I hate the rain.

I’m not sure when the hate first began to stir in my mind, maybe it was always there. All I know for sure is when it really blossomed, when I felt the anger the rain really brought out of me.

It was May 7th 1974. I was twelve, no, eleven years old. That day was talked about for months to come, so many headlines came out of it.

It was called a “Freak Accident” and although the story was constantly spread around there was no real deeper inspection on what happened, and that’s the problem. It was no accident, I should be able to tell you that. That is if I’m who I think I am right now.

My sense of self you see is fading. It has been for a long long time. It’s ok when I can’t hear it, but when I do everything just fades away. But that’s not important, what is important is what happened in 1974.

You see what I liked- what I still like to do is imagine I’m talking to someone else. It helps me keep that fading sense of self that I just talked about intact. It can help put it off, but eventually I do lose myself, there’s no stopping that.

If you can hear my voice, if somehow you’re real I want you to remember me and maybe one day after I’ve disappeared, you can imagine talking to me and I can go from being just a fragment of something to something whole again, something that exists.

I went off the beaten path, that’s dangerous. I need to be concise, tell you what happened without sidetracking because if I do sidetrack I won’t know who’s talking.

But the way I tell the story is important, because it builds into something more than just a story, it becomes what was real.

The memories are just fragments, but once I grab one I can make it back into the whole, the actual thing that the world never saw.

In 1974 I was eleven. Those are facts, the first fragments that let me wade my way through and find the other parts of the truth that were torn apart.

The next part I find is the exact day, May 7th.

I woke up that day and it was really so odd. I was in my bed alone, but I don’t really remember waking up or going to sleep. I remember just being there, just existing out of the blue. And I felt different than I normally did, I don’t exactly remember how I normally felt back then but I can tell it wasn’t what I’ve felt ever since.

It was new, but not good new. A terrifying new. I didn’t know it back then but I know now.

My movements didn’t feel like mine, I thought and my body moved but I didn’t feel. It was like I was ordering my body verses naturally controlling it, it was no longer a part of me. But it was accurate, it was good. I could move my body with no error, anything I wanted to do at that point I could just simply think it and my body would do it. So even though I stopped being real I was happy because it was better than being real, it was transcendent.

But, even though it seemed very good that morning, there are no truly good things in the world, not ones that come without loss. I know that- I know that because what was coming later that day was a prime example of it.

Moving like an outsider in my own body, I walked out of my room and came to eat breakfast with my family. It was a constant in my life, the breakfast that I had every morning.

My family was pretty loving, we were simple. There was no extravagency or major happenings, the world changed and we did too, because we were just another part of the world. We weren’t major or minor players in that world, but we were a part of it and we were happy to be.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

But, that morning as my body came to the table, they looked at me differently. It was subtle but there was anxiety in their eyes, they were expecting something to go wrong, they were expecting me too… not yet. That part isn’t ready to be told yet. I have to go in order, this story, this reality needs to have a structure.

Breakfast went as it usually did, although the food I ate and drank did not exactly taste like anything, but that was ok. I had changed, and I accepted that because I was happy.

My family had a plan that day, even though I can tell now that in the depths of their hearts they knew something was going to go wrong, they wanted to deliver on it. We were going somewhere, a park. We were planning to have a picnic, the family together. Me, my two brothers who were a year older and younger than me respectively, my mother, and my father.

We all packed into our small car which could only fit five people and I was forced to sit in the middle which I had always complained about because it was so cramped, but this time I simply accepted it and I couldn’t even feel my brother's bodies pushing into my own. My mother looked back and she was confused for a moment, expecting the usual outcry of complaints but instead receiving silent compliance. She looked happy, but I know. I know deep down that she thought of me as something different, something that wasn’t completely her own son. And she was right, that morning I had changed fundamentally, I was different.

I’m scared. Because as I piece together what happened, I get closer to the ending that I don’t know, all I know is that it’s awful, something that I shouldn’t look back upon, something I should simply change the ending too. But I can’t do that, I need to really remember it, to etch it into my mind again so when I disappear I can come back again and tell it again, so I can remember it the next time and the next and the next.

They-My parents liked to listen to the weather forecasts when we were in the car. I’m not sure why they didn’t check it the day before, but it usually didn’t matter. That day the sun was supposed to be beautifully bright and besides it there wasn’t gonna be a single thing in the sky.

As I get closer to the end I start realizing why I wanted to hide away from it, it’s maddening, just thinking about it is ripping me apart! But I want to say it, I need to tell someone what happened to me, what I did!

I didn’t want to do it, that needs to be clear to you. It wasn’t my fault, it was this other part of me. Don’t judge me, don’t condemn me for something I had no intention to do!

That’s the sickening thing, I had no intention to do it but I did. There’s not gonna be the ringing of a church bell when I die, no one's gonna mourn me because the people who would be are all gone! And everything, it’s all my…. NO! It’s not my fault in the slightest, it wasn’t me! It wasn’t me who was different that day, it was someone else masquerading as me, someone who couldn’t even replicate the world around me enough to feel it.

There was a spot we liked to go to for our picnics, one that nobody else knew about. One that was away from the prying eyes of society and allowed our family to just be a family.

It was on a cliff overlooking some deep waters, there was a path that led to it that had been beaten down over time, but it was still hidden enough to be a secret to those who didn’t know about it. My mom in particular loved the spot, my dad thought it was dangerous but he would do anything for my mom to be happy so he just shrugged his shoulders and went along with it.

My dad was right.

There was a part of the cliff that had a magnificent view of the waters below, and my mother and father loved to go together to look out together just taking the breathtaking scenery in and understanding that life was truly an experience.

My brothers were sitting at the blanket we set down for the picnic, extremely well behaved and enjoying the nice sunny day, and my parents had gotten back from their normal viewing and were happily chatting with all of us.

On the horizon, there were black clouds. The day was supposed to be nice, it was supposed to be normal but the black clouds on the horizon signaled disaster, and not just the natural kind. My mom sighed, accepting the clouds as just the weatherman having spotty reporting as always and got ready to head out. Before she did though, she wanted to look at the view one more time with my dad.

My brothers were playing absentmindedly but safely while my mother and father stood together but I… It was the first time that day. And it was terrifying, it was from the depths of my very mind that reached out and surrounded me in tendrils of dark that threatened to consume me, no not threatened, they did! They trapped me in a vile place, and I….

There was rain, it wasn’t on us yet but I could hear it somehow and it brought something with it. I walked towards my mom and dad, their backs clearly showing as they looked out at the oh so beautiful view that was scorched into my mind.

My hands lifted as I got closer with no control over my body, and when they reached my parents, they pushed forwards with force.

They were dead the second they were pushed and I know that, but what I don’t know is what came after. It’s all blank, there’s no path forwards anymore there’s a veil that won’t budge no matter what I do.

I never met my brothers again. I don’t know if they’re alive, if they hate me. Life's sporadic, everything just kind of blacks out. The most I was in control at a time was for a full week about… well I think 2 years ago. I don’t try to gather information or get the truth out, because I’m afraid that if the truth gets out the next time I lose control then there won’t be another time I gain control.

I’m too afraid to know what I do when I black out, so I avoid it. That makes me a bad person, I understand that. But at least I’m a person, at least I still exist. I’m afraid, so afraid of losing the existence I still have.

Things are getting fuzzy, I hear the storm coming and it’s carrying the rain that washes away my thoughts. I just want to wake up again, that’s all I want. I’ll retell this story again and again to make sure that I know who I am and that I know I wasn’t the one who did it, that my body isn’t my own, that I’m not the monster that would kill my own parents.

Goodbye, whoever it is that’s listening to this in the void of my own mind. Remember me please, and remember the story I told you so you can show me the way next time.

He hates the rain.