Love & Other Curses, 1985 | bxb | ONC 2024

PROLOGUE - A Sordid Misery

The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.

~ Mary Shelley, Frankenstein.

1985

Adam Lawson didn't like thick scars. He didn't like raised ridges of flesh or how abhorrent they made him feel despite his obsession with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. But that had never stopped him because the Monster was never too far from his thoughts, even if the loneliness of him kept him from cutting too deep.

His therapist had said that was a good thing even though the tool had never read her book. If the bulbous man had, he might have understood the danger. He might have seen this moment: the pain, the noise, the abandonment. Adam couldn't stop his bloody hands from shaking. He held his head, tufts of black hair pressed between his fingers, and moaned as the Monster's guttural tone tormented his mind, raking its vocal cords at what he had done.

What they had done...

Adam's tall and muscular frame slumped down the brick wall in the dark alley, racked by guilt and grief, a sordid misery that pulled tears out of him in sobbing waves. He took deep breaths to slow his racing pulse and ease the spinning in his head. But he couldn't stop listening to the Monster's tortured cries like a creature exiled to Hell only to be rejected by the Devil. Adam always listened. Listening was what he did best.

The thin razor blade stuck to his tacky fingers as flashes of violence and terror besotted his brain like drugs finding their mark. He struggled to control his hands until he broke through the surface of his ashen skin. His nostrils flared in anticipation of the bitter iron scent that followed. Leaning his head back, he closed his deep-set eyes, oblivious to the misty rain or the streaks of intense eyeshadow running down his cheeks.

The Monster's voice quieted.

Adam pulled the blade out and let himself bleed. The fragile boundary between life and death blurred with his vision, proving too tempting a prospect to ignore: the slowed beating of his heart, the lightness of his head, and a tired, tired sleep. The defeated boy closed his eyes. Pain and noise and solitude didn't exist at the edge of nothing.

A/N: While this is a monster story, it's also a love story. For all my die-hard romantics, don't worry; Adam's love interest makes his entrance in the next chapter. <3

On a side note, while Mary Shelley wrote in first person from multiple POVs, I've chosen omniscient POV to allow for greater freedom as the narrator to establish a literary style that (in my novice effort) blends the old (Frankenstein) with the new (1985) while allowing the characters to develop their voice through actions and dialogue. I'm excited for the challenge. <3

1985 References: Intense eye shadow was part of the rising goth scene in the 1980s.