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2) Daydreams

"𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙙 𝙞𝙨 𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨.

𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙥𝙪𝙩 𝙢𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙖 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙠 𝙨𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙘𝙚𝙡𝙡, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩'𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙚𝙣𝙙, 𝙩𝙤 𝙢𝙚 𝙞𝙩'𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙞𝙩'𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚, 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚'𝙨 𝙖 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙡𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚

 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙄'𝙢 𝙛𝙧𝙚𝙚."

⎝⎝ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕣𝕝𝕖𝕤 𝕄𝕒𝕟𝕤𝕠𝕟⎠⎠

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

When I was younger, I used to have a big imagination.

Maybe it was due to the fact that I had no friends to keep me occupied, or maybe it was because I was in my own little world that I had no friends. Either way, I was by myself most of the time.
Well, not entirely by myself, of course. I had a pretty large family; we lived in a big house where more than my immediate relatives stayed. I had my Mom, my Dad, older brother and younger sister....aunts and uncles, cousins, even our grandparents stayed with us. Not to mention everyone else in the extended family coming over for one of our Sunday cookouts after church. It was a regular Full House.

Despite me seeming to be fairly social around my family (I played the part of brother and cousin well, to the younger children), I was more often than not stuck in my own head. No matter how hard I tried, I never could seem to pull myself out of it. And eventually, I got so tired of trying that I decided that it was easier to stay in there than to come out.

Monsters, ghouls, knights in shining armor, my fantasies mainly included acts of violence and horror- which wasn't too out-of-the-ordinary for a young boy. Where I came to differ was the intense detail in my imagination. The gore. The depraved acts of selfish killings. When I daydreamed, I could feel the warmth of the blood spilled, I could taste the sour, burning ashes in the air, and I could hear the bloodcurdling screams of those staring death in the eyes. While other kids feared the darkness in their rooms late at night, I felt right at home, my mind in a faraway place.
After offhandedly mentioning one of my more gruesome daydreams to my fourth grade teacher, I was swiftly sent to a therapist once a week. I learned that my imagination wasn't like everyone else's. That it worried the adults.

Keeping my innermost thoughts to myself, since that was the easiest way to avoid the concerns of those around me, I got out of therapy after a few short months, and was back in the normal world, back in the safety of my family's home.

Now, don't get me wrong, I loved my family- and still do- but there was just something about my daydreams that were considerably more appealing than the reality I occupied physically. And, for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why.

It never really occurred to me that my dreams could be a reality.

But then, while walking through our large backyard (I can't exactly remember what I was doing out there- maybe looking for a lost toy? My sister often lost her beloved bunny plush and I was sent to retrieve it when that happened), I came across a large, very ugly bird. It had a dark pink head, a red liquid on the end of its beak, bald, and matted feathers. It stood up straight when it heard me, and stared at me for a moment with its glittering black eyes...and then it flew away, leaving a soured and rotting smell in its wake.
Curious, I took a few more steps to see whatever it was the bird was poking at, and there on the ground, lay a raccoon.

It was a fat, bloated creature, with a gash across its stomach that was spread wide open like a zipper, allowing for a perfect view of its innards.

There was a little string of guts hanging out, the end of it frayed. A few droplets of blood lay an inch or so away from the body.

As I stared at the raccoon in a morbid kind of disgust, its foot twitched, and the creature let out a pathetic, gurgling hiss.
I flinched, but only because the sound startled me. It wasn't dead, then.

The raccoon began to try and move around more, as if it believed that if it could get to cover, then it would live.
I watched as it weakly clawed at the ground, the mouth opening and closing in small, gasping breaths.

I took another step closer. The thing didn't even register my presence, didn't look my way in the slightest.
It was suffering, wasn't it? This was an act of mercy.

Or at least that's what I told my eleven-year old brain as I tried to justify my actions.

I raised my foot above its head, trying to gauge the distance, before I set my foot back down.

Then I jumped on the pathetic creature's head with a satisfying crunch.

And that's where it all started. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───