Thrown Into Terror

Prologue

I watched silently, aimlessly as the door closed once again, shutting of my contact with any living creature (other than the occasional spider).

The creature being Mr. Thompson, my homeschooling teacher.

Yes, I just referred to him as creature. No, I wouldn't put it any other way.

Mr.Thompson was a hardcore peferctionist to say the least, and a child sadist to put it bluntly.

He wouldn't rest until I'd gotten that annoying and meanigless Latin phrase into my head, or gotten the answer to the very last math problem right down to the fourth decimal.

Add in the fact that he was my sole source of human contact, you have the provenance of a intensive, burning hatred towards the man.

As I looked at the ceiling and wasted away my life in these futile yet some how deeply satisfying thoughts, my room's fragile widows rattled at an ear-piercing, bone-chilling laughter.

Menacingly maniac and purely malicious, it was enough to scare away any visitors.

What if you listened to it everyday for eight long years?
You become numb to it, learn to ignore it and fight the urge to scurry while your sanity is still intact.

As time passes by, fear changes to curiosity. A much more fiery and pushing drive, if you ask me.

And so, I don't know why, I don't know what came over me, but I found myself heading towards the origin of the sound. A place I knew all too well as an area out of bounds, restricted.

The broken down shed behind my house.

I don't know why I chose this day of all days. The sky was pouring gallons of water, thunder and lightning blinded my senses.

I was soaked to the bone by the time I reached the shed. The door was left ajar and light spilled out from the inside, creating eery shadows across our already spooky, dense, forest like garden.

I heard the sounds of two people inside, the sounds my ears were already attuned to.
My dear father and lovely brother.

The words nothing less than macabre, made the hairs on my body stand up in attention.
But I still crept forward, like every imbecile in those Hollywood horror movies.

My fingers trembling from the cold and fear, grasped around the door and opened it slowly, inch by inch, and I found myself crawling inside, as quiet as a cat.

My eyes feasted upon the sight in front of me. To say the shed was a ghastly weaponry would be me sugar coating it.

It was an elaborate gallory of torture devices. Think of the most painful way to inflict physical abuse on a person. It was there.

And in the centre of it all stood my father and my brother sharpening and polishing the blades, wiping the blood off of them.

What they had done to get blood on them, I did not want to know.

The thought made my stomach churn and brought bile to my mouth.

I was so busy trying to be silent and keep my lunch in my stomach, I did not notice the pool of blood in front me.
My boots slipped on it and a knife lying around carelessly pierced into the flesh in my leg, adding blood to the pool.

I yelped, and the blade in my father's hand was immediately pointing my way. Had I been a step closer, I would've been imapled.

"It's just me dad..." I whimpered helplessly.
"What are you doing here?" My brother questioned.
"I...um..." I faltered, searching desperately for an excuse.
"Answer me!" My brother's blade was also pointing at me.
"What kind of daughter doesn't follow her father's orders? I don't want a daughter like that..."
My father's blade was closing the gap between it and my neck.

In that moment of panic, my brain came up with the most ridiculous thing to say and behold "I..I wanted to join you! Please!"

The blade stopped inches from my flesh.

"Well then. So you know what you are proposing sweetheart? You can not back away from this..."
"Yes." My voice wavered, "I'll join you." A single tear made its way down my cheek.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

3 years later

I stood in front of my father, surrounded by screens showing various victims being tortured for various things, information, money, revenge, you name it.

My father along with my brother had grown to create one of the most infamous criminal organisations in the world, recruited by even government's of various countries to do their dirty work.

As I listened to our latest scheme, I couldn't help but feel a little distraut.

However horrific my father's missions, I was always off field, working from behind the curtain.

But today.... "I want you to prove your worth to me. You will be working alongside your brother this time. This is a highly crucial assignment. Fail and you will pay the price."
I nodded. The price. I thought to myself, I may have saved my life by joining you three years ago, but I definitely payed the price. My peace of mind, my sanity, my humanity.

I was a cold blooded killing machine now. Nothing more, nothing less.

But would I be able to actually do it myself? Take a life?
It was different when I was dealing with dirty criminals as bad as my Dad, but this...
This time it was a full fledged terrorist attack. On families. Babies. Children my age. All innocent.

"Kids?" I had asked incredulously.

"More victims, the better." My father had said, smiling. "The more of a gory spectacle it is, the more the media will devour the story, the more people scared of us."

I stood next to the ceiling high windows of our headquarters and thought back to the day I decided to join them.
What have I become ?

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