Huh?
You want to know about my past?
Hmm. Why not?
I don't remember much of my youth. Everything was fucked up and fragmented - but every now and so often I could find a moment from my past - it would be so crisp and clear - that I could swear that I was back there. What I do know was that my parents were real holy terrors.
They got all horny beating me up in the name of god. Faith - what a joke.
I - remember the cellar and the attic very clearly. That was where they liked to do their 'holy' work, as it was. Every time I did something - or didn't do something - I would get 'taught' a lesson in the attic - or get punished in the cellar.
Did it hurt? Are you fucken listening? Of course it did!
My nerves.
Sometimes it was so bad that I hurt so bad that I couldn't move for days at a time. One time I had a hard time breathing because it felt like there was blood in my lungs. There was. Happened when the old bastard threw me down the stairs. I think it was the closest I came to dying at their hands - but I really pissed them off - I lived.
Ha - you should have seen the look on their faces when the doctor said "he'll be fine." They looked so freaked. It was well worth the breathing condition I developed.
School? Who needed that noise? Sure they sent me - but I went other places. Arcades, pool halls, hell, one time some friends got me into a strip bar. Fifteen - what a rush.
How come they didn't find out? Well, they were pretty fucken stupid for one - the fact that I had some drug addicted friends in school doing all of my work for me and keeping me in the know didn't hurt. I don't know what tipped them off - but after a couple of months they figured it out. They called me sinner and all sorts of other symbolic names that were associated with evil.
Ask me if I care. I tell you - I got the works - boiling water on the hands, belt upside head - got throttled with a cane. What seriously terrified them - was that no matter what they did to me - I always got back up. At least until he wrapped something around his fist and clocked me.
Man, I must have been out of it for hours. In my defense - I was really worked over. It was then that I came to a realization of sorts - an epiphany if you will. Each time they hit on me and did that twisted shit - I got stronger. Each time I was able to take a little more - rise up a little faster - take all of the punishment without even a whimper.
I think it was a few months after that when some friends of mine started hosting alley fights. They laughed when I told them to hook me up. All of the people were in their twenties and I was like a kid of sixteen. I flashed them the fifty that I had stolen from my mom when she was asleep and said this is my bet on me - what are the odds?
Seeing the green changed their tune. They said that I was a long shot at best. They gave me twenty to one. I said that suited me fine. I participated in those fights for three solid months - but I will never forget that first one.
Fuck, the guy was about a foot taller than me and outweighed me by at least a hundred pounds. He toyed with me - you know to get the crowd going. I heard them laughing - laughing - laughing.
It was then that something inside me snapped. I discretely took a roll of quarters out of my pocket - when he came over to start getting serious - I jumped up and clocked him across the jaw. He recoiled and I pressed the attack. I got him to the ground and started hammering on his head until someone pulled me off of him.
Apparently the dumb bastard was almost dead because of the beating I put on him. Everyone was totally shocked that a string bean like me was able to pummel-fuck the guy. I was declared the winner and won a clean grand. I gave the two people that let me in have half and said they would get the same if they continued to let me play.
It was a rush. What else is there?
Oh yeah, this was pretty big. My dad - he actually found where I hid the money I won from the fights I was in. He was going on and on about how he was going to donate it to the church or some other shit like that. I took a stance and called him on. He looked at me like I was the spawn of Satan and let me tell you - at that moment I was. He knocked me around like he usually did, but this time, I got up and hit him so hard in the stomach that he keeled over.
I jumped on top of him and started hammering on him. As I was doing unto him as he had so affectionately done unto me - pardon the religious pun, I realized that I was overlooking something. When I heard a clonging noise upside my head I remembered, I forgot mommy dearest.
She hit me upside my head with a kettle or cast iron pot or pan or the iron - but I take it you get the drift of what I'm saying. I was out cold for some unknown time. When I finally came to, I was tied up in the cellar. I thought the beatings I got before were severe - I discovered a level of pain I didn't think could exist. The lighting was dim in the darkness, plus my eyes were pretty puffy hits to the head I took - I couldn't make much out - everything was blurry - except the silver cross that dangled around his neck.
I don't know how long I was down there.
Felt like weeks. They didn't give me any food or water - said it was a religious thing. I actually felt my heart stop beating. I felt so weak - I couldn't think - I closed my eyes and prepared to die.
When I came to - I was in my bedroom. Most of the scars I got from my beatings downstairs had healed. I didn't feel hungry or anything. My mom was bringing me some food when she saw the look in my eyes. She glared at me and started ranting at me.
After everything I went through - she was yelling at me.
I told the old hag to fuck herself. Her eyes almost fell out of her head. She started screaming and yelling. It was a hoot. I wasn't feeling one hundred percent - not like the time I took my old man down, but I was more than ready to pay her back for what she did to me before.
Then I heard footsteps running up the stairs. That was when dear old dad showed up. He had a length of lead pipe in his hands and was daring me to try something. I was about to attack the old bastard regardless of the pipe when his cross fell out from his shirt and dangled as he moved.
My hands began to shake. My mind flash backed to the cellar. I lost my nerve. My room was on the second floor - but I didn't care - I jumped through the window and fell into the yard below. The fall dislocated my shoulder and broke my leg in three places.
I looked up and saw them watching from the window. I could hear them laughing at me. Knowing I was in pain - and knowing that they were in control. As someone saw me, quote "falling out the window" unquote, my parents took me to the hospital.
The leg healed in a few weeks - my arm was never the same.
My punches didn't have the snap that they did before. They still don't.
When I was finally released from the hospital, they sent me home - those miserable bastards. The whole sick cycle started up all over again. In my head - I knew - they were going to keep doing this until I was dead.
That was unacceptable for me. I wasn't going to go out like that.
So while the loving parents were asleep, I sneaked into the kitchen and stole one of mom's knives.
I wasn' going to kill them, but if they tried any more of that abusive garbage on me - I was going to fight back. I went back to bed and hid the knife between the mattresses.
I briefly woke up the next day to see dad's fist knocking me out cold. I don't know what happened next. I woke up in a dark wet place.
The only light was flickering all the time.
I felt like I was going mad.
I learned after a short while that I was in some sort of nuthouse. Ain't that a kicker? I get beat on for the better part of all my life - and they said I was crazy.
I remember people rushing into the room. I tried to fight - but I took one hit and blacked out. Once again - when I came to, I was in my fucken bedroom. I looked out the window and could see that it was night. I checked in the bed - the knife was still there.
Despite what they had done to me - all of it - I didn't want to have to hurt them - so I left the knife where it was.
How fucked is that? Mr. Big bad Skamms didn't want to hurt his mommy and daddy. I just wanted to get away. I - I won't lie about it. I was scared shitless of them. I just wanted to get away. I took off into the night.
It was rough. I wasn't as strong as I was before and I didn't have my friends backing me up. I got mugged a few times. Beaten up on a few occasions - at least until I stopped feeling sorry for myself.
Then I was back.
One of the punks that mugged me before. He thought that he could get his kicks by taken me down - big mistake. He was flat on his back in sleepy land in under two minutes. I dragged him into the alley and stripped him of everything. I dumped his barely living body into a dumpster and watched with a amusement as the garbage truck arrived and finished him off.
You know, up until that point - I had never really killed a man before. I mean, I came close on a few occasions, but never went all the way. I thought I would feel bad - guilty or something, but I just felt as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
I hunted down the other bastards that had played with me. What was the metaphor I used? Oh yes - all of them touched the face of their god. For the first time in my life - I felt free. Then, with my record-breaking luck - a police officer recognized me.
I thought he was after me for the cleansing I had done. But no - he had no idea about that. He-he. The boys in blue - city's finest. But at least they sent me home. Home to my ever-loving parents. They pretended to be happy that I was back in front of the officer - but as soon as the door was closed, I was beaten to the ground - and then they started kicking.
They dragged me barely conscious self towards the cellar and threw me down the stairs. My neck hurt so much that I thought it was broken. But it wasn't - it turned out to be just a sprain. They said that I was their punishment. Me - wow eh? Imagine that. I like to think that I'm tough and that nothing could hurt me - but when they said that - I could feel tears falling down my face.
Fuck - I was so disgusted with myself. Letting them get to me like that.
Worse - they saw that it did. It made them laugh. They locked me down there for two weeks.
I survived like an animal - eating what I could find - but I did what I could to keep myself sane. I hummed songs - I poked a hole through the wall - not a big one - but something that allowed me to see outside - see light - I could now keep track of time.
It was a little after that when they let me out.
I pretended to look all weak and defeated - that was what they wanted - it was what they expected. I went up to my room. I knew that running wouldn't be enough. No matter what I tried to do to escape - I would always end up back here.
It was at that moment that I realized that my parents had to die.
I woke up in the middle of the night. I hid the knife in one of my pockets. I sat down in dad's favorite chair and called my parents down. It was early in the day - like two or three - they were really wiped out. My dad saw me in the chair and started ranting.
I calmly got up. I looked at my parents one more time. I was desperately trying to see something - anything that would say - stop! Don't do this. But I saw nothing. I felt a smile creeping across my lips. Tears fell from my eyes and I began to laugh madly.
Everything was blurry for the next few minutes.
I remember screams.
I remember the terror in mother's eyes.
I remember the blood.
When I came out of my haze - my hands and clothes were soaked in blood. I looked over and saw my father laying in a pool of blood in the middle of the living room. He had what looked like twenty some odd stab wounds in his back. It was then that I remembered that I had a knife in my hands.
It feel to the floor. I looked and saw a trail of blood that went up the stairs. I followed it and saw my dead mother. I felt my hands beginning to shake. This was too messy. This wouldn't be like the killing I did in the city. I went downstairs and walked around. Then something in my head said kitchen. I saw the gas stove. I was never really good with my hands except for fighting, but I saw people do that sort of thing on TV - I think.
Anyway, I set it up so that the gas was on and was seeping into the house.
Then with a crude sort of contraption I set it up that my dad's lighter would go and light the place up. The entire place would explode - no evidence. That was when I saw his cross on the floor. It was a few paces away from his body. My mind blacked out and I guess I fainted.
After the beatings I got - crosses always did that to me. I must have got caught in the blast because I woke up in a hospital. My arms were all bandaged up. I felt like hell. That was when I met the good doctor as he called himself. He was a Malkavian - and my sire - but I'm wagering you guessed that much by now.
He said that I had a fighting spirit and that he could use a guy like me. He told me all about what he was and his society and his rules and the punishment for braking set rules. He said if I wanted he could make me like him - if I didn't - he could make me forget what he said.
It was a real no brainer if you get my meaning. I mean here we are today and all. He was a good guy and I respect him and all, but his world and mine were a little different. I hung out with the Brujah and anarch sects in the city.
I occasionally went when he asked out of respect and all. He got me out of a real bind when a bloodhunt was called on me in Chamberlan. Look, as fun as this is, I got things to do and places to be. Keep it real friend - and if you tell anyone what we talked about - well, accidents can happen to anyone. Ta-ta...