Outrunning Our Afterlives: Cradle To Death

The Entitlement of Fears

I hate everyone.

Everyone always says that's the worst start to any new meeting, but it's true and I'm not going to hide it because some guy's ego was hurt. Boo fucking hoo, you can't fix me. You can't fix my lack of attraction, you can't fix my hatred for everyone.

I hate my brother. I know he's technically my son but I don't think either of us see it that way. His birth was my biggest mistake. His birth led to my death, his birth led to the death of thousands, millions, billions. He has the face of his biological father.

I hate my father. I know he technically isn't my father at all, and yet I see him that way. He raised me as a father better than my real father did, but he's also an awful person. He hurts people, adult, child, woman, man, it doesn't matter. He reaps the vulnerable and leaves them to rot in the empty white void I am unfortunate to call home.

Perhaps it is good to mention the start. Of course, Xiang has never once remembered the start, or anything of the sort. His feeble human mind wisps away his memories slowly but every now and then.

My name is Armani Shen. I am 16 years old. I was neglected and verbally abused by my family a lot. Recently they had been better since I was 12. At least, they've been trying to be. I cannot bring myself to love them, but god forbid what they would do to me if I told them.

I actually enjoy school, oddly enough, because my AP Chem teacher was the nicest man I've ever met. I think it's obvious I'm the favorite student. He treated me so much better, as if I were his own daughter. He's closer to me than my friends are, even. I am very lucky to have a teacher like him. Sometimes we even hang out during lunch, and he wraps his hand around my waist in a protective manner while I cry about my parents. One day he tells me to meet me in his classroom after school.

I was sexually assaulted that day.

He held me down and took the air out of my lungs. I tried to close my legs, kick him off, fight back, anything. Nothing worked. I was just a fragile teenage girl and he was a grown man.

I came home late. My mother yelled at me and asked me where I was. I told her what happened. She was actually angry with the teacher. I was so happy she was sticking up for me, but a tight knot grew in my stomach when she told me, "I told you so. You should never value people over your family again."

About a week later I found out I was pregnant. I told my parents. They said there was nothing we could do and that I should've known when he told me to see him. Tears filled my eyes at this point. I begged.

"Please mama, please baba, I cannot raise this thing. I hate it get it out of me."

They told me I was perverse for allowing him to do that to me instead of valuing my path into education, that they relied on me to be a good kid instead of going out and getting pregnant by a man at least 20 years my senior. I believed them. I believed that I was a sick and perverted girl.

A couple months later, I was 17 and my water had broken. My parents panicked, telling me to go out and give birth to the baby in the abandoned house down the street with a thick mask. They said the house was empty and that the mold would kill the baby before anyone realized it was there. I didn't feel bad. This baby only served as a constant reminder of what happened that day. So I did it, I trusted my parents for the first time and ran to the house.

It came out a lot easier yet a whole lot more painful than i expected. I didn't know what to do with the knowledge that the baby was still attached to my body. My head felt airy, I wanted to pass out, but I needed to get out of there as soon as possible. I ripped the cord and stuffed what was left of it in my underwear. My legs were limp so I used my gloved hand to lean on furniture.

It cleaved my head to hear the consequences of what I believed to be my own mistake crying, but by the time I had reached the stairs, the crying stopped.

It stopped. And then there was a tap on my shoulder.

I got scared, I turned around and scratched whatever was behind me with my nails. Imagine my surprise to learn what was actually behind me. Well, I never got to see what was behind me. I heard a loud cry from the baby, and I froze. I was struck down by an aggressively thrown knife before I could even apologize. Accurate, vengeful, precise.

I would later be adopted by the same man who killed me. Though I think it would be glazing to call him a man. He was a god, as well as mentally and physically younger than I am, but he seemed so happy to be a parent I just played along for a couple years. Then I learned what Malware was feeding Xiang. Malware's a bastard, taking advantage of the weak and tearing them apart just for this stupid obsession. I wanted nothing to do with him.

Xiang found out himself soon after. I wanted to reintroduce myself into his life maybe, help him cope. He's just like my father. A pathetic doormat to the end.

This is all Mr. Clement's fault. I wish he died sooner and more painfully.

Malware better count his motherfucking days. I'm coming for his head and I won't show mercy.