I've Become

It felt so good to watch the hope die in his father's eyes.

The old man had hindered him every step of the way. He represented...to him, he was despair, fate. Holding him back. The brute had always assumed he held power over his son. His son had disagreed, and won. His son had earned freedom, and wasted it.


The house was layered in its own filth, inside and out. The garden was shaped into hills of rotting wood and litter. The floors caked in broken glass, the walls stained with...well, with everything a wall could be stained with. The stench gagged anyone who wasn't him.

That was if he didn't throttle them first. Why was he so angry? Why did he keep hurting...he refused to think about what he'd done. He was choked and blinded by the memories of last time.

...A knock at the door. He hadn't heard that in a long time.

Thick arms pushed him off a waterlogged armchair, before brushing his hair out of his eyes - a bright shade of red, enough to seem unreal. The door opened with considerable reluctance, jammed by the inches-thick layer of rotting scraps.

...A little girl, in a red dress. She spoke before he could.

"Your father is dead, Uncle."

Uncle? Why was she calling him Uncle?

"You killed him."

He killed him?

"Are you going to repeat everything I say? You killed your father, Uncle. Look what you've become."

That's wrong. No. You're wrong. You're wrong!

How dare you? How dare you? I'll break your bones, I'll smash your head in, I'll gouge your eyes out!

The girl held out a hand to him as he bellowed threats. The pity she had for him was obvious; it stopped him dead.

What choice did he have? He took her hand.


What had he become? He looked at himself. A caricature, a shadow. No identity save a few scant facts - Uncle, red-haired, behemoth of a man. The angry man who hurts little children. The rest was inferred by his victims as they awoke and grew up.