“A child should never be left alone. Tempting? I am tempted. Can’t afford to look the gift horse in the mouth.” Glothmin Stonehend III

Chapter 8: Reap What You Sow

Entry #1 Calling

“I'm not much of a man.” How common is it for a man to spout nonsense? It is not that man's fault, neither is his folly.

Words are numbered. The memories of his words refuse to be put to rest.

We are born instruments, as we become attuned to this life. Life is a lens. Through the looking glass skin wrinkles, the heart slows, and life’s ‘Len’s’ reveals to us. We are not completely at fault, though time may tell another story.

I am the personification.

A man raised by Failure.

I hear the remnant of an estranged symphony. Final breaths of those that have rung, falling flat.

Is there enjoyment found, wishing, hoping? Can the sons and daughters of failures strike a chord with the obdurate.

“Stay ahead of the game, keep your head screwed on tight, Eye on the ball,” God damn America. Life is not a game to be trifled with at the behest of men. It is to be captured in film, ogled as art, savored like a fine wine.

America, the cesspool, welcomes those who belong. I was castaway to make something of myself, to hone the teachings of a Father to be.

The promise of peace of mind falls short. But I must ponder my next action. The future waits for no man.

“Anticipate, plan, execute.” I sooner become an instrument to failure.

I am the personification of man.

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#POV: Adousa S. Mabtali

Elijah was someone, something, in mind but out of reach.

'Heed' that owning him, having him, holding him is an impossible task. An artist does not capture his muse ‘the once’, his paintbrush and canvas are at War until ‘battle’ draws a victor.

Born in a land of cattle, where gluttony incarnate squabbles over poisoned pounds of flesh. A man carves his cattle, taking it for all its worth. A man lays waste.

I manage the impossible.

In the land of the ‘free’, money is wiped clean. Lest not forget, money is no object when it comes to old fashioned bartering.

I applaud Elijah for making it a challenge. A young man, who never stopped to spare a glance.

“I buy land.” He declines hastily.

“I buy Hen.” He looks at me distastefully. And as a man, I’d let him stew in the recess of illegal contraband, if it didn't spoil ripened fruit.

I offer him ‘all that money can offer’, except for those beloved poisons.

“Sunshine” that lasts throughout the ages. The ‘land’ is more tangible than a coin thrown in the metaphorical Well, and Cattle are bound to eat. A man greets failure, and another dollar falls into the vending machine.

I wanted to own him. He was property to be owned.

“Never take no for an answer." Summarize a man’s upbringing.

The American says that I have “no home training.” I spit on his name and the cattle who raised him.

Through lens I recognize myself to be at war. Warring with a land that does not seek to be tamed, an illness that has no means of being cured, and a lens that is too prominent in the eyes of society to shatter.

The American turns down my money. And it is a matter of time before I reveal myself to be insulted.

“You’ve grown soft.” I am a man lest you forget. Money moves mountains where I’m from. What must be done to the rock that won’t budge.

A young man with new money has a temper. A man from old money conceals, refines, readjusts his temperament. He picks up the chisel at the sight of work. Those who are patient, bear fruit. But half of the patience in the world couldn’t keep me away from my prize.

Quite unfortunate, our first confrontation. He wanted love at first sight. If only, it was love at first sight.

I tail him. Confronted, I applaud him for his perception. And he believes himself to have cornered me but it is I who have cornered him.

I am the personification of man.

I was drawn in by the flame. Setting my eyes on a Djinn, who'd seen me…for what I was.

I’d fallen prey in the cesspool.

"You want me, so does everyone else. What makes you so special? Everyone's special nowadays, give me what no one else will.” Those weren't exactly the words, but they came close.

A man as ruthless as I had gotten his awaited answer and was taken aback.

I was losing the war, so I came to the conclusion that it is best to take prisoners. He did the same to her once upon a time, "A whore" he called her.

I had been poisoned by the land while hunting its cattle. Against my lesser Will, I began craving more, I started yearning for more,and that would sooner lead to my defeat.

“Money doesn't mean much to me. I have it. I'll have had it.” The fallen had spoken. And I would retreat with what remained of my dignity. I was desperate, I admit that.

“Anything!” trying to come up with more to offer I was at a loss for words, he had emptied me.

A man reveals himself to be an animal when his words dry up. I lick my wounds this round, but there will come a next.

“What’s your price, name it?" Sin city, a chance encounter. I’d taken his advice those years back, having now walked with the beasts. I taught myself to talk like the beasts.

He liked the sound of my voice, bored of hearing his own.

I came to this country for business and entertainment. Elijah had kept me entertained. Or was I the entertainment? Had I known…

Elijah laughs something most carnal as he holds my manhood. The term is tainted in the state’s and takes on a new meaning, but think what you like. This is where the final battle takes place, and the foreigner hasn’t the advantage of homefield.

The performer anchors himself to the stage.

He was older, and I was falling behind.

An Angel staring down into Duzakh. A deity burning in flames whose wings stretch far and wide. What was going through my mind? A culmination of desperation, heartache, and disownment eating me from the inside. The end was near until he spoke. I wonder what changed his mind. How did I get him to change his mind?

He smiled as did the Performer on his stage; his eyes made one think otherwise.

I thought wrong, rarely was I ever.

“I'll take your accent, a date somewhere warm, your body undressed and given, your mind consumed, and last but not least your soul. I want you to burn, a man like you deserves to burn...burn for me.” I was taken aback; he was younger by seven years.

In our encounters I’d never heard such foolish words of sincerity come from his mouth/

Surely the old man laughed hearing that, he had to. I don't remember how much I drank that night. A few sips of liquid courage to induce kidney failure.

An hour couldn't compare to the present minute, I needed courage to propose my side of the bargain.

“Love me?” I asked, words laced with longing, waiting for an answer.

"Quite a greedy one you. Tell you what… I’ll try.” Licking his lips with cunning.

The beginning after the end. To face rejection. To face rejection three times and expect two years to make a difference.

He didn't have any interest in me. He looked down on me like I was nothing, no one. And that’s exactly what I was, what He always wanted me to be. What had changed Elijah’s mind as he stared into my eyes on that stage?

“Yes,” I surrendered myself. Somewhere deep down I knew that I couldn't be loved. I'd already taken too much. But here I am thirteen years later, raising children.

Elijah is incapable of lying. Sometimes I think he's incapable, until it comes to the children. The secret he's willing to keep. He'd do anything for them.

A fellow prisoner of war, he’d do anything for me.

==

Finding Mike hitting him upside his empty head. I ordered the party to a coming end.

“Parties over,” I almost accomplished the task of sending these people off. Till I remembered, it's beneath me.

‘Anything for him,’ Who cares if I'm not in my own country, lazy Americans.

I was on my way to my secret, not-so-secret study.

‘Public knowledge,' the daughter would sooner shout its existence from the rooftops. Not to worry, I had hidden my journals away from the girl although I had suspicioned the boy had read a few.

That Child takes after Elijah when it comes to getting his way. I can’t recall a child more transversed in the act of persuasion. He’s learning fast.

At the age of four, the boy approached me in the middle of the night and asked to be my family's last disciple. The child had somehow known the Mabtalis as a dying Household, assassination and espionage. I couldn't act surprised he’d always known more than he let on. The boy took after me, more than I took after myself.

As time went on, he seemed to know more than me regarding certain aspects of the family, whether I wanted to admit that or not it is the truth.

His mouth could turn the world on its head.

Always managed to give significance to the keepsakes, I'd shipped over to the States.

My constant reminder that he is a… monster.

"Never." A promise I had made to myself, putting an end to the family’s practices.

Adonin has his quirks, no harm would persist. So, as his father who swore to protect the two at any cost, I made a choice.

Wrong or right, it was a choice. And I am unable to regret it.

The Boy is a sponge to water. Astonishing the potential of a gifted mind, remembering his first steps.

Born with a mind always learning and improving on itself. Adonin’s body physically though was acting on its own time, childlike, soft to the touch, but agile and flexible.

"Inhuman” to the word. If it was anyone else, they would be weaponizing a child.

Raising him was the real task. 'I am raising a monster.' I couldn't shake those thoughts even during his birth.

Biologically, he is mine, Black blood, we share the same bloodline.

Adonin can be a sweet, loving, caring, and considerate boy like his 'Papa'. “I love my baby boy.” He was raised to the best of our ability.

With that said It' is my job to teach him discipline, what's ‘right from wrong’ no matter how long it takes. I understood that line after decades.

To understand where the line between good and evil presides.

“Decades,” my child didn't have that luxury.

The priority was sitting him down, anchoring him to a sense of morality. I hoped he wouldn't take after me but I'm not a man of faith, so my words fell on deaf ears.

At the age of five Elijah and I caught wind of our striking resemblances, past visual my baby boys a chip off the old block. Jet black hair and Elijah's hazel.

Brown beautiful dark skin not of my olive.

Brutal, sadistic, and a masochist, under the right circumstances. There was times Fa- father, he would lock me in a cellar chained by the ankle with only sunlight and sustenance as a means of control. But that was a mercy, better that than the…There was a reason he discontinued the family business. I was the reason. I understand that now. He was afraid that I wouldn't outgrow old tendencies.

I would still kill the bastard. A man doesn’t forget or forgive. I was raised by a Monster, it was no surprise what he'd propagate- All because of a spill, “the bastards deserved what they got.” A couple of other mishaps... I wasn't perfect.

I would never harm my child. I'll teach him well! No mistakes or flaws! They can all be worked out with time.

If I can do it, he can do it because he is my child, he is Mine.

I’ve killed a doctor or two to protect Elijah’s gift to me, I've killed many more on the order of a man most despicable. A few bodies of the past that I have forgotten I admit. Those deaths were a mercy. I exercised restraint trying not to get off on the suffering of others.

With that said I sit in my study tonight because a day of trepidation has arisen. Plans made have not completely been fleshed out to reach optimal results.

The ruby necklace was a gift to my son. It was a trophy in commemoration of our work.

Adonin's increasing control over his urges had paid off somewhat.

A family heirloom passed down over the years is now given as a reward for personal growth. The man turns in his grave knowing I’d become one of the Americans. But he is Elijah’s so I must give him the world.

He had set his eyes on it the moment he saw it. He was able to see through my study vault.

“My Beautiful Baby Boy,” I don't understand him at times. Nor can I comprehend his capabilities to their fullest, but in time we could've realized his potential together.

Now onto the most recent event of my concern. To the three who have taken my children off my property. I wish you no mercy for none will be offered. May you spill thy blood in front of the son whom you've taken and do yourself the favor of harming which we hold most dear.

No life has been taken yet three are to come. For he is my blood, my second and third greatest joy.

No ransom will be paid for you are already dead, may your Gods be with you.

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“Take care of your sister. Be mindful of taking her memories, they are hers though not hers alone. Be gentle with her…as best you can. If you have to, make the right decisions for the both of you. You are not alone, you are never alone, don't forget that. A man's burden can't always be shared… but it can be.” Adousa S.Mabtali

Chapter 8: Reap what You Sow (Part II)

The skinny one who hauled me upstairs into this apartment had sat me down dead center before they started talking about ransoming me off. wouldn’t scream for Papa or Father like they wanted me to. Whatever hand gestures they had made in the car didn't help much in scaring me. I could see them after all.

This was all a tactic, but for what?

My mind wandered on that topic of what they were going to do to me. Not for too long because, Papa never let me finish watching “The Call” to find out what happened to the girl after she was kidnapped. He didn’t want to hear it when I told him I wasn’t a kid anymore. And he almost canceled my subscription.

‘Oh, back to kidnappers.’

It didn’t help soothe my mind to know that they were conversing in the next room.

“What should we do-” That’s all I heard before the warehouse apartment door closed, cutting me off from the three people on the other side.

The ragged shirt didn’t serve its purpose of blocking my vision and that helped me keep my silence. It gave me some peace of mind knowing where I was, technically. I had watched them drive two hours and I’d remembered every twist and turn along the road.

I’d stave off the prickly headache. If it meant that I could find my way back home.

The two guys were talking about ransoming me off unlike the one girl, "Rachel", I think her name was.

She wasn’t completely into the whole kidnapping thing. ‘And on the Brightside, they hadn’t hurt me, only cursed my name, a few times.’ My stomach stung from the buzzcut guy tackling me onto the lawn, but the pain would subside.

Shit fog guy was close to losing it after I rightfully kicked him in his neck, but Rachel calmed him down. She walked from the other room into this one approaching with green specks oozing out of her ears.

As she kept her distance by a few feet I wondered, ‘what could she want with me.’ The walls were paper thin so I could guess that she was here playing good cop, I wouldn't be fooled.

The woman sucked in her breath hugging her sides in frustration, unable to look at me. I could see the outline of her head facing away from me.

'Maybe she had a change of heart? Maybe, playing dead all this time has paid off!' The more she paced the more hope I was given.

I could smell the salt of tears intermingled through the dirt, a sour smell, and incense burning somewhere. I could've been imagining it. 'No, I must've been imagining it.'

In my own world, with some fuming old lady in front of me, she suddenly started telling me off.

"Spent your whole life sucking on a golden tit, never in your life stepped a foot in a public school, I owe you nothing!" Everything after that was a blur. My ears had sort of turned off. Literally, the more she talked the louder a ringing went off in my head, like a broken phone line.

“Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrp,” I guess, I heard her, but the words went one ear out the other.

The woman was hollering at me for reasons beyond me.

Then she stared at me, in my eyes or at least where they should have been, if not for the head covering.

She probably gouged their location by finding the bridge of my nose couldn't have been that hard, how erratic my breathing had been. Speaking of erratic her hands hadn’t stopped shaking, I thought the woman was about to grab my hair. But seeing me jump in fear from her approach she stopped, huffed from her nose, and left swiftly.

I wanted to scream at her not to leave me alone with those two but I- I couldn't beg or plead any more than I already had. A giant bug caught in my throat, and I was too busy to pull it out.

I was bound in what I thought was a warehouse or some apartment on the highest floor of some building, I was far away from home that was evident. Why wouldn’t I start screaming for my life like any sane person.

After the dread of thinking that I was going to die had passed, I thought about what they could want with me. Which was nothing, I’ve got nothing to offer so money had to be the final choice just narrowing it down. I'm completely innocent. Not too many people can say that without using sarcasm.

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It had been hours, sitting in the chair. I might have been calm and collected but I had no intention of falling asleep in front of these weirdos. My eyes were aching, I was hungry, and they wouldn’t remove the tape or whatever they put over my mouth as if the head covering wasn't enough. Sleep seemed like the best option “sleep”, and would you look at that my whispering friend decided to come back around, what great timing.

The voice hadn’t steered me in the wrong direction so far.

‘So why not take a small, short nap?’ Then I thought about the bald skinny guy who had tackled me.

“Nope, not going to happen,” words muffled by a moldy shirt carelessly taped to my head. My mouth hurt from the pressure, and I’m pretty sure I was slobbering.

“Duct tape” I remember. How could I forget? The ‘Shit’ man, oops… the guy in green specks had duct taped the shirt over my head.

‘Am I tired or what?’ I started leaning to the side like there was a weight on my back.

“Sleep,” the voice whispered again for the second time.

My eyes felt insanely heavy, but I wasn't going to give in to the voice. I had a plan. And so close to carrying it out, Slinky bald man suddenly walked through the door cutting the warehouse apartment in half. The same door Rachel came from after their heated argument.

“I guess you and I are going to have some fun,” he said.

“No!” I mumbled not even having the courage to let the idea stew.

My eyes widened in terror at the insinuation.

“That bitch Rachel decided to run home for a bit, and Josh wants to let me have my way.” Sean threatened me about having his way or playing, whatever he had in mind I wanted no part in it, ever! Whatever "play" intended I got the feeling it wouldn't be any fun for me.

Sean prowled over to my chair, and I couldn’t help shiver in disgust.

My heart calmed after taking a step back from the situation, I was almost free.

'Neither of them had noticed.' All that time, while I was silent as a lamb in their van. I had repeatedly rubbed the ruby necklace against the duct tape, over my hands.

‘I’m so close to getting free and leaving this dustbin unscathed, then here you come to ruin it!’ My efforts were about to go right down the drain when the guy started touching my shoulder and smelling my hair.

“You have such nice skin." No way, I was shivering, ‘this guy is sick,’ how could that lady leave me with this pervert!?

Trying to shake my hands for dear life. I felt a release. A small snap across my wrists, the duct tape had loosened. My hands were almost free, but the man was so close to my face that I didn’t want to ruin my chance by swinging.

Whether it was because of sweat build up or some miracle, now was my chance.

'He needs a good punch to the face!” Oh, thank God he’s backing up! I found relief as Sean turned around and started thinking over his next steps. I slowly moved my arms for my feet while his back was turned.

He had changed motions so quickly that in my hast, I didn’t consider how long he would stay monologuing with his back turned. But was I lucky or what?!

“Shit” I mumbled. I was so panicked that I forgot that my legs were also duck taped and they had gone numb.

Sean turned back toward me, and I tried as quickly as possible to put my hands back behind the wooden chair he’d sat me on. I wasn't fast enough.

“What the fuck, how long have you been untied!” shouting in disbelief the guy ran up to me, reaching out with his giant hands for my own.

I waited until he got close enough to attack with the necklace in my right hand. I tried my best to hold the thing at its sharpest point which was nowhere to be found. The ruby was completely rounded that’s why It had taken so long to free myself.

I was feeling the adrenaline again. Swinging for his eyes the necklace had left a gash on his upper brow making him bleed. He deserved it, who cares if he got angrier? As he leaned back to catch himself after my attack.

"You little bitch!’ It was like the three had decided that was my God given name. ‘I’m a person you know,’ string at him through the musty shirt. I saw him wind his arm back to strike me. I braced for the cannonball coming my way.

“Adonin!” Shouted a child-like voice that sounded both frightened and worried beyond repair. Believing that they had kidnapped another unsuspecting child.

I thought, ‘What the hell is an Adonin?’ Not so surprised by the three being serial kidnappers. As the man’s specks came rushing toward my face, I felt with my entirety that something was off. Something had started. There was a sudden hot pricking under my fingernails as my lips numbed. I was out of time. No time to consider if I’d been poisoned or stabbed. An allergic reaction was out of the question.

My skin felt tingly. As if the fire ants I’d seen on the Discovery Channel had been hiding away all this time under my flesh. Taking pity on my hopeless predicament they had decided to shower me from head to toe.

This isn’t right, did the guy hit me and this is the aftermath? Looking at Sean I could see that he also saw something was wrong. He just sat there staring.

"Hellllp!!!," I screamed.

Pain is a feeling I rarely experience. I was a pampered girl after all, if it wasn’t for my self-defense classes, I would never have experienced what it was like to be attacked. But this sudden pain was indescribable.

It came in one big wave and suddenly I didn't feel anything at all. ‘Where did I go?’ I was a balloon taken by the wind. In the midst of flight, I was popped. With a gruesome, shredding, pop as if someone was thrown in a muffled meat grinder came the sound of flesh ripping all at once, like God had seen me as a piece of paper that needed to be torn into every piece imaginable.

The last image I had seen was of hands and arms. But where was my soft skin?

A flash of hot red blanketed my eyes. As if hot molten lava was poured over me headfirst.

I fainted. It was better to faint. My jaws had ripped from the wail I let out. Only to be taken by silence and the inability to feel anything.

There was nothing freeing about being a rogue balloon flying past the Mabtali estate gates. One wrong turn and you’d be skewered by the high gates pointed embellishment.

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"Shit," said By the Special Boy

Chapter 3: Reap What You Sow (Part III)

First came a question of disillusioned understanding.

“No, no, no, no, no, nooo0, what have I done?” Next, a spewing of speech incoherent but audible. "I had to do it! This wasn’t supposed to happen like this, she wasn’t supposed to learn of me like this. I’m sorry sister!!!" And last came a scream, ripping something in Its throat.

“NOOOOoo!!!” A shriek cracks windowpanes in the apartment while damaging and bursting eardrums.

Sean stumbles backward and trips over his two feet trying to hold his ears from the unnatural screech.

‘Unnatural’, were the vocal cords torn and shredded to smithereens as bile spewed from multiple orifices.

Any form of flowing liquid escaped through the open wounds across the girl. Skin continued to rip as if a balloon of Human flesh had been pierced. Pierced by bone, and stuffed by whatever was standing in the middle of Josh's living room.

A Thing, stout standing that looked as if it had snuck onto earth, moved under Adena’s black dress.

Coincidently, Sean was busy thinking the girl had somehow summoned something from the depths of Hell. He'd never experienced an acid trip this bad. He hurled watching liters of bile, blood, and other flowing liquids waste onto Josh's dirtied carpet. Gagging from the stench Sean had taken to shielding himself with his arms and cowering, as the small fiend spoke again.

“This wasn’t to happen!” It screeched again as if oblivious to the idea of pain. Talking as if uncaring of the mess it was making. And unbothered by the form it was now taking.

Slowly feeling around using its mind alone, the Thing came to recognize its sensory organs before coming close to urinating on the floor. The Kidneys and bladder had always slipped its mind before, It, ’He’, was given a reminder.

Black blood continued to seep out as Human bones jutted out from places they weren't supposed to jut. As a misaligned spine touches the armpit, small intestines poke out where a belly button would be located, and hair that would be located on its head was cluttered across its small torso.

The black dress had fallen, and all that was sacred was revealed.

Was it a child? The figure bathed in dark unoxygenated blood appeared, as something.

A Thing malformed, and malnourished had made an appearance. Adorning a face only a mother, no, a father could love.

Its eyes one vertical stared at the “Shit” crouching on the wooden floor. As if something lesser than life itself had crossed its path and sullied its existence.

-

-

#POV_ Adonin Servan Lee ce Raphil Mabtali

I stared at his open and predatory eyes, as he stared back at me. His eyes held in them their own emptiness; I watched him shake like a dog passing the estate, he couldn't hide his twisted perversions.

He was going to hurt her. This is his fault.

“All… yourrr fault!” I screamed, tearing my vocal cords raw for the second time today. I wasn’t meant to be in the world like this. So much of her had to be broken down and replaced on the inside so I could continue to live on the outside.

My brain is a jumbled mess, and I can’t manage to continue my sentences/

"Look… at me!" I shouted enraged. She didn’t call me earnestly even though Night had come. Despite my impending doom, the looming threat of death.

“Nothing I won’t… return to Nothing!” I grew irrational, as the seconds ticked by my heart thumping with irregularity. Stomach acid burned my throat as it did my eyes.

"Three thre-... three took it from me!" Shouting again, as I regurgitated black sludge. I hated the taste; it was dull and less of life. Glass cleaner tasted better. I would rather suck on Double A batteries.

Trying to ignore the chunks of flesh in my hair, I wanted to be “calm” like Dada taught me to.

So, I breathed deeply in and out. I had to find it. There were two in the room, one arriving any minute now. “Find…it,” it’s working overtime.

“Find...it!” This was his chance, but he wastes it.

“It races,” he cowers at my every word, he’s afraid.

“Fraidy…cat.” He should be scared. He does nothing with what he feels. Adrenaline pumps through his vein but he cowers at a misaligned meat suit. I’m immobile and he won’t dare to look at me.

He wears “black”, but he can’t take a second to honor the dead. “Find it…find it!” before he notices the yellow hue under the pale skin. A sign of my kidney’s failing.

“No,” he won’t notice, I’m covered in bile, shit, and blood. How could he possibly notice? And as if a bell rings in my mind, the cookies are fresh out of the oven. I am saved from the fryer induced fear.

He waited too long and now I’ve found it. It sits right under my bladder.

A place where it doesn’t belong, where the predator sees it.

“Heart,” under pressure, the weight of death pushing down on me. While he balls himself up by the counter, I find it. I’ve found my heart; it has been punctured.

Osteoclasts remove’s spare rib doing me harm than good.

No wonder everything had gone wrong from the start. I was dying and I hadn't even gotten my chance to live. I smile through the pain as I push out the unerupted teeth poking through cleft lip under my left nostril.

A new malformation, soon to be resolved.

“I’d been trying so hard before you three!” I speak to myself as the Shit watches with one eye open through the gap in his arm.The Shit was paying attention to my words, I can tell. I know these things. I see everything that needs to be seen.

“I’m the Special boy,” as my words become more audible, he regains some common sense.

“Monster,” he utters from the hole that breathed too close to my flesh and blood.

“A hypocrite,” It was a much-needed reminder, that I could stop it, fix it.

The green Shit was coming up the hallway stairs. I could hear his filth, smell his jealousy, and see through his flesh before he walked through the Door.

His key had yet to hit the copper door lock. The taste of his feet hitting each step. His hands unwashed after touching and taking what did not belong to him.

I have to move, but the time hasn't arrived. “They needed to pay for taking Sister, for trying to harm her. No, one gets free.”

Black sludge cakes the carpet as it sticks to my browning skin. Syrup from a tree if only it was sweet, I’d eat.

“Papa tells me to not eat of him or other people," I spoke in innocence, that of a six-year-old. It is a Boy, yes.

I didn’t put my suit on correctly.

"How long?" Before problems would be fixed, before I would bleed out. Cells, sustenance, endurance, nerves I needed to start from somewhere. The bones were the problem. I was anatomically incorrect. What was in my abdomen belonged up top in my chest.

"Dada tells me to control my urges. I’m a big reader. " Sacred texts lined the room to the brim.

‘The Brain won’t mend itself, lungs pumping in and out, structure, placement.’ They deserve what happens to them; the three would be. Dada…fathers' exceptions. I feel it in my tummy.

No, but not this meat, the meat of dirt, flesh unbecoming. Coherent sentences, values in color, angles in vision, and communication.

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” I pondered the question out loud. “It is best to distract oneself when overcome by rage," Dada says. It's hard trying to contain feelings.

“What?” The Man was three times my height speaking in shock and revulsion.

‘Bones broken down, sustenance, structure.’ I have to keep myself together. I have to feel it. The Green Shit walked through the door behind me at this time, on time.

"Thirty seconds this time," I take note. Josh walks into the living room eyes wide looking over my brown butt. I’m covered in leftover blackened blood, and an oversized black dress, with heels lying at my feet.

I’ve always hated walking on pins and needles.

“What the hell happened here, where's the girl!” He wasn't as green as I thought he'd be. I bend over to pick up my amulet. Putting the necklace around my neck over a closing puncture wound. ‘My spine is intact. Misaligned shoulder joint, a rib?’ I often think about how I and Adena will never have to fight over objects.

I have decided. “I had decided,” These two, it was already decided, no need to rush. I bent down putting the bloody metallic-smelling dress over my pudgy stomach. Papa wouldn’t have me walking around naked.

Intruding on Adena's time came with consequences that made me uncomfortable on a deeper level, no one could ever understand they’ve taken my Nothing.

“It’ll be days, weeks maybe, never stayed a month.” I was speaking aloud, ignoring the flesh.

“Who’s the kid!?” green shit asked, shaking while a draft passed him. He was trying to understand what he could not. He doesn’t care about his carpet.

“It... it’s her!” answered the Predatory shit that had breathed passed its expiration date.

"Dissociative Amnesia." Yes, I watched the drips of blood on the prey's face from the gash Adena had caused. It's so interesting and red, I wondered how it felt.

I laughed; I had found it. Joy.

I am alive.

“It’s ALIIIVE!!!,” If Dr. Frankenstein could see me now. And there it was, another outburst.

“It was late, the blazing sun would be up soon, let’s make it quick lickety-split.” Why did I have to be in a bad mood? it was a choice after all Adena was safe, I’d get to be with Papa and Dada, and Nothing would wait for me.

“Who the fuck are you!?” Green shit asks, speaking out of turn is quite rude. I heard his name once and I will never forget it.

“Who am I?”

“Why am I Adonin Servan Mabtali Lee Ce Raphil, the firstborn?” I asked as the two shook and shivered like animal's.

“Dada would have me put you down.”

Manners maketh man, or whatever, so time-consuming.

"Consuming," thought slips out from my mind. I felt bad for the chicks they were more than Shit. But sympathy isn’t really in the skin suit these years.

“Sean, you didn’t answer my question about the tree." Sean gulped as I watched the veins in his neck that once wanted to eat what it could not have. ‘He rarely bathes but he takes it upon himself to shave.’ His veins pump green overlapping a cold murky blue.

"There is a shirt on my head." I tossed the shirt they had used on the girl, taking time to see if my new clothes were in place. Great, I haven’t suffered hair loss, that’s good.

“Josh,” I said looking back, while tying a knot on the dress with a most content wide grin, wondering if I was doing it right. All of my teeth have failed to drop and it’s very uncomfortable, knowing.

"Pretty dress don't yah think." Josh had peed himself. He was probably wondering how I knew his name, the familiarity in which I spoke it.

“I want to hear you scream,” I whispered, being quite theatrical.

The dance of etiquette is a beautiful thing; it allows for fine work in all fields of life.

I am Papa's by all means I dance so well it can no longer be called dancing. My legs were in a circle of tape and two drenched heels, but it wouldn't be a problem. My muscles had warmed up long enough so I jumped and moved in a groove, they could run but I would not try to stop them.

Must’ve thought they were Giants a couple of hours ago.

Josh would be first. I’d like to save the best Shit for last.

Josh wasn't a fighter; his hands were soft, his arms and legs unblemished, his eyes cowering.

I was amused watching him throw his weight back out of the door.

He is a small man; Rachel was right about him.Hard rubber boots dashed for the building exit located five floors down. If Josh had gotten past the first flight of stairs without slipping and breaking his left ankle… he wouldn’t have made it.

‘Let’s say he hadn’t broken his ankle, I would still hunt him.’ The memory of my face would forever be etched into his mind. But that’s not my “intention”, to give him a fighting chance.

Green Shit had slipped and fell missing his ass by a long shot. Then again, falling on your stomach hurts less than falling on your ass. "Does it?" I should catch him before he starts calling out for help.

"A clean break, Green shit!" Bone was freed from the skin, as Josh tried getting up and hobbling off.

He was more concerned about the leg than me.

“Four and a half floors to go,” but I was already there stepping on his broken ankle as he tried to crawl away.

All the while Sean was upstairs with nowhere to escape, not even a fire escape.

“And it looks like we've got ourselves a pair of fighters here folks!” Sean was readying himself, while Josh was carrying himself. If the Predator was smart he’d use those copper deadbolts to give himself some time to strategize.

"Green Shit, do you need any help with that?" I asked nicely.

Twisting my foot on his ankle watching it get covered in his thick red warm blood. Green shit turns and attempts to kick me with his good foot.

I caught his leg feeling the force of the kick hit my hand and go toward my face. Grabbing his good leg, I slammed it down onto the staircase, foot facing the floor. The leg broke against the step bending and shattering, in the most gruesome sound.

"I'd never heard that sound before." His foot dangled as I giggled, he was crying "Poor green Shit." It was so easy to drown out his screams. And by that, I mean listening to the symphony. A composition of twenty-seven years.

"A bit older than Mike." I walked over his left leg bone cutting my foot down the middle. It would heal in a few minutes. It always does.

Green Shit started sobbing and begging for his life while I took a gander at accomplice number two and the nobodies in the other apartments. Some residents were sleeping, drinking, and living in their private gloom.

“Dang it, I rhymed again.” I could see people throughout the walls of this building, living peacefully in their apartments, some watching TV at this late hour while others were asleep. The world wouldn’t miss him.

"Josh, Joshy, you have a similar name to someone." His eyes showed regret, a tinge of remorse, a dash of hate.

All are such joyous emotions and I wanted more. It was not every day I got to see such shades up close. I grabbed his arm and kneed his elbow, breaking that too, Ulna pierces his flesh and now he regrets.

“Too late,” Josh screams from the torture, watching me as I grab his hand and start chewing. The sweat dripping from his forehead grasped my attention..

"Ewww, I wasn't supposed to do that." Regaining something, 'a sense of self’ I think they call it. I spit out Josh's index trying not to think about the taste and texture. Remembering that 'I don’t want to eat Shit, that's disgusting.'

As Josh faints from blood loss, I wondered if I was letting him off too easily, he had yet to taste excrement. Adena had gotten a mouth full of grass and dirt hitting the ground, It was fair in my book

His intestines were perfectly fine.

"That's so relatable," staring at Josh's blood dripping down the ugly pale gray marble stairs. I moved, unintentionally drawn in by his dying cells. Red Lights went out disappearing until there was nothing left but a faint remainder of what was and will never be.

He could never truly die. There is always a continuation, something that comes after.

Biting my lip “The sun,” I think aloud.

It's oh so quiet. Quite enough to hear him dying.

I guess I'll let Josh crawl with his one arm and bleed out. He'd make it down a flight at this point before losing consciousness.

Turning around I walked back up the stairs. Halfway up the stairs, “I’ve changed my mind.”

"I am allowed to do that you know," Jumping halfway from a height of five or six feet I screamed in anticipation.

"Fatality!" Hearing the therapeutic sound of his spine breaking." I always wanted to do that! “Having spent time on Adena's phone I could take this one off the bucket list." Talking to myself ignoring the dead Shit, who's face lay tired and battered on the stairway.

"A play," This is when I remember to take care of the camera looking down on me and get rid of my bloody hand and heel prints.

I turn back around squelching something under me while I try un-lodging the girl’s heel. Ignoring the dead man behind me. I skipped back up the stairs thinking about what fun I was going to have.

My head was torn between two thoughts 'the red and black blood caking my skin, I needed a bath.'

I was covered in Shit and Adena's corpse. I smelled like death. Well, the smell was manageable since I could barely smell anything besides metal.

Removing pieces of flesh from my hair I plucked out Adena's ear and flicked it down the stairs behind me. It couldn't be salvaged.

“Dang it,” I’d just made more evidence.

Shrugging I hopped up the stairs to Josh’s two-room apartment. A shabby complex building this was, with one lone exit to Green Shits apartment minus fire escape. I liked the spiraling stairway.

The predator had found the will to live. His eyes were glued to the door he’d left unlocked.

“Oh, how fun,” I said knowing he'd hear me.

Seeing his tall slim body shivering and shaking. He was holding a knife behind the apartment door entrance I'd yet to re-enter.

Sean had made the decision not to take the fire escape. I completely get it, a matter of pride, and a product of stupidity. If he wanted to die now instead of later, I was fine with that.

'Think Adonin,’ 'how not to die for thinking myself invincible.'

It would be a prey-faced lie. I hopped back down the stairs and grabbed the dead torso of a man whose legs were mangled, and whose spine had hit intestines.

Tough, pushing my hand through the large wound in his mid-section I was making a hot mess. I enjoyed making this mess. "Someone else would have to clean it up.'

Not breaking a sweat lifting the upper half of Josh over my head, it made me feel uncomfortable having shit above me. Having grabbed Josh's corpse by his armpit, large intestines dragged behind me.

I opened the unlocked door, screamed and threw the body of Shit in my stead. Half a body to be exact.

I'd barely stepped a foot back into the room hiding beyond door breach. I stood behind the closed door through an insulated stone wall, watching predator Shit fall prey to a not-so-clever scheme. I gotta give it to him for not falling.

Green Shits remains were leaving a slippery trail and I’d almost lost balance,

'A happy trail,' pun intended.

Sean's stabbing technique was everywhere. I've only practiced on a human mannequin, but I could do better. All that scrambling and shouting over a little blood.

I wondered if he’d notice that it wasn't me after ten seconds, but he just kept stabbing Josh's corpse as I watched him safely hidden behind dead. Digging into his dead colleague, partner, fellow Shit, laughing, crying I couldn't tell the difference. He was left tired and gasping for air all the while I was thinking about the fun we'd soon have, maybe I’d let him live?

“Oh, that’s funny.”

I started laughing so hard I almost tripped and fell on my sister's black dress.

Holding my stomach hunched over trying to stop the torrent of laughter, I continued to watch him.

"Huhhhh,” I sighed, causing Sean to turn around in disbelief, he tired from all the stabbing.

Slowly getting up putting a hand on one sticky knee Prey shit was trying to find the energy to take care of an innocent cute and cuddly blood-covered boy.

Readying his kitchen knife covered in blood Sean was boring me, this was no fun, I wanted to go home.

'He really thinks he can handle me.' Grabbing the bottom of Adena's dress I waited for him to swing the knife. I chose not to use my completely above-average strength to end the scenario because I liked seeing him struggle... like he'd done my sister.

'It’s all about evoking the feeling of near death so he’ll be more thankful when I let him keep his predatory life.'

He lowered his body to reach me. And I note that he’d be almost three and a half of me if he wasn't so skinny.

'Sucks to be him.' I put my hands to my sides holding my dress, acting like I didn't care about the grown man barreling toward me.

As Sean came at me in his black hoodie, knife’s edges aimed at my head I caught the knife in Adena's dress.

The man was pissed enough to spit in my face. It was time to wrap this up.

I wrapped the knife in Seans hands, hearing the blade slowly tear a hole as he tried overpowering me. Using the momentum from Sean's lunge I jumped and head-butted him, knocking him to the ground, which in turn almost killed him by mistake.

“My bad predator shit,” I spoke to the now bald unconscious man. What was it with those two and the matching get up?

I could still see his heartbeat, the blood flowing, the years he had left in each cell.

“Woah!” I shouted catching myself from going off the deep end. 'Even Adena knows not to look that far.' Grabbing the ruined dress, I unwrapped the knife that was within, putting my hand through the 5-inch hole he'd made.

"I'd ruined the thing for good, I doubt the blood stains could be removed." The dress would have to be burned.

Looking carefully at the cigarette lighter in Predator Shit's blue jean pocket I got a brilliant Idea. Fishing the cigarette lighter out, I started burning the knife giggling to myself about the coming fun. "No fingers, or toes, no penis to be exposed. If Sean searched hard for the latter, he needn’t look south, the member be tucked safely away in his tongueless mouth." How magnificent.

I skipped out of the room, almost forgetting my cinematic crime, but I could see the cameras that would prove evidence of the lies in my future lines, so I set the scene.

Finding a few cameras, green shit hid around his apartment. Wiping off the knife I could've kept as a prize. Taking care of business with the sun rising outside in the east. As if reminded by the breeze going up Adena's skirt, I thought of the woman who had wronged her closest to me.

“Lucky Rachel," I rubbed my hands on Josh's mangled corpse and left a gift in his apartment.

I thought about making a clean exit, I could make it home from here, but I'd probably tire myself out trying to avoid people on the street.

If I'd somehow manage to make it home without anyone seeing me. Putting a hand on my shoulder feeling Josh's red sap against my fingers. It was settled, there was a family of three or at least none under the age of nineteen on the floor beneath.

I wouldn't want any children to see me.

"Poor kids," blinking some tears into my eyes, I secured the dress for the dance of etiquette, the perfect act.

“Anyone!!!” I screamed at half of my lungs. Internally smiling about the two gifts I'd left on the staircase walls for the Shit Bitch.