Psychotic Kids

Chapter 1: Grey Eyes

Chapter 1: Grey Eyes

Peter

My name is Peter Hankinson, and two years ago I murdered my mother. Brutally, in case you were wondering. No one knows it was me, except me.

I listened to her beg for her life, watched her as she cried to me, pleading I spare her. I don't feel bad about it. I didn't do anything wrong, in my opinion. I'm a psychopath, self-diagnosed. I'm good at hiding the traits, but I know I am.

I don't remember if there was a specific reason I killed her, I just did. Maybe she hadn't let me watch television whilst eating dinner or gave me too much of something I didn't like. She was funny like that, controlling.

All I remember is grabbing my steak knife and listening to the satisfying squelching noise as I pushed it deeper and deeper into her empty, shallow chest.

Of course, the clean-up wasn't hard. I just washed the knife, cleaned off the fingerprints before burning my blood-stained clothes in our already burning bonfire in the backyard.
I had to do it fast. I knew police could examine the body and tell she'd been dead for longer than I said she had been. I'd seen the documentaries. I knew it had to be quick.

I made up a story before the police arrived, forced some tears through my squinting eyes. They believed every word.

I told them I was in the backyard, throwing sticks and stones into the bonfire, when she called me from the kitchen. She told me dinner was ready. I told them her voice was raspy and shaky, like she'd been crying.

I told them we'd sat down to eat, and she wasn't her normal self. I said she'd taken only a few bites of her meal before turning to me and telling me she couldn't care for me anymore, before stabbing herself in the chest.

Of course, they took my word for it, did a little investigation, but without any other witnesses or suspects, they all believed the twelve-year-old schoolboy with a psychotic mind.

I wake up suddenly. It's still dark outside, despite it being seven-in-the-morning. I can't hear anything in the house. I can't hear my foster mother, shouting at her husband to clean up after himself. I can't hear my foster father, watching TV loudly on the couch. I can't even hear Eric and Watson arguing over a game console.

I sit up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed and walking quietly to the door. Opening it just a crack, no lights are on, illuminating the hallway. I see the large clock at the end of the corridor and creep towards it.

Three in the morning, it says. I smile, mischievously. Racing back into to my room, I pull on a black shirt and a pair of jeans before sliding my window open.

Looking over my shoulder, I don't hear or see anyone. I smile, lifting myself through the opening.

The cool night wind brushes over my cheeks. I breathe in. It's always a relief to be alone. In the darkness, I sit down. The cold, wet grass prickles my legs. I close my eyes, trying to drown out my thoughts, which seem to be getting louder and louder lately.

Suddenly, a light turns on. I jolt up in the fear of someone finding me out here and locking my window, before realising it's in the house next door.

I look up to where the light was coming from, the second story of the house next to mine. By the window, I see a girl, leaning out of her window looking at me. I look back up at her in confusion.

She turns away, back into the room, before reappearing with a huge rope. She dangles it out of window and raises her eyebrows at me. She calls at me.

I shake my head, trying not to laugh. Who is this girl? Why does she want me up there with her?

"Oh, c'mon." She says to me, crossing her arms, "Live a little!"

"I've lived a lot in this lifetime!" I shout back up at her, but not too loudly.

"It's 3am and we're both up. Don't you think it's fate?" She asks me, drowsily. I sigh, before jumping her fence and climbing up the weak rope reluctantly.

As I climb into her bedroom, I'm half expecting her to push me out or stab me, but she doesn't. I reel the rope back into her room and chuck it at her.

She's about the same age as me, black hair and curiosity in her grey eyes. Her room is bare of furniture-a bed, a desk and a bookshelf, but that's it. I forget my confusion when she asks me, "So, what's your story?"

I smile down at my shoes. She's so pretty. "I..." I start, before chuckling a bit, "I'm Peter. I live down there." I point at my house.

She smiles. When she smiles, I feel like I can do anything. It lights up my heart for a moment. "Isla," She grins, "Isla Jones."

"Are you new, Isla?" I ask her.

She yawns, "Yeah, moved here last week. I thought you'd know, considering all the neighbours got irritated with the moving trucks in the street."

I shrug, "I don't get out much."

"Oh? Why's that?"

She shrugs, "Me neither."

I'm taken aback by this, "Really? Why not?" She looks like she's very likable, very popular, but there's also something about her that makes me understand why she's an outsider, why we're both outsiders.

"I'm just different from everyone else." She says, laying back onto her bed. I feel a rush of belonging, "You..." I start, "You fit in with me."

She lifts her head to look at me and shoots me a grateful smile. She points at my eye, which is blue and black from bruising, "What happened there?"

I lift my hand up to my eye, "Oh, this?" She nods, "I... Can you keep a secret?" She shrugs, giving me a look like she's thinking I'm an idiot. "Who would I tell?"

I sigh, "My foster father got angry at me. And..." I gesture to my face. She mouths an understanding, "Oh..." and smiles at me.

"What?" I ask, feeling a glint of hope rush through me. She smiles weakly, pushing her hair to the side, revealing a long scar down the side of her face. "Woah!" I step forward to touch it, but she flinches -

back, like I was gonna hit her.

"Sorry," She apologises, sheepishly. I apologise back. I look her in the eyes I know she's afraid, as much as she's pretending, she isn't.

"You're a foster kid too?" I ask.

She nods, "Yeah. My parents left me on the front step of some lady who also didn't want me. So, they sent me into the system. What about you?" I sit down beside her on her bed.

"I never met my dad, "I explain. "and my mum killed herself a couple years ago. Watched the whole thing." She looks at me, as if she's trying to figure me out. I squirm, uncomfortably.

"I think you and I will get along well." She says. I nod. For a moment, I get lost in her grey eyes, almost like the colour was drained from them. Almost she used to have blue eyes. Almost like she cried so much they faded away. I wonder if that's possible.