creepypasta origins

My Father, My Monster

A/N OMG THIS ALMOST MADE ME CRY AND THAT NEVER HAPPENS SO BE WARNED, THIS IS SUPER SAD!

Trigger warning: child abuse

I had a hard childhood. I had a really hard childhood. Each day felt like survival. Thinking back, I'm surprised I'm alive. There are some things no one should have to go through. There are some things that are better left in the past.

But here I am. Writing this all out. Why? I don't know...I feel like by doing this, by telling you all this, I can finally purge my mind of these memories. I know they will always be there, lurking behind my most lonely days...but they won't have the bite they do now. By telling you this, I hope to take their fangs away.

So let me start with some things you need to understand.

My mother died when I was two. I'm still not entirely sure how, but I think it had to do with drugs. I was her only child, leaving me in the care of my father, Richard. I don't remember my mother at all. Not even her face. I've never seen a picture of her, never heard a story told about her...nothing. My father just told me she died when I was two.

My father, Richard, was the hardest of men. He worked construction and I didn't see him much. I grew up in a two bedroom apartment, fending for myself, mostly abandoned. I had to find ways to feed myself, wash, and survive. I didn't go out much for the first couple years. I just stayed in my room or wandered around the filthy space, hoping my dad left something for me to eat.

It wasn't abuse at that point, at least not compared to what came later. It was neglect. He didn't harm me, he didn't yell at me, he just hardly acknowledged my existence. He went to work and then came home, maybe muttering a few drunken words to me as he went to collapse in his bed.

At that point, I wasn't unhappy. It was my life, it was all I knew. I thought that's what everybody's lives were like. Thinking about that now makes me sick, but then? Then it was just the way it was.

But you spend all that time alone...it does things to you.

When I was six, I created Ryan. Ryan was older than me, at least by a couple years. He was my friend. I talked to him, confided in him, cried to him. He was my imaginary buddy. He was a part of me. He was a projection of a strength I longed for.

And Ryan hated my father.

I tried not to talk to Ryan when my dad was home. It was hard though, because the more I invested into the fantasy, the more real he became. Even now, I can picture exactly what Ryan looked like.

When my father started catching on that I had an imaginary friend, that Ryan existed, that's when things became...bad. If he caught me talking to Ryan he would hit me, tell me to "stop being such a little faggot".

He was worse when he drank, like all fathers are.

He'd bring women home sometimes and tell me to stay hidden in my room while he had sex with them. Sometimes though, he'd drink too much and couldn't perform...and when that happened, he would get furious. That's when the beatings were the worst. He'd kick out whatever unlucky woman he had convinced to go home with him and then come stumbling into my room. The stink of rum on his breath, the dark silhouette, the deep rumbling in his chest.

Yes. Those were the worst nights

Ryan would watch, fists clenched, fury boiling from every pore until it was over. Then he'd come hold me as I cried, wipe the blood from my face, and tell me to hold on. He would cry with me, shaking his head, my agony one with his.

It went on like this until I was eleven.

That's where I'll start my story...that's where I think the deepest darkness dwells.