Chapter 1 Ethan
Death comes to us all, in one way or another. Whether it be natural selection, a tragic accident, a surprise illness or straight up murder. Whichever option you’re handed, you have to deal with it when your time is up.
I hadn’t always thought about death this way but recently my mind has become a dark pit of toxic thoughts.
A cesspool of black tar that’s beginning to slip its way through my cracks.
I’m not sure if I was always this way, maybe something changed in me at some point in my life but I could never highlight the exact moment.
Sitting at the table in the kitchen, I dig the tip of the steak knife into the scratched wood of the surface, imagining all the ways I could gouge my dad’s eyes out.
Clearly, I can picture his piss stained eyes popping like a burst balloon as I shove the knife into his pupils, watching it crack open like a raw egg.
He’d squeal like a little bitch and I’d thrive in that sickening sound.
“Ethan, can you not destroy the table please and eat your breakfast.” My mum’s voice that sounded like nails on a chalkboard yanked me out of the dark vision and into the present. “Where’s your sister?”
I keep my gaze low, allowing the dark inky strands of my hair to fall over my eyes.
“How am I supposed to know?” I huff out whilst continuing to dig the knife further into the wood.
My mum blows out a sigh of annoyance and my dad slams his meaty sausage fingers onto the table, causing the plates and glasses to clatter around.
“Don’t you fucking speak to your mother like that, you wretched boy!
” Spittle flies from his crusted mouth but I don’t even flinch anymore, I used to.
I would cower away in fear like a pussy but now, I crave his violence, for it feeds that wicked animal inside of me that’s begging to be set free from its confines.
My mum halts her steps, her lifeless eyes darting between me and my dad before she places a plate down in my sister's spot at the table. I can see the fear that radiates from her weak body, the way the plate rattled in her hand before she placed it down onto the table. She’s nothing but a punching bag now and I can’t even bring myself to feel any kind of sorrow for her.
I can’t bring myself to feel anything for either of them, except for my sister.
My dear, sweet little sister.
I know I shouldn’t feel this way about her but I can’t stop the hunger inside of me that threatens to feed on her every time she’s around me.
The chair at the left of me scrapes across the tiled floor before my mum takes her place.
“Can you go and fetch your sister please?” She looks at me with a pointed stare and I release my hand from around the knife, letting it clatter onto the table before shoving my chair backwards and rising to my already freakishly tall height, then I leave the dismal kitchen on the hunt to find my little sister.