He's A Monster

Little Twisted

Marshal's perspective (POV)

"Why are you so obsessed with the freak?"

"He's beautiful," the young woman uttered.

"No. That's where you're wrong, babe."

She tilted her head. "Hmm?"

"He's a monster. You know what they say about him. He's not... right in the head."

I laughed at the blonde's snide remark, the sound curling bitterly in my throat.

Not right in the head. Perhaps she was correct. How could anyone be sane when born into darkness and abandoned to rot?

We creatures of the night are all born into shadow. Eyes sealed shut, waiting for a warm embrace that never comes. Others wake to light, to love, to a mother's smile. But I woke beneath rotting leaves in a black forest, the air thick with the stench of death.

Most infants fall silent when they see their mother's eyes or feel her touch. My cries did not end. For me, there was no tender smile, no gentle hand...only a dull, disturbed man who stared down at me like some sick experiment.

The darkness of that night never gave me answers, though I begged for them across the years. You may wonder how I can recall such things from so young an age. Truthfully, I do not know. Perhaps it was the substance that man injected into the wound he cut above my brow. A gift or a curse that etched memory into bone.

I never knew my parents' faces. Never felt their joy when they held their son. To me, they were nothing but ghosts in a story I'd never finish. Until I was fourteen, I didn't even know their names. That was the day I realized who I truly was: something unchangeable, immutable.

Pretending to be normal was laughable. At seven, I saw it clear: while the other children played, I sat alone, pen in hand. Not reading. Writing. Crafting horrors with ink and imagination, filling pages with vengeance upon the faceless parents who abandoned me. Graphic fantasies that would make the strongest stomach recoil.

That book became my companion, my confession, my altar of hate. In it, I spilled blood long before I ever touched it.

And then there was Alex. The man who kept me. The one who performed his experiments, who whispered I was different, who demanded I stay away from others. I didn't listen.

That's how the little girl ended up face down in the water.

She laughed at me when I said I couldn't swim, called me dumb. I called her cruel and told her to drown. And she did.

Her wide, terrified eyes locked on mine as she slipped beneath the surface. Arms and legs thrashing, bubbles rising in a frenzy of panic. "Stop, you monster! Help me!" were her final words before the lake swallowed her screams.

I only watched. Smiling. Until Alex plucked me from the scene like a doll and carried me away. The injections changed me. Heightened me. Alex muttered about tactile sensation, forcing objects into my hands after stabbing needles into my temple. I could tell how long an object had rested somewhere, its weight, its very history.

"You have power in your head," he would whisper as the needle sank deep. Perhaps the blonde was right. Perhaps I was not okay in the head. But it wasn't my fault.

And yet...who cares for a freak? No one.

I crossed my legs, studying the two girls stealing glances my way. The blonde turned to her friend, disgust curling her lips. It made me smile.

"Like I said, just look at him. How could you call that beautiful? He's terrifying. Evil."

"Enough, Karen. Stop. You're being rude. He looks fine."

"Of course you'd say that. You're just as strange as him."

My gaze snapped to Karen at her claim to the girl who was shockingly defending me.

"No, Danielle. He's a monster. He'll ruin you."

Danielle. So that was her name. Sweet syllables for a sweeter face. Her dark curls framed her like a saint in stained glass, her pale lips trembling, her green eyes burning with an innocence too tempting to ignore.

"Hello? Danielle? Did you hear me?"

"Yes."

"Then why do you still like the freak? He's poison."

"I don't care, Karen." Her voice was steady. "I like him."

A smile curved across my lips. Danielle turned from her tray of food, her gaze locking on me, eyes widening in surprise. Slowly, deliberately, I lifted a hand from my lap.

Karen stormed off toward the trash bin, muttering.

"You aren't strange," I whispered in my mind.

Her eyes widened, confusion flashing across her face. She raised a trembling hand and waved. "Hi."

"Hello, Danielle," my thoughts whispered.

She looked around, startled, and my smile deepened. Poor, sweet creature already ensnared.

I rose from my seat, discarded my tray, and felt her eyes clinging to me with every step. Students parted as I passed, their expressions dripping with fear. Delicious fear. I glanced back at Danielle, who sat with her hand tucked beneath her chin, watching me.

"You. Me. Woods. Tonight. Ten," I whispered in my head.

Her lips parted. She nodded.

"See you soon, Miss Danielle."

I caught her faint whisper as I walked away, a single word, a single whisper:

"Bye."