Quietly Dying

Chapter One~ Morning Mourning

My father's hand connected abruptly to my cheek, sending the tears in my eyes hurdling to the ground. His slap was rougher than usual, him being in a fair amount of distress. Father had never been kind to me. I knew not a father of softness and grace, but one of anger and tyranny.

I looked at my perfect tears, all nestled somberly in the dirt. The wetness on my cheek came more desperately now that the pain in my face had begun to register. It would become red. Maybe welt and bruise. Though that didn't matter to me. It couldn't possibly amount to the distress and torment he was causing my heart.

I hadn't done anything severe, merely walking into the kitchen. He was always doing this. Since I had become a monstrosity, he detests me for no reason. I suppose it's because he knew. He knew I was a monster. He knew I was Quaid.

On our backs we hold tenacious tendrils that hang menacingly, poised for recoil. Our eyes are shifty, our hair is black as coal, we hold ashes in our eyes, and our skin is pure as snow. We hold no scars because it will heal us. Quaids are some of the most beautiful people on the planet. Yet our perfection is only an extension of our beasts.

It is the creature inside us all. It ties together all our separate backgrounds and personalities into one legion of destruction. It connects to you when your young, when it can tempt you into tainting your soul. It beckons you to kill, to take life to feed into it's power. Thus is the horror of it.

Latching onto your soul, It manifests itself into the tentacles on a Quaid's back. These appendages are known to posses their own mind, them not being a part of the host's body. Quaids have absolutely no control over what it may do.

I was vexed by this lack of control as the tendrils sprung from their typical limp position on my back to the circumference of my father's throat. His face ran red with shock and fear. Eyes pleading with me as if I wasn't helpless, he reached out to me. He made a few small noises before his eyes begun to bulge and I could hear the popping in his neck, it was applying a vast amount of pressure.

"Stop!" I screamed, grabbing the tendrils in both hands, pulling firmly. "Please! No! He didn't mean it!"

Agony surged through my body as It sent waves of pain to my nerves. As I lay sprawled on the floor, barely breathing through the utter torture, it spoke, as it often did.

"Now now, is that any way to act?" A taunting voice invaded my conscious mind.

"Get the hell...out...of my head." I panted, the pain becoming red hot.

"That doesn't sound like a girl who wants her master to allow her daddy to live, now does it?" It's bitter retort stung, reminding me of how helpless I was, my father was.

"You are deluded if you truly believe you can control me." I hissed between my gritted teeth.

"Dear Wynter, you are my host, yet I am your master. I best you. You are my subordinate. You know almost better than I do that you don't have control. You have relinquished your soul, and I relish your agony." The words etched themselves a jagged space into my mind.

"Go...to...hell..." I managed to slip out before everything became dark.

My peace was wrenched from me as I was knocked against the wall, breathless. My father stared down at me with so much hate, I wished for death.

"You wretched Quaid! I act as your parent, and you attempt to kill me? Is this the thanks I deserve for opening my heart to you? Go survive alone." He tossed a black handled hunting knife to me. That knife held memories. Bitter, agonizing memories.

The tip punctured the skin on my outstretched arm slightly. I just lay motionless. It would heal me. And as I gazed at the wound, it did. The skin crept back over the opening, and I was good as new. There wasn't a scar to be seen.

His words had hurt me more than any blade could. It wouldn't allow me to sustain any bodily harm, but my mentality was left all but defended. I suffered verbal abuse. People hated me and didn't have a reason besides the fact I had a monster inside of me. At one time I had allowed It in. Young and foolish, I had no clue of the power it held.

But as I got up, making sure to grab my school bag if the oaken table, I realized what a fool I was. I realized I had absolutely no control and only one place left to go. It sat in the corner of my mind, bearing a wide, toothy smile.