Perfection #shawrocketprize

Prologue

Waking and gasping to obnouxiously cold water drenching my face, I wasn't necessarily allowed to even try to process my surroundings until the excess water finally dripped away. Grimacing, I shook my head of my stupor and in an effort to get the residue water off my damp hair cascading down my shoulders. 

Opening my eyes in the dimly lit room, the first thing I saw was a familiar man staring me down with unfamiliar dark eyes, contrary to the warm ones I saw every weekday before school greeting me a good morning. My pupils contracting with moisture glazing over them, the salty liquid induced by the multitude of emotions I was assaulted with threatening to slip from its rightful place, leaving me feeling even more vulnerable. Though, the potential tears weren't there primarily because of the instinctual fear for my life, but also out of the pain I was feeling as I took in the man's form who I foolishly thought I could trust once before.

The man that lured me into this place by making me believe he actually lost his dog, convincing me to help him find it all for him to drug me and bring me here.

My arms were bound behind me on a chair as the man above smiled maliciously at me - with his toothbrush mustache and profound wrinkles emphasizing his smile. The bindings stopping me from decking him in the face despite his towering size. If only I had recognized all the signs sooner...

No, why hadn't I seen all this earlier? I should've. Those signs, they were blatant.

All the self-defense classes exclusively taught to me by my older brother were pointless now. Ever since our parents died, I was the one he taught everything he knew to - which basically was almost everything there was to be learned from complex scientific formulas to varying levels of the martial arts - because as he says, "the world is a cruel place and you have to be prepared for it."

Yet I took him for granted. I should've known not to...because ever since our parents died, of course he would be heavily familiarised with the harsh truth. Our parents' protection being lost to him begrudgingly allowed him to be well acquainted with that cruel world.

In retrospect of this time of grave despair, danger and emotion, I still realise that I seemed to learn absolutely nothing from my brother, Killian Luk. My big brother indeed deserving his university's prestigious title as, "Einstein of Our Generation". Comparing him at least to the likes of me.

I bowed my head in shame as I let my tears fall, slightly happy that I was still dressed, but utterly ashamed that I was tied up to an uncomfortable wooden chair stood up on just as unfamiliar and just as unsympathetic concrete grey flooring that my legs couldn't quite reach yet. That sinking feeling of not ever being good enough for my brother made its way into my broken heart once more and most possibly for the last time ever. I bitterly wanted to grab at my chest as if it would soothe the aching there.

Regardless of my brother's denial of it, saying that I was perfect and even going out of his way to make a fool of himself as he gawked at me immediately after I would enter his line of sight; regardless of his countless reassuring words. 

The excruciating knowing I felt so mercilessly in my gut replaced the warm feeling of my once optimistic heart. Thus, my mind was plagued with the fact that I was never good enough for anyone and never were to be either.

I've been feeling that way for a while now, especially since the abrupt disappearance of the people I'd've dare thought of as friends. That's why I tried so hard to just be a little better, be a little more appealing so that I wouldn't be alone anymore - I hated being alone!

Yet, I ended up here of all places.

It was fate. I really was doomed to such a pathetically short life. This personalized inner timer of mine stopping after spending just a speck of a fraction living in this grander world's lifespan. 

I had so much resolve, so much hope, so much...

"You're not pitying yourself, are you?" The man said, walking up to me, stretching out his arm and raising my chin to get a better look at my features. His eyes lit up as he saw the tears sliding down my swollen face.

"Even the flow of your tears is perfect. Ah, magnificent." He admired, intrigued. Making me furrow my brows at the word, "perfect". Disturbed that this man could even think of me as such, and me disagreeing with him to the extreme.

Forcing my chin from out of his grip, I wanted to bite and spit at him out of defiance, but that was when I actually realised that my mouth was taped shut. I grunted out of frustration, crying some more.

I hated this!

Brother always warned me about my attachment issues, but I didn't find anything horrible in those apparent issues seeing as nothing as bad as this has happened to me in the long time I devoted my life to the ones who I felt fulfilled me.

Even if it was a small seemingly insignificant thing that another person would do or say to me that others would dismiss to the back of their minds, thinking primarily about their own endeavours and still considering those same people strangers, those small seemingly insignificant things meant a lot to me. I kept those people in my heart. They were people and they treated me like one as well, and the undeniable warmth those insignificant things sent me - to my heart and to my soul - made me crave them even more. No matter what, that constant feeling of loneliness for some reason, no matter how much friends I surrounded myself around, would never die down.

"I, I...I hate" -- my muffled words were cut off when I noticed the one other figure in the room I thought only me and this man were isolated in. It was another man judging by the build of his body, and he was tall even while he was slumped over on the chair parallel to mine, having a burlap sack over his head.

That was when a cruel image came to mind, about that man being my elder brother who was around the same height. Having around the same body type actually, with similar clothing to what I've seen him wear before. Was it possible that he had found out about my kidnapping and came chasing after me? Or this man staring me down went after him next, whether or not he was my brother?

In my terrified but lucid enough state, I could recognize that the torrent of thoughts racing through my mind of course preferred the former.

...but no! That isn't possible. It can't be! He couldn't have been here... I didn't want him here, I don't even know where this place is. I should be scared by myself, only my life should be in danger, not his. It was my fault I was in this mess. 

It's all my fault! 

He can't be here!

Please...please...

God, if you're still there...please, don't let that be him.