The Monsters We BecomeA Story by AverageThinkerThere once was a poor artist, seeking to make a living. He didn’t
mind this; in fact, he embraced the humbling situations he was in and did what
he could to brighten the black and white world he lived in. But there were evil
spirits lurking in this world, and there was little he could do. I stared at the ceiling of “my” room, the tempting lull of the
warm bed beckoning me to stay. I didn’t want to leave. There wasn’t any
point in getting out of bed anyway. There were only monsters outside of
these comforting blankets. In fact, there was one downstairs right now. I sighed. Sooner or
later, that witch would make me get out of bed anyway. I peeked the tip of my
foot out of the sheets, barely touching the floor, and shivered at the sudden
cold when I dragged the blankets aside. I hopped across the dark, ice-cold
floor to the other side of the room, where heavy curtains obscured the room in comfortable
darkness. I yanked them aside, glad that it was still dark outside, and started
to get ready for the day, pulling on my socks and such as I brushed my teeth. I wondered how long I would have to live in this miserable slum. Ever
since that incident… I stopped myself from remembering. Because remembering
only brought sorrow. And
sorrow only brought weakness. I raced to the kitchen and grabbed some stale bread out of the
cabinet. Cecile was already sitting on the couch, clicking away at her laptop,
undoubtedly planning my life for the next month or so. “We’re
driving to Washington D.C. for your competition after school.” I ignored her
and poured myself a cup of orange juice. “Are you
ready?” Ignored. When will this woman understand that I hate talking to her? I
buttered the bread with a plastic knife and started for the door, taking my
backpack on the way. “Is this
about your parents again?” My hand froze on the doorknob. “Leven, I
understand that it’s their anniversary, but it’s been three years. You have
to"“ “There’s
nothing that I have to do, Cecile. Shut up.” I imagined my voice, hard as
winter glass and just as cold, chipping away at her soul. I pictured my eyes,
caustically burning, drilling holes right into her very being. And I felt satisfied. I turned the doorknob, opening the gates for another hell to take
over. But right now, anything was better than Cecile. I took the elevator down
ten floors, all the way to the lobby and stepped out to rush hour. Busy
commuters dashed by to catch their subways in the regular bustle of New York
City. The brisk fall air greeted me as I watched the sun peek out from behind
the buildings. What an interesting mask the world decided to wear today. I took a
sip of my orange juice. Then, making sure that no one would notice, I turned
around, back towards the apartment building, into the alleyway behind it. I
stopped in front of the alley, my shadow blending in with the dark “Good morning, Lester.” *** I finished the piece with a
flourishing chord as the audience clapped loudly. I took my bow and walked off
of the stage. The judges nodded and smiled, and I couldn’t help but sneer
inwardly. I had this
competition in the bag. Cecile would be happy. Then again, did I care? I walked
backstage, blasé and apathetic. As I packed up my violin in one of the rooms, I
watched the small television screen in the corner for the next contender. He
walked up to face the judges, violin in hand and surprisingly tranquil. He
greeted them with a bow and took his place as the stage lights sent shafts of
light streaming down onto his fair skin. Wait a second… I knew that kid. He went to my school. He was a complete jest,
smiling and laughing, oblivious to the ever-present torment around him. Why was he here? I stared, open mouthed, trying to process what I was looking at.
Wait a second… He plays violin? That was news to me. But it didn’t matter if he couldn’t play,
right? I watched him, transfixed, as he slowly raised his bow, waiting for his
time to play. Mozart’s Concerto in G started with a striking G chord, the same
one it ended with. It was meant to grab the audience’s attention with the
reverberating sound. He finally took his first stroke. A regular G. Mezzo forte, maybe even Mezzo piano. Was this kid crazy? I shook my head. I should have known. He kept
playing, obviously not bothered by the fatal mistake he had made. How could
this amateur just ignore the score completely? He had just ruined his chances
of winning. To top that, he had suddenly decreased the tempo. There were just
too many things wrong with this. I turned away during his two rests of silence,
disappointed and miffed. The next chord came out of nowhere. Absolute fortissimo, to the
point where the audience was silent not out of respect, but out of shock. The
tempo skyrocketed out of nowhere, leaving the piano accompanist straining to
keep up. I was in utter disbelief. Tempo, dynamics, rhythm, everything and
anything, this fool disregarded completely. At this point, no one could tell
that it was the same, exact pre-set piece that we had all played. This wasn’t
Mozart’s classical work anymore; this was his very own playing. My hands shook in anger. Was he joking? Playing like this at such a major contest was
suicidal. His chances of winning couldn’t even be called miniscule. I could
already imagine the judges, spiteful of his complete ignorance. Competitions were not a place to “express your emotions through
music” or any kind of bull like that. Competitions were raw assessments of pure
skill. Bowing, rhythm, consistent speed, dynamics: Everything had to be played
exactly as the sheet music dictated. The piece should have been as black and
white as the score. Stupidly putting his own colors into a masterpiece that was
already perfected? Because of his heretical
ideals, this artist was disliked by the other prestigious, famous artists who
painted black-and-white portraits for black-and-white people. They did all that
they could to keep the poor artist from succeeding. One day, they came up with
an evil plan to pull him into ruin. Sooner or later, those colors would run into each other and ruin
the whole thing. *** I strolled briskly out of the
venue with the prize money in hand. I had won by a landslide, but I was still
slightly peeved by that philistine’s poor playing. What a spectacle. I spied
the said person, waiting for his parents by the curb. I sniffed. How dense could he be? “Hey you,” I called out. He turned around, bewildered. I rolled my
eyes. “Over here.” He found me in the crowd of people and smiled. “Hey! It’s you! You did a really good job! You were the person before
me, right?” His rambling annoyed me as much as his playing had. I cut to
the chase, making sure he could see the ice in my eyes and how annoyed I was. “What the heck was that?” He stared at me in obvious confusion,
and I huffed in irritation. “I mean, why did you edit the score?” He thought for a while, and
then clapped his hands when he finally understood what it meant. “Oh, you mean my playing! Well, it sounded pretty with the accents
on the second phrase, and I thought it sounded too stuffy in general!” He
grinned, relieved to have found an answer for me, but I still wasn’t satisfied. “You completely ignored the original piece. Are you crazy?” I
badgered. He shrugged in reply, and I became angrier still. “You can’t win competitions like that.” He shrugged again. “So?” “If you weren’t even going to play like you were supposed to, why
did you enter?” I struggled to keep my voice down. He looked puzzled again and
gave his blunt reply. “Well, the point isn’t to win, is it?” I was enraged. What kind of
nonsense was this? “You imbecile. Does this really mean that little to you?” I spat
out the words like venom, but he didn’t back down. Instead, he kept staring
right back at me as if he were questioning me. “No, it really means a lot to me. After all, I get to see the
smiles of the people that I made happy when I played.” He laughed sheepishly.
Was he being serious? I couldn’t believe the complete foolishness of his
ideals. Sooner or later, this industry would ruin him, and these idiotic
thoughts would be no more. “Tch. Don’t kid with me. You won’t last long if you go messing
around like a child.” I turned away without a glance back. The malevolent artists summoned monsters that preyed the lands,
and implored them to help eliminate the poor artist. “Only,” the monsters
replied, “If you sell yourselves to us, and become demons as well.” So they
infected themselves with sin’s contagious poison, and became monsters of the
worst kind. *** Cecile pulled up onto the
driveway, her house creating a dim outline in the evening light of the
streetlamps. I had been thinking about that annoying brat the whole ride, and
the crunching gravel brought me back to my senses. Something so trivial
shouldn’t have affected me this much. I eyed the alleyway discretely; Cecile wouldn’t
care if I slipped away for a second, would she? She was too busy counting the
prize money anyway. “Cecile,” I mumbled. “I have to do something. I’ll be back later.”
She nodded, not really paying attention. “Mmhmm. You go and do your thing.” I pulled the car door open and
then slammed it shut behind me. Making sure that Cecile was still transfixed on
her money, I went around the apartment building into the alleyway once again,
reaching into the bag slung over my shoulder to make sure that I had enough cat
food. “Hey Lester! Where are you?” I whispered softly, trying not to
draw too much attention. A pair of yellow eyes glowed in the dark night. I
crouched so that I was eye level with him and opened a tin of cat food, setting
it down gently so that he wouldn’t feel threatened. After a while, he finally
took the offering and ate the food. I carefully petted his matted brown fur and
felt a sense of calmness wash over me in serene, flowing waves. “I honestly don’t know why I keep coming back here. Must be your
way with the ladies, hm?” I chuckled. This cat, a stray I had found on the
street a few days ago, seemed to be like my only oasis away from the rest of
the world. It was a chance for me to just relax for once, a chance to get a
away from the cold hard truth. Cats didn’t bring your world crashing down into
a mess. Cats could scratch you, but they would heal. The scratches that the world left on me still hadn’t closed. *** Over the past few weeks, I
participated in the competitions and concerts that Cecile stacked high; with
all of the prize money I had won, it was quite strange that our living
situations hadn’t improved one bit. I continued to see that brat in many of the events. It infuriated
me at first, how he continued to skew piece after piece, tuning it to his own
arrangements. But then I noticed something, at a winner’s concert one chilly
November day. The audience seemed to become… alive when his bizarre
playing was presented to them. They clapped the loudest for him, and were
always enraptured in his irregular playing. It
confused me to no end. Didn’t they know what the piece was supposed to sound
like? The very idea of playing like him was utter blasphemy. So why did it excite them so much? I sighed and stretched where I
was. Cecile had booked me a performing slot for this concert. Just a minute
ago, the concert sponsor had announced intermission. I walked outside for some
fresh air and, breathing in the cold night air, lapsed into my thoughts when I
felt a presence behind me. I turned around to see the very person that had been
on my mind. “Hello, Caleb.” He waved and gave me his trademark grin. “Leven, right?” I curtly nodded. “So I guess you’re playing today,” I muttered. “Yep! And you are too!” I sighed wearily and asked the question
that had been pestering me since the day that I saw him at that competition in
Washington. “Why won’t you play like you’re supposed to?” He shrugged in
reply, a gesture that felt mildly déjà vu. “You have to lose some to win some.” “Seems like you’re only losing so far.” A half-smirk started to
inch its way onto my face. “There were fights that you never signed up for.” “And I can say the same for myself.” I retorted coolly. He raised
an eyebrow. “Really, can you?” By then, I had a full on smirk. “You wouldn’t know because you never signed up for them.” He
sighed and inwardly, I grinned. “Well, I guess I’ll just say this: there are winners and there are
losers. Maybe I’m a loser, but even beneath me are the quitters.” My inner
smile disappeared, and I reverted back to my cold, hard self. “I merely gave in to an inevitable force; in time, you will too.”
He looked at me, his expression unfathomable: Sadness? Pain? Pity? “You’re so cold. Everything about you: your playing, your eyes,
your smile. It’s like you’ve been carved from ice. But you know, Leven, there
are people that care about you.” People that cared about me? I sneered at his
innocence and laughed. “You’re right. There were a few,” I acknowledged. “But do you know what happened to them?” He listened on, and then
I blew up. “Three years ago, when I was just ten years old, my mother, my
father, MY ONLY FAMILY, they died in a freaking car crash! I was so, so,
devastated you see?” I finally went over the edge; it was too much. I was
screaming, I was wailing, I didn’t know what I was doing, but all I knew of
this pent-up acrimony was that it was finally being released. “And the catch?” I took a shuddering breath, trying to calm myself
with the cool night air, but I still felt feverish and warm. I couldn’t stop
the endless stream of words as I tried to reach out, just once, in desperation. “That Machiavellian witch wouldn’t even let me go to the
funeral! A full day of concerts and competitions. For every note I played a
tear would fall, and every stroke I took with my bow felt like a saw at my
heart. It hurt. It hurt so, so much!” I was crying now, something I hadn’t done
since the day my parents passed. Caleb watched in silence as I let the tears
fall. I felt so weak, so powerless, and I hated it. I was gulping air like a
dead fish now, struggling to calm down. I wiped away my tears and refused to
look at Caleb. How could I show so much vulnerability in front of someone that
I barely knew? “My brother.” His voice was quiet. “It was leukemia. It was torture to watch him suffer for so long.
In the end, he lost his battle.” His voice became hard. “I was once like you, Leven. I thought that the world was against
me; I thought that everyone would leave me. But you’re wrong. One day there
will be someone who will cherish you as much as your parents did.” I let out a
shaky laugh. “It’s too late for me, Caleb. I’ve already accepted it, haven’t I?
The poison of the world’s ideals, the toxins of our way of living. There’s no
going back anymore.” Caleb shook his head fervently. “There’s always something to hold on to. Maybe you just haven’t
found it yet, but you will. I promise.” Can I believe in you? “Promise?” I sounded like a child, hopeful and trusting underneath
my mask of doubt. He smiled reassuringly. “Promise. *** I hummed quietly to myself as
I strolled out of the apartment building with a bounce in my step. Even this
late at night, there were still people mulling around. After coming back to
Cecile’s house, I had immediately gone back downstairs to see Lester. Again, Cecile
didn’t care. I rounded the corner and stopped at the usual alleyway with cat
food in hand. “Lester!” I called out, waiting for the familiar yellow eyes and
brown fur to surface from the quiet shadows. When there was no reply, I
cautiously entered the alley, trying my best to find my way in the dark. “Lester?” My voice quavered; where was he? I couldn’t see anything
in this darkness. I walked back out to think. He was probably sleeping, or
maybe just didn’t want to be bothered. I sighed. I guess I would come back
tomorrow. I treaded back to the apartment building, wondering when I would see
Caleb again when I spotted a brown bundle of something on the side of
the street. Bundles of something were pretty normal in Manhattan, but a voice
in me seemed to whisper, Go over there. See what it is. I got
closer to the brown thing. It remained unmoving. Is that… The brown
was fur. No… Matted,
thick fur that reminded me of how I would pet Lester. This can’t
be… A tail was
sticking out like a stubborn cord. Please, it
can’t be! My heart
started to pound as I kept staring at the pile of fur. But you promised, Caleb. Two empty
yellow eyes stared back at me, not a trace of the comfort they had once held
for me. The poor
artist traveled long and far, striving to paint the world in his vivid colors. But when
the colors faded to black and white once again, the monsters around him
devoured his soul. I chuckled bitterly. “I should have known.”
The Monsters We Become There once was a poor artist, seeking to make a living. He didn’t
mind this; in fact, he embraced the humbling situations he was in and did what
he could to brighten the black and white world he lived in. But there were evil
spirits lurking in this world, and there was little he could do. I stared at the ceiling of “my” room, the tempting lull of the
warm bed beckoning me to stay. I didn’t want to leave. There wasn’t any
point in getting out of bed anyway. There were only monsters outside of
these comforting blankets. In fact, there was one downstairs right now. I sighed. Sooner or
later, that witch would make me get out of bed anyway. I peeked the tip of my
foot out of the sheets, barely touching the floor, and shivered at the sudden
cold when I dragged the blankets aside. I hopped across the dark, ice-cold
floor to the other side of the room, where heavy curtains obscured the room in comfortable
darkness. I yanked them aside, glad that it was still dark outside, and started
to get ready for the day, pulling on my socks and such as I brushed my teeth. I wondered how long I would have to live in this miserable slum. Ever
since that incident… I stopped myself from remembering. Because remembering
only brought sorrow. And
sorrow only brought weakness. I raced to the kitchen and grabbed some stale bread out of the
cabinet. Cecile was already sitting on the couch, clicking away at her laptop,
undoubtedly planning my life for the next month or so. “We’re
driving to Washington D.C. for your competition after school.” I ignored her
and poured myself a cup of orange juice. “Are you
ready?” Ignored. When will this woman understand that I hate talking to her? I
buttered the bread with a plastic knife and started for the door, taking my
backpack on the way. “Is this
about your parents again?” My hand froze on the doorknob. “Leven, I
understand that it’s their anniversary, but it’s been three years. You have
to"“ “There’s
nothing that I have to do, Cecile. Shut up.” I imagined my voice, hard as
winter glass and just as cold, chipping away at her soul. I pictured my eyes,
caustically burning, drilling holes right into her very being. And I felt satisfied. I turned the doorknob, opening the gates for another hell to take
over. But right now, anything was better than Cecile. I took the elevator down
ten floors, all the way to the lobby and stepped out to rush hour. Busy
commuters dashed by to catch their subways in the regular bustle of New York
City. The brisk fall air greeted me as I watched the sun peek out from behind
the buildings. What an interesting mask the world decided to wear today. I took a
sip of my orange juice. Then, making sure that no one would notice, I turned
around, back towards the apartment building, into the alleyway behind it. I
stopped in front of the alley, my shadow blending in with the dark “Good morning, Lester.” *** I finished the piece with a
flourishing chord as the audience clapped loudly. I took my bow and walked off
of the stage. The judges nodded and smiled, and I couldn’t help but sneer
inwardly. I had this
competition in the bag. Cecile would be happy. Then again, did I care? I walked
backstage, blasé and apathetic. As I packed up my violin in one of the rooms, I
watched the small television screen in the corner for the next contender. He
walked up to face the judges, violin in hand and surprisingly tranquil. He
greeted them with a bow and took his place as the stage lights sent shafts of
light streaming down onto his fair skin. Wait a second… I knew that kid. He went to my school. He was a complete jest,
smiling and laughing, oblivious to the ever-present torment around him. Why was he here? I stared, open mouthed, trying to process what I was looking at.
Wait a second… He plays violin? That was news to me. But it didn’t matter if he couldn’t play,
right? I watched him, transfixed, as he slowly raised his bow, waiting for his
time to play. Mozart’s Concerto in G started with a striking G chord, the same
one it ended with. It was meant to grab the audience’s attention with the
reverberating sound. He finally took his first stroke. A regular G. Mezzo forte, maybe even Mezzo piano. Was this kid crazy? I shook my head. I should have known. He kept
playing, obviously not bothered by the fatal mistake he had made. How could
this amateur just ignore the score completely? He had just ruined his chances
of winning. To top that, he had suddenly decreased the tempo. There were just
too many things wrong with this. I turned away during his two rests of silence,
disappointed and miffed. The next chord came out of nowhere. Absolute fortissimo, to the
point where the audience was silent not out of respect, but out of shock. The
tempo skyrocketed out of nowhere, leaving the piano accompanist straining to
keep up. I was in utter disbelief. Tempo, dynamics, rhythm, everything and
anything, this fool disregarded completely. At this point, no one could tell
that it was the same, exact pre-set piece that we had all played. This wasn’t
Mozart’s classical work anymore; this was his very own playing. My hands shook in anger. Was he joking? Playing like this at such a major contest was
suicidal. His chances of winning couldn’t even be called miniscule. I could
already imagine the judges, spiteful of his complete ignorance. Competitions were not a place to “express your emotions through
music” or any kind of bull like that. Competitions were raw assessments of pure
skill. Bowing, rhythm, consistent speed, dynamics: Everything had to be played
exactly as the sheet music dictated. The piece should have been as black and
white as the score. Stupidly putting his own colors into a masterpiece that was
already perfected? Because of his heretical
ideals, this artist was disliked by the other prestigious, famous artists who
painted black-and-white portraits for black-and-white people. They did all that
they could to keep the poor artist from succeeding. One day, they came up with
an evil plan to pull him into ruin. Sooner or later, those colors would run into each other and ruin
the whole thing. *** I strolled briskly out of the
venue with the prize money in hand. I had won by a landslide, but I was still
slightly peeved by that philistine’s poor playing. What a spectacle. I spied
the said person, waiting for his parents by the curb. I sniffed. How dense could he be? “Hey you,” I called out. He turned around, bewildered. I rolled my
eyes. “Over here.” He found me in the crowd of people and smiled. “Hey! It’s you! You did a really good job! You were the person before
me, right?” His rambling annoyed me as much as his playing had. I cut to
the chase, making sure he could see the ice in my eyes and how annoyed I was. “What the heck was that?” He stared at me in obvious confusion,
and I huffed in irritation. “I mean, why did you edit the score?” He thought for a while, and
then clapped his hands when he finally understood what it meant. “Oh, you mean my playing! Well, it sounded pretty with the accents
on the second phrase, and I thought it sounded too stuffy in general!” He
grinned, relieved to have found an answer for me, but I still wasn’t satisfied. “You completely ignored the original piece. Are you crazy?” I
badgered. He shrugged in reply, and I became angrier still. “You can’t win competitions like that.” He shrugged again. “So?” “If you weren’t even going to play like you were supposed to, why
did you enter?” I struggled to keep my voice down. He looked puzzled again and
gave his blunt reply. “Well, the point isn’t to win, is it?” I was enraged. What kind of
nonsense was this? “You imbecile. Does this really mean that little to you?” I spat
out the words like venom, but he didn’t back down. Instead, he kept staring
right back at me as if he were questioning me. “No, it really means a lot to me. After all, I get to see the
smiles of the people that I made happy when I played.” He laughed sheepishly.
Was he being serious? I couldn’t believe the complete foolishness of his
ideals. Sooner or later, this industry would ruin him, and these idiotic
thoughts would be no more. “Tch. Don’t kid with me. You won’t last long if you go messing
around like a child.” I turned away without a glance back. The malevolent artists summoned monsters that preyed the lands,
and implored them to help eliminate the poor artist. “Only,” the monsters
replied, “If you sell yourselves to us, and become demons as well.” So they
infected themselves with sin’s contagious poison, and became monsters of the
worst kind. *** Cecile pulled up onto the
driveway, her house creating a dim outline in the evening light of the
streetlamps. I had been thinking about that annoying brat the whole ride, and
the crunching gravel brought me back to my senses. Something so trivial
shouldn’t have affected me this much. I eyed the alleyway discretely; Cecile wouldn’t
care if I slipped away for a second, would she? She was too busy counting the
prize money anyway. “Cecile,” I mumbled. “I have to do something. I’ll be back later.”
She nodded, not really paying attention. “Mmhmm. You go and do your thing.” I pulled the car door open and
then slammed it shut behind me. Making sure that Cecile was still transfixed on
her money, I went around the apartment building into the alleyway once again,
reaching into the bag slung over my shoulder to make sure that I had enough cat
food. “Hey Lester! Where are you?” I whispered softly, trying not to
draw too much attention. A pair of yellow eyes glowed in the dark night. I
crouched so that I was eye level with him and opened a tin of cat food, setting
it down gently so that he wouldn’t feel threatened. After a while, he finally
took the offering and ate the food. I carefully petted his matted brown fur and
felt a sense of calmness wash over me in serene, flowing waves. “I honestly don’t know why I keep coming back here. Must be your
way with the ladies, hm?” I chuckled. This cat, a stray I had found on the
street a few days ago, seemed to be like my only oasis away from the rest of
the world. It was a chance for me to just relax for once, a chance to get a
away from the cold hard truth. Cats didn’t bring your world crashing down into
a mess. Cats could scratch you, but they would heal. The scratches that the world left on me still hadn’t closed. *** Over the past few weeks, I
participated in the competitions and concerts that Cecile stacked high; with
all of the prize money I had won, it was quite strange that our living
situations hadn’t improved one bit. I continued to see that brat in many of the events. It infuriated
me at first, how he continued to skew piece after piece, tuning it to his own
arrangements. But then I noticed something, at a winner’s concert one chilly
November day. The audience seemed to become… alive when his bizarre
playing was presented to them. They clapped the loudest for him, and were
always enraptured in his irregular playing. It
confused me to no end. Didn’t they know what the piece was supposed to sound
like? The very idea of playing like him was utter blasphemy. So why did it excite them so much? I sighed and stretched where I
was. Cecile had booked me a performing slot for this concert. Just a minute
ago, the concert sponsor had announced intermission. I walked outside for some
fresh air and, breathing in the cold night air, lapsed into my thoughts when I
felt a presence behind me. I turned around to see the very person that had been
on my mind. “Hello, Caleb.” He waved and gave me his trademark grin. “Leven, right?” I curtly nodded. “So I guess you’re playing today,” I muttered. “Yep! And you are too!” I sighed wearily and asked the question
that had been pestering me since the day that I saw him at that competition in
Washington. “Why won’t you play like you’re supposed to?” He shrugged in
reply, a gesture that felt mildly déjà vu. “You have to lose some to win some.” “Seems like you’re only losing so far.” A half-smirk started to
inch its way onto my face. “There were fights that you never signed up for.” “And I can say the same for myself.” I retorted coolly. He raised
an eyebrow. “Really, can you?” By then, I had a full on smirk. “You wouldn’t know because you never signed up for them.” He
sighed and inwardly, I grinned. “Well, I guess I’ll just say this: there are winners and there are
losers. Maybe I’m a loser, but even beneath me are the quitters.” My inner
smile disappeared, and I reverted back to my cold, hard self. “I merely gave in to an inevitable force; in time, you will too.”
He looked at me, his expression unfathomable: Sadness? Pain? Pity? “You’re so cold. Everything about you: your playing, your eyes,
your smile. It’s like you’ve been carved from ice. But you know, Leven, there
are people that care about you.” People that cared about me? I sneered at his
innocence and laughed. “You’re right. There were a few,” I acknowledged. “But do you know what happened to them?” He listened on, and then
I blew up. “Three years ago, when I was just ten years old, my mother, my
father, MY ONLY FAMILY, they died in a freaking car crash! I was so, so,
devastated you see?” I finally went over the edge; it was too much. I was
screaming, I was wailing, I didn’t know what I was doing, but all I knew of
this pent-up acrimony was that it was finally being released. “And the catch?” I took a shuddering breath, trying to calm myself
with the cool night air, but I still felt feverish and warm. I couldn’t stop
the endless stream of words as I tried to reach out, just once, in desperation. “That Machiavellian witch wouldn’t even let me go to the
funeral! A full day of concerts and competitions. For every note I played a
tear would fall, and every stroke I took with my bow felt like a saw at my
heart. It hurt. It hurt so, so much!” I was crying now, something I hadn’t done
since the day my parents passed. Caleb watched in silence as I let the tears
fall. I felt so weak, so powerless, and I hated it. I was gulping air like a
dead fish now, struggling to calm down. I wiped away my tears and refused to
look at Caleb. How could I show so much vulnerability in front of someone that
I barely knew? “My brother.” His voice was quiet. “It was leukemia. It was torture to watch him suffer for so long.
In the end, he lost his battle.” His voice became hard. “I was once like you, Leven. I thought that the world was against
me; I thought that everyone would leave me. But you’re wrong. One day there
will be someone who will cherish you as much as your parents did.” I let out a
shaky laugh. “It’s too late for me, Caleb. I’ve already accepted it, haven’t I?
The poison of the world’s ideals, the toxins of our way of living. There’s no
going back anymore.” Caleb shook his head fervently. “There’s always something to hold on to. Maybe you just haven’t
found it yet, but you will. I promise.” Can I believe in you? “Promise?” I sounded like a child, hopeful and trusting underneath
my mask of doubt. He smiled reassuringly. “Promise. *** I hummed quietly to myself as
I strolled out of the apartment building with a bounce in my step. Even this
late at night, there were still people mulling around. After coming back to
Cecile’s house, I had immediately gone back downstairs to see Lester. Again, Cecile
didn’t care. I rounded the corner and stopped at the usual alleyway with cat
food in hand. “Lester!” I called out, waiting for the familiar yellow eyes and
brown fur to surface from the quiet shadows. When there was no reply, I
cautiously entered the alley, trying my best to find my way in the dark. “Lester?” My voice quavered; where was he? I couldn’t see anything
in this darkness. I walked back out to think. He was probably sleeping, or
maybe just didn’t want to be bothered. I sighed. I guess I would come back
tomorrow. I treaded back to the apartment building, wondering when I would see
Caleb again when I spotted a brown bundle of something on the side of
the street. Bundles of something were pretty normal in Manhattan, but a voice
in me seemed to whisper, Go over there. See what it is. I got
closer to the brown thing. It remained unmoving. Is that… The brown
was fur. No… Matted,
thick fur that reminded me of how I would pet Lester. This can’t
be… A tail was
sticking out like a stubborn cord. Please, it
can’t be! My heart
started to pound as I kept staring at the pile of fur. But you promised, Caleb. Two empty
yellow eyes stared back at me, not a trace of the comfort they had once held
for me. The poor
artist traveled long and far, striving to paint the world in his vivid colors. But when
the colors faded to black and white once again, the monsters around him
devoured his soul. I chuckled bitterly. “I should have known.”
© 2015 AverageThinkerAuthor's Note
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1 Review Added on November 6, 2015 Last Updated on November 11, 2015 AuthorAverageThinkerAboutI am a writer. I enjoy writing poetry, fiction and other random ideas that present themselves to me. I am still in school, and will most likely post the writing that I do in school. I am a reader. I .. more.. |