Devil's Sins

Ruth

My name is Ruth Smith. I live in London. I go to public school. When I was born, I had all the potential of being a normal girl with a normal childhood. Except there's one thing.

I have horns. Like a goat, or Satan, or a two pronged fork, depending on who you ask. They're white and smooth and big enough that I have to crouch to get them through doors, definitely too big to hide. My mother didn't want to raise me (and honestly I can't even blame her, I would have been terrified too), so I spent the first few weeks of my life at a Home. That Home didn't want me, neither did the next one, or the one after that. The thirteenth Home I went to was visited by a Mrs Fey. Mrs Fey was a plump, self-content woman in her late fifties who, in a desperate attempt to make herself interesting to others, decided to help me. Although a complicated set of 'religious reasons' barred her from adopting me, her donations and influence over the Home secured my staying there. I was nearly two when that happened. I'm eleven now. Nothing has changed.

Visiting day again. This time is different though. A man comes to see me. He says his name is Victor. He looks about thirty. Has a strong Russian accent. Doesn't give me a last name. After a short questioning, he finds out that I've had my horns since birth but they have grown since; I never saw a doctor about them because they aren't considered an illness or injury as such; as far as I can tell, they're made of bone. He then offers to adopt me on the spot. This might seem strange, but I've attracted a lot of interest from very unusual people over the years and have never been in a position to pass up adoption. Within an hour the paperwork is signed and he is my legal guardian.

The car is quite dirty and the cigarette smoke in it is almost visible. I start to open a window but the look he gives me is hostile to such an extent that I find myself leaving it shut. We drive out of the city in complete silence. The place he brings me to is hours away from London, hours away from anywhere as far as I can tell. He leads the way into an ugly stump of a building. The heavy metal door reveals a single room. A chair sits in the centre. There is no other furniture.

The door slams shut. I can hear an automatic lock being activated. I'm still attempting to cling onto the fast disappearing hopes of Victor being some harmless weirdo, like most of the people who have supported me throughout my life. The recurring comparisons to violent movies I wasn't supposed to have watched begged to differ. Victor gestures for me to sit. I do.

He opens his briefcase. Hands me a bottle of water. For the first time since we left the Home, he speaks. "Drink." Frankly, at this point fear has paralysed me to a level at which I am far beyond disobeying, beyond even considering disobeying. The water makes me feel infinitely better. It makes me feel calm. Suddenly, this isn't such a big deal any more. After all, what could Victor possibly do to justify the numbing terror I had experienced moments earlier? What had he ever done to deserve it? If anything, I should be grateful to him for getting me out of that Home, with its obsessive Mrs Fey, and sneering teenagers and permanently crying babies. I should be so grateful.

It is then that Victor opens his briefcase fully, revealing the contents. There are knives, so many knives. But Victor doesn't take out any of those (if only). What Victor does take out is a much larger, clunkier object. In my hazed state I cannot discern what it is. Then he presses a button at its base and I understand.

A chainsaw. He wields it confidently and calmly. I try to run, to scream, to get up at least but I can't move a finger. Whatever was in that water has paralysed me completely. Victor walks towards me, silent as ever. I try, in final desperation to move, but I cannot. He takes one final step.

Victor is standing directly behind me. I can feel his breath on the back of my neck, just as I can feel the whirring of the chainsaw.

Searing pain shoots through me. In seconds, this progresses to something beyond pain, something beyond any feeling altogether. I scream, I scream so loudly the glass roofs of the city I left far behind shatter in unison. Except nothing comes out.

I must have lost consciousness. I am aware I'm not awake yet as my soul slips from my body. I can see Victor, wrapping the horns that were, minutes ago, my own, in cloth and heading out of the building to his car. I can also see my own lifeless body, with broken stumps of marrow where my horns used to be. I guess you could see it as a relief that after a life full of restrictions and disappointments brought on by my my horns, at least in death I was finally free of them. You could, but I couldn't.

I can see the past just as I can see the present. In this state, all time is laid out to me so clearly. I can see that Victor will take my horns all the way to Edinburgh, where he will sell them, for millions, to a religious club. I can see my last home, in which I will not at all be missed. I can see Mrs Fey, who, having found another freak of a child to support, will have forgotten about me completely.

I can see the past. I can see my mother, freaked out at her monster baby, leaving it at the nearest door to die. I can see every stare I have ever been given, every parent that has whispered 'don't look' to their curious child. I can hear all the hushed gossip about me, all the hurtful rumours, all the malicious lies. But most of all, I can feel the fear I have caused. The best kind of fear, blind, oblivious, of the unknown. There is tons of it, more than of every other emotion put together and it lifts me onto a different plane of pleasure entirely. The fear I have caused runs over me in smooth cool waves and all at once, it is worth it. It is all worth it.

I hear a familiar voice coming from below. It is from the past, from the future, from the present. "Welcome home, my child".

*Evil laughter* What did you think? Did I make it too obvious at the start or? Thank you for reading xx Kat