The Beast in Me

Chapter 1

Chapter 1:

I was laying on the bed of my room in the orphanage I've called home for ten years. The blankets - and my whole room, for that matter - was red instead of pink. My favorite color, I say to myself. I think of that night often. I haven't had an "incident" since the burglary. Those men deserved to die. I justified, They killed your parents and tried to steal everything. They deserved to die. I have to remind myself of that everytime I think of that day.

I heard a knock on the door interupting my unhappy recollections. "Hey, Sheila. You in there?" I heard Isaac call.

"Yeah." I said, shaking my head to rid myself of the upsetting pictures of my dead parents.

"Can I come in?" He asked.

"Sure." I said, staring blankly at the ceiling.

He walked in, brushing his shaggy blonde hair out of his freckled face. Laying on the bed right next to me, he said "What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing, just memories." I said.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asked.

"Not really." I said, turning away from him to hide my tears.

"That's alright." He turned onto his side, facing me, and put his arm over my body. "You don't have to tell me."

"Have you ever had a secret that you've always wanted to tell someone, but you're too scared to tell them because you think they'll never think of you as a friend again?" I asked, looking over my shoulder at him.

He didn't expect me to ask that. "Yes, I have. I always have. But some things are better off not being told." He said after getting over the initial shock of the question. "Do you?"

My turn to be shocked, "Yes, I do. Don't you wish we could just be honest?"

"I always wanted to be honest."

"Then tell me your secret." I said turning to him.

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because you would never trust me again."

"I will always trust you, no matter what. Even if this is the secret of the century, I would never tell anyone."

"Will you tell me your secret? I won't tell anyone, either."

I hesitated for a bit. "Of course I will."

"Um, I, uh. I have no way of saying it. I never thought I would even say it to anyone. You know how my parents were murdered when I was eight?"

"Now I do." I can't believe I'm saying this, but I like where this is going.

"Um," He took a deep breath. "I was the one who killed them."

I tried to act surprised. "Why would you ever do that?"

"It wasn't me though." He obviosly believed the act. "I was taken over by some other part of me. I grew claws and fangs and my eyes turned red. I don't even know what came over me. It's like I turned into some kind of monster." He turned away from me.

"Wow. I don't know how to respond to that."

"Maybe by telling me your secret." He turned torward me and looked at me in the eyes hopefully.

"When I was six, my house was robbed and my parents were murdered by the burglars. When I saw their corpses, my fingernails turned into claws and my teeth into fangs. I murdered all three of them. It was just like you described. The last one begged for his life, leaning against a baracade I made in front of the door. I told him to go to hell and stabbed my hand into his chest." I turned away and started crying. "I've always tried to comfort myself by saying that they deserved to die for killing my parents, but they didn't. I didn't have to kill them. I could have let them live with what they did. That would have been worse."