The destiny and scars of a person are ultimately decided by the experiences and life lessons learnt from their childhood.

Created by knowledge and experiences is one’s personal identity. Delicately assembled by the actions and reactions of one is this identity. So rigorous is this identity that once attached to an individual, it foretells the behaviour of that individual. But when you attach anonymity to an identity, it can lead to the most delicate expressions of terror in people, given that the right measures are taken. That is what I love about my life, and this town is the perfect stage for me to perform on.

Some say that the town is cursed ‘cause of its location. So effortlessly hidden from the plaguing noises of the city by the elder conifers, both tall and broad. Their magnificence can be seen gleaming through these windows. Reflecting the light from the gem of the night sky, choreographing these subtle shadows on the wooden floor of this aging house.

I like these nights, riddled with shadows. They are like me, fearsome on the outside and, yet, hollow on the inside. With no knowledge of consequences, we live in the moment. Ignorant. We are like puppets in this world, listening and responding to nothing but the hunger that drives us.

This hunger doesn’t just come to anyone though. No. It comes to those special enough. To those who have the right to judge.

My hunger came from someone else’s hunger. There isn’t much one can learn from a mother who chases the sensation of being 'high’ and a father who’s been dead for the years past. In those circumstances, one has to determine by oneself what the difference is between right and wrong. But what was I meant to do when everything happened like it did?

In an average household, not much is expected from a three-year-old child. But then again, I didn’t grow up in an average household. After dad’s death, mum had hit depression and her drug habits aggravated over time. She quit her job, not only because of the complaints but also because she had “missed the feeling while at work”. It only got worse from there. There were parties and even drug dealers at our house. I only learnt some time after I left that she had sold the house and everything in it for money. Money that she owed. Money that she died over. Money, due to which she had been chopped up into pieces, right in front of me.

After that, I was on the streets, eating whatever I could, taking whatever I could and learning whatever I could. I can still remember those shadowy nights before going to sleep where I could hear the cries of my mum telling me to close my eyes as she was mutilated right in front of me. I would try to imagine what dad would have done, so I could follow in his footsteps and hope. Hope that tomorrow would be better.

I started to crave the desire to be in control…to be in control of the destiny of those who cross the line; the line of justice; my justice. I have to be the Judge, Jury and executioner. The power and invincibility of my actions will come into force when the time comes.

And then the opportunity came…

I was adopted by someone who felt the same pain I did, felt the same hunger I did. He trained me in survival, taught me how to control the hunger and hide it in a crowd. He showed me the truth; he showed me the real evil in people so that I could erase it one day. But that wasn’t enough. It couldn’t have been enough

I needed more.

When I was ready for the world, I knew that he needed to be judged too. I slit his throat with the crooked grin of my old blade. I felt his blood trickle down that rusty blade in thick abstract strokes. I felt it touch against my warm and pulsing hand. That feeling. It sent tremors down my spine. For the first time in my life, I had felt accomplished. I had fed my hunger. That feeling is what kept me going, kept me succumbing to my hunger.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I still needed more.

Scrounging for this feeling, it forced me to travel. That untrained hunger of mine is what led to me defecting from my purpose in this world. I neglected my duty to judge people and drowned myself in the world of crime. Without a care in the world, I was losing perception of this world. I became more prosperous and controlled more authority.

Those were pleasant times, when the world gave me a buffet to satisfy my hunger. But no one could have predicted its end.

No one could have predicted what would happen that day…

It was a day like any other. I was high, and was told to put a stop to a prominent man. The job was meant to be ‘clean’. When slicing the bare life out of the man, the corner of my eye caught his son running through the door. He was wailing in misery. That soul, made it just in time for the blood shower to sprout from his father’s neck. It was then that it came to me.

I had recited my past events. I had become the criminal and ended a parent’s life. A parent, whose son would now grow to resent people. He would grow to judge as well.

It was then that shock had struck me for the very first time.

So new and foreign, I had not experienced this before, not even when my mother had died. It was so unfamiliar that it petrified me where I stood. So much I had accomplished for myself and yet, the first thing that I thought of after that, was fleeing. I had overused the freedom given to me. Dismayed by my ignorance of true judgement, I left the town for another, one where I could take some time and think. So I left everything that I had gathered for myself behind to start a new life. One which would be unaffected by my past.

In this new town of Illinois, I adopted the simplest of lives to introduce a change in my life. To actually engage in a recovery, I became one of the common folk. No one looked at me and no one cared about me. I was again unknown to anyone and so, anonymous in a crowd. I was alone again. Unaffected by the whims of greedy men, I was again thinking by my own intelligence. No longer controlled by the hunger.

Or so I thought….

It didn’t take long. I survived two months, living like a normal human being. But I knew that this was not meant to be. I felt the hunger rebelling, waiting to get free. Just waiting to taste blood again. I tried my best to neglect its oppression, but there was nothing I could do. It was not within my ability to control that raw need. That raw hunger.

That was the trigger to my rebirth. The trigger that led to the relapse of my past. As controlled as it was, I felt the same if not a greater need to quench my hunger. I felt the same ‘need’. I resumed my position to judge in this world. After all, the people had missed me. The hunger had been prickling and teasing and prodding at me to find my next victim.

I started again. Anew. I made new friends in this town. I got to know them and then met them personally. These new friends were all women. I mean, they also had to be judged sometime. So I saw if they were living up to their part in the society, or if they had strayed like my mother. The ones that had strayed, would be greeted by a very concerned and yet pleasant me.

I was only trying to help them. All those who were fortunate enough to be judged. All those who served to quench my hunger.

So now I’ve seen all there is to be seen in this world. The heights of knowledge, prosperity and influence, all studied and sent to the depth of a grave in a matter of minutes. I’ve felt all the pleasures and hardships of this world, and yet, there is not a single person who can tell me apart from a crowd for who I actually am. Does that make me the lonely one?

I guess I will ask my next victim…..