Tales of a Comet (A Kylo Ren Story)

Chapter 3 - Burning With Rage

As I grew older, so did the level of my rage. The only joy I found was in stealing. I stole anything and everything, though the more difficult the item was to get ahold of, the higher my adrenaline rush became. The stealing started with a spool of thread when I was in my early teens.

Ghent had the first shift in watching the store during the morning. The first shift had to make sure everything was in place and everything evened up with the inventory system. Knowing he would have to check, I quickly snuck a spool of black thread from the basket that was sitting on the counter. I would have taken more if Kael wouldn't have walked in. I shoved it in my pocket and continued out the door like nothing had happened.

Stealing people's things became my favorite pastime, although one of the things I hated was when Ghent would physically and mentally abuse me. In the past few years he has turned to violence to remined me how much he hated me. The beatings were getting to be worse and my other brothers eventually stopped protecting me. When this day happened, I realized that I was truly alone in this world.

There was one other thing that I also hated, and that was when I had to take care of my father. After that terrible day, my father has been drinking himself into oblivion. There are times when I am the last to come home, so I would have to be the one to get my father into bed.

One night, after coming home late, I found my father laying on the floor passed out. Sighing, I tried to shake him awake. There was no way I would be able to carry a man his size up the stairs by myself and there also was no way I was going to wake my brothers up to help me. I couldn't leave him there either. Shaking him again he finally started to rouse awake, or at least the best his drunk body would allow.

"I have to get you upstairs to bed." I said, which was met with a mix of curses and mumbling. Once I got him to sit up he finally takes a good look at me. With glazed eyes my father finally started to really look at me for the first time in years.

I squatted to my father's eyelevel and began to retie the stings to his boots, which must be why he was on the ground in the first place.

"Your mother would have been proud of you", he whispered.

I looked up at him with my brow raised like I was taught so many years ago.

A single tear flowed down his cheek and into his unkept beard. "She knew you were special, the moment you were born. She wouldn't let any of the boys touch you; not even me. She said you held a gift that only those worthy enough to have, possessed. She had that gift too, but she kept it contained. Her headaches were from her keeping it hidden. She wouldn't let me help her. Oh Aren, why didn't you let me help you instead of being so afraid?" My father, who was the most terrifying man I knew as a child, began to weep. While I was shuffling him up the stairs and to his bed he kept whispering 'why' until I sat him down.

Still not saying anything to him, I began to unlace the ties I had made prior to the long trek to the bedroom. I finally was getting his last boot off when he cupped my face with his large, still calloused hands.

"My sweet Nym. Your mother loved you very much." With that, my father fell back onto the bed, into a deep sleep.

--XX--

Another shipment had come through, so Zuke, Ghent, and Kael were separating the items and creating a new inventory. I spent most of my days wondering on the outskirts of the town due to the lack of scowling faces. I walked into the back room where my brothers were working. Zuke glanced at who walked in, but then went quickly back to work. Kael and Ghent refused to look in my general direction.

I walked over to the table in the back that was covered in various items from the shipment and sat on the stool, watching them. These items where what my brothers have already counted and logged into our system. Delmon and Kael found a cheaper inventory system so instead of using paper it was all done on a mobile tablet and saved into the system.