The Ranch

Slumber Party (5)

(Warning: The Slumber Party Arc will talk about some dark and disturbing things. You've been warned)

They take a few moments before moving on to the next person, which is Pierre.

Pierre recalls his memories with a certain hint of disgust. "I was born into an upper-class family. My father had a couple mistresses on the side, with my mother being the main wife, so there were a few half-siblings, but we actually got along quite well and lived relatively peacefully. But, that was just among our generation.

Before the incident, I had my suspicions that my mother's mind was deteriorating. She would start muttering under her breath and would often bite her nails. I would find clumps of hair in the garbage, but I didn't think she was that far gone.

One day I heard crying coming from the kitchen. I go in to see my mother holding my newest step-sibling over a pot of boiling water.

I managed to grab the baby from her hands, splashing myself with burning water in the process." He rolls up his sleeve, showing an arm-length scarred patch of dark skin.

"People must have already been looking for the child, because they came in right when I took the child into my arms.

...Faced with the questioning looks of others, she actually blamed her own kid in a fit of anxiety, and even later on, her pride was too high to admit that she made a mistake and that it wasn't me.

It might have been the insanity talking, but no one there knew about her mental unstability. All they saw was me holding the baby and my mother saying it was me. In our family, elders deserve more respect and have higher authority than those younger, so no one listened to my words." He glances at Basile.

"I was condemned by my father, siblings, and once rumors spread amongst the upper class, the community, all without a fair trial. I wasn't sent to jail, as that would affect the company's reputation, so I was put under house arrest and forgotten about over the years.

The very last time I saw my father before undergoing housearrest, he said this," A pity, you had potential."

Thats it. It was due to my unnatural adaptability since a young age. This quirk also gave people potential reasoning as to why I tried to kill an infant. I must be a psycho. I must have been jealous.

Years had passed when one of the military soldiers found me holed up in my room, out of shape and worth billions in shares." His story is blunt and to-the-point, like he doesn't want to waste too much time on it. He pokes his flab that has lessened over the past couple months.

They ask a few questions before Theodore offers to go next.

"I was living with my sister and my parents. Mother never left her room. Father told us that mom was weak and sickly and shouldn't be bothered, so we didn't get to see her often growing up, but our father loved, supported, and took care of all of us.

One day me and my sister decided not to go to school. We were tired because we stayed up all night. After sleeping in a little longer, we decided to check on our mother's wellbeing.

When we open the door to our mother's room, we saw two moving figures between messy sheets. We didn't understand what was happening, couldn't understand, we were too young. Curious, we snuck into father's office, where he spent a lot of his time with the door shut and locked.

In one of the drawers, I found multiple pictures of women. At first, I thought they were all photos of our mother, but looking closer, they all had slight differences. They were all different women that looked similar.

There were folders for each of the women, including date of birth and...death, each dying very close to another.

I didn't know what was going on, but I decided it was better not to confront our father about it. I was going to erase it from my memory and leave it be due to my newfound fear of father.

That was, until I found a report for my sister. I can still remember the feeling. My throat went dry and my body felt numb. My mind was racing. I felt weak all over and wanted to cry, but I couldn't. I couldn't risk the chance of our father hearing.

I tried to hide it under a pile of other papers before my sister saw it, but she had already seen it. We had alway believed our father's words that our "mother" was sick, but thinking back, he's never brought a doctor to check on her.

I didn't know what to think, my mind was a mess. The only thing I had decided on was taking my sister far far away from here. I remember my sister's expression at the time. I hated it. I hated the fear in her eyes. I wanted to protect her.

We immediately escaped after packing lightly, but we must have made a sound, because our father found us before we were able to safely leave the house. He caught my sister first, almost caught me too, but she fought back while telling me to escape. It...I-it's funny, I wasn't the one that needed to escape, I was the once that was supposed to protect her..." Theordore's large body seems so small right now, hunched over. His wavering voice and sniffles are muffled under his clothes.

Theodore forces himself to finish the story,"I- in the struggle he threw her- she fell on the edge of a table...s-she stopped moving...the blood." He takes a moment to stop himself from hiccuping. The room is silent other than the muffled hiccups.

His next words are still said with a sniffle, but in a calm voice. "I killed him. I didn't-don't, feel any regret. But...the weird thing is that, after that happened, I no longer felt fear or remorse for anything. I have no sense of pity or guilt at the lack of any of those emotions and I've never been able to figure out why."

"What? But you-" Pierre is cut off.

Theodore knows what he's going to say next," I still have my other emotions, it's just...I could see a car accident on the news and won't feel a hint of pity, I could look at a dead body and feel nothing.

Tih doesn't completely understand why Theodore is crying, but actually, Theodore himself doesn't completely know why either.

That day, when he stood in front of the corpses of his sister and father, all he was pity that he'll be alone now, and that scared him. He scared himself.

Theodore, crying from fear and confusion, is pat on the head by Tih. The child he once thought was similar to himself, but no. It's- something different. Tih isn't lacking emotions, because he wasn't never born with them in the first place. There is no need to grieve over something that was never yours.

More importantly, neither of them are normal, but they treat this fact differently. Theodore is scared, he's lacking something others have, something he should have. He's not normal.

Tih has no concept of normal. He has never thought to blend in with those around him. He wouldn't understand social norms even if the definition was shoved in his face and he was ordered to follow them.

Tih's small hand pats Theodore's blond hair. He reflects while looking into Tih's stagnant water-colored eyes, the depths of which have no bound.

This moment will appear in Theo's head every once in a while, allowing him to ponder his individuality and grow as a being. It will help him enlighten himself when problems arise and make choices that will affect the future.

Readers: How much longer are you going bunch all these depressing backstory together?

Me: mmm goes the microwave

(In the original, the baby was actually boiled because I had dreamt about that in a nightmare once, but I thought that might be going too far for this story)