everything was peaceful; but every so often I would visit… I would check up on you, Doctor, from a safe distance. I was cataloguing your behavior, trying to discern what would make you accept me, embrace me as your creation who, ultimately, would only do good if good was beseeched of me-“
Here I interrupted. “You watched me?” He sheepishly nodded, if sheepishness was possible upon such odious features. I was rendered speechless by my horror; tingles crept along my spine, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as a thousand unseen eyes crawled along my skin. The wind whistled a lonely tune outside the crude hut, and mist oozed underneath the door, spinning across the floor in ropy tendrils before dissipating in the heat of the dancing fire. I was acutely aware of my pounding heart and shallow breaths, but I refused to let the daemon’s presence cause me to flee.
“I lived in that cave for a great while,” he continued, his voice cracked and dry, like that of bones scraping together in a graveyard concerto. One brown eye, yellowed with age, watched me with a detached interest, while the other, blue like a flash of lightning, lolled off to the side, staring blankly at the fire. “Days blended together, scattered intermittently with nighttimes and dawns. All that time I toiled away, waiting for the day when you would come looking, either in hatred or in love, to end my life or resume being a part of it.
“I had all but given up hope that I would ever interact with the human race again. I resigned myself to the fate of a hermit in the woods, to die alone. Then one day, while the sun was just beginning its slow ascent into the dewy morning sky, I heard a thundering in the forest, the unfamiliar cadence of inexpert human footsteps over the vegetation. With soaring spirits I peeked out of my cave, though I made sure the shadows still shrouded my baleful face.
“To my surprise, my mismatched eyes beheld a little boy, tromping through the underbrush in the way that boys are wont to do, with little regard for the precious forms of life encompassed therein. He was fair-haired and pale, and I’m regretful I didn’t notice the resemblance then. I was so thirsty for human interaction… my throat ached to talk, my hands twitched with the desire to gesticulate, my brain craved the unique experience of conversation.” He – it-- let out a sigh, and the musty scent of decay filled the room, causing my eyes to water and my own throat to itch. I turned away and gagged silently.
“I had high hopes for this boy. I thought… I believed… I was foolish enough to presume that a child, yet untouched by the scathing remarks and prejudices of society, might be just the companion to rekindle my interaction with mankind. I crept into the revealing sunlight, hoping that the dawning light would be softer, kinder to my guileless features than high noon. The child turned slowly, his head swiveling around to register what movement befell his young ears.
“Whatever hopes I had harbored were shattered like so many mirrors when I gazed upon the look of horror upon his innocent face. He stumbled backwards a few steps—tried to scream—but nothing came out. Realizing my miscalculation, I attempted to reach out to the boy, to show him that I meant no harm. I look back on that moment with sincere regret… I see now through the eyes of that young boy, my threatening, seven-foot stature looming near… I see where I went astray in my intentions. But at the time the only thing I could consider was reconciliation, my one chance at humanity slipping through my grasp like water through a sieve.
“He worked out a scream, then, that sent a flock of ravens flapping into the air. I, too, took a step back, but it was too late. The boy scrambled to his feet… one sneaker, I recall, became lodged in a root, but he left it behind in his haste. He took off, a fledgling of the forest… towards the ravine. I believe I shouted; I could not believe this was happening, how quickly my plans could unravel and spin out of control. I started after him, but he’d already tripped… fallen…onto a sharp and unforgiving rock. I knelt, shook his shoulders, but he flopped in my unwieldy hands, a mere puppet of his former lively self. I could do nothing, Doctor, creator, you must believe me.”
His hands, his giant, gnarled hands, were spread in a pleading position in front of him, as if he- it- could feel remorse. The same hands, a patchwork of corpses, held my brother in his last moments of life. My brother, my sweet and innocent little brother, died in the hands of a monster, a daemon, of my own creation. As my blood boiled over with anger and my head spun with the promise of revenge, I knew I could not ever forgive myself for this abomination. But I could, at the very least, avenge my brother and destroy the monster I had shocked into life.
“I cannot forgive you for this,” I hissed, speaking both to the daemon and myself, my eyes narrowed to slits, and I bounded out of my seat. Shocked at first, he quickly rose as well, squaring his enormous body against my own slight one. Right before he brought his club-like fists down upon my skull, I saw his expression harden as the last of his humanity fled his sorrowful soul, leaving nothing but the seeds of violence and hatred, planted by an ignorant society and reared by cruel rejection.
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