Beware Mr Moore

Chapter 1 - In The Beginning

EDWARD

I hadn't meant to kill him.

Or maybe I did.

It's so hard to decide what you mean to do when you don't feel any emotion.

It had started off the same as every boring Friday in my childhood home. I had woken up, eaten breakfast with Hailey and Mother, while my Father rushed off to work. I had a job, after all, I was eighteen at the time, but I had the day off so I was going to help around the house with chores and other things Mother couldn't do on her own. Hailey had her first date in quite a while so she was nervous, of course, I didn't feel nerves so I couldn't advise her on how to make it stop.

Mother had poured herself a cup of coffee and dropped her usual three cubes of brown sugar in, stirring it with her silver teaspoon. She had also put the cereal on the table along with bowls and spoons for my sister and me to help ourselves to once we joined her. Of course, Hailey was downstairs before me so she had already made up a bowl of Fibre Circles for herself and was halfway through it when I arrived.

Fibre Circles are brown flavourless circles of sadness drenched in milk and I hate them.

Ignoring the box on the table, I opened the cupboard and pulled out my own box of Golden Sugar Puffs which received an eyebrow raise from Mother. I would get a scolding for that later from her but I didn't much mind about that. I poured myself a bowl and filled it with milk; watching it swirl around the puffs of yellow sugar, making them float. I sat down at the table opposite my sister and took one of the glasses Mother set out as well as the carton of orange juice.

While I poured myself a glass, Mother talked to Hailey about being safe on her date and making sure that her phone wouldn't die. I liked to listen to their conversations in the mornings.

They always talked about such human problems. Sometimes they spoke about the news or some event that had happened earlier in the week with Hailey's friends, occasionally they even talked about me; as if I wasn't there and couldn't hear everything they were saying. Hailey never liked me much. As her older brother, I was supposed to care about what happened to her, give my opinions on her clothing choices and other small things. Of course, due to my 'condition', I never knew what to say about her clothes other than their chemical properties. As for my opinion on anything else, obviously, my answers were always based on fact. For example, if she asked me what to do regarding one of the usual squabbles with her friends then I would simply spew possible results of different decisions she could make at her until she yelled at me. Apparently, that wasn't the kind of help she wanted.

How was I supposed to know what she wanted?

Anyway, after lunch, I helped Mother with various tasks around the house, such as fixing the washing machine and then using it to put some laundry on. I also helped her to water the plants which were too high up for her to reach in our greenhouse out in the garden.

Mother was the only person who understood me. Well, she didn't understand but she was the only one who didn't try to make me normal. She would let me be my uncaring self around her and she would love me anyway. Or at least that's what she used to say. Whenever I responded to something in a usual manner she would tell me she loved me.

Father, on the other hand, wasn't as gentle. He believed I was wrong, cursed or some shit and destined for evil. He thought I brought shame on our family and that it was my fault he got fired after his boss tried to touch my hair. Just because I broke the old guy's hand didn't mean it was my fault he was fired. He shouldn't have touched me.

Hailey usually went out in the evenings, Father would come home around one in the morning. He always stopped off at the pub on his way and sometimes he drank too much. He became violent when he drank. He never hurt us badly, just a few punches and some hurtful words. Until that night...