Zaviar Abdella (firststrike) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2010-10-08 14:32:00 |
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Entry tags: | #flashback, #solo, zaviar |
When something like a soul becomes initialized and folded up
Who: Zaviar, several NPCs
Where: Grayling, MI
When: 1992
Warnings: Disturbed child
She had known that there was nothing she could do from the very start. The obvious problem was that a child should never be a bitten, it was far too damaging for them and those that they were around. Even normal children were forever having tantrums over this or that and even those who did not could not keep as firm of a hold on their tempers as was necessary; even adults could struggle with the adjustment. But all of that - and it was a lot - was not all that was wrong. She had known from the first time she looked into those chilled blue eyes, very nearly dropping the child despite herself. Over the years since her sister had abandoned the boy for her to raise she had been proven right time and time again. Yet she kept the child, kept trying, hoping that perhaps a glimmer of hope for his future would break through and show her that despite her doubts there was always hope. It had not happened. Oh there were moments when he smiled or acted like the perfect little boy, but the moment something went wrong it vanished like it had never been. She had looked in several books and had a feeling that she was raising a sociopath, though she did not dare to take him to the psychologist just yet. What if he told them about the cage? No, he was not old enough to go because a doctor could not understand what he really was and so she had to do the best that she could alone. She had thought she was managing, somehow, but....
She was standing at her front door, light grey cotton jacket wrapped tightly around her to ward off the chill that did not come from the evening air as she watched the blue and red of police sirens flash across the lawn. And the ambulance adding it's red to show that it too had come at the call of that poor boy they had found maimed half to death by an unidentified wild animal at the school playground. All of the children who had been with him described what had happened a little differently, excitement and fear meshing to weave a story no one could believe. They said it had been that quiet boy who had no parents, that he had changed into a giant snake. Well, some said snake and some said lizard and one girl even claimed dragon but all the adults knew it was impossible. Too much sugar, too many horror movies, a million different reasons it could not happen. Yet despite all of those reasons, despite everything that the police said, they could not deny that every child agreed that it had been his fault and the paramedics could not deny that the boy had been seriously injured. Though how a mere child of nine could have caused all of that was a question that they did not want answered. It looked like an animal had done it. So the police man who had come to the door to speak with her had said that what they thought might have happened was that her nephew had struck him and they had run off and some wild animal, that they were searching for no need to worry, had done the rest.
She had never been lacking in money, gaining plenty from the divorce and her sister's share of their inheritance since she cared for her son, so she had offered to pay the hospital bills because she knew that the family was going to need the help. And more, because she knew that what the children said was true. There had been a wild animal all right but it had been him. Neighborhood children could be unreliable because most of them had no idea about what was really out in the world, they would pull things out of the movies and books and say it was real if they were frightened and it was dark. Her children? Jacob and Samuel knew better than to lie to their mother and they also knew what their cousin was, what he was capable of, what their mother feared he might one day do. Her eyes squeezed closed against the onslaught memory of a conversation that had only just taken place not an hour in the past.
"Why are you screaming? Sammy? Jake!" Lauren Farris reached out to grab her two boys and was shocked when she saw that there were scratches on Jacob's face and that both of them had tear-streaked faces. Samuel was actually shaking, arms around her neck as he sobbed on her shoulder.
"He attacked Mark!" Jake cried, not clinging like his younger brother but shaking just as bad.
Lauren felt a sensation in her stomach like a sinking stone. She did not need elaboration because she knew, she knew they were talking about their cousin and she knew what they meant by attacked. Otherwise there would be no tears or clinging and it would not look like they had run through the woods without bothering to avoid the branches. "How bad? Jacob," Lauren focused on her older son, he was nearly thirteen, because it was obvious that Samuel was not going to be saying anything for awhile. "Jacob, you've got to tell me, how bad is it?" Already she was reaching for the phone to call 911, hoping that they could get there in time, that something could be done because she had seen what her nephew was like in a fit and neither of her boys were strong enough to contain that, nor should they have to.
Jacob's eyes were terrified when he looked up at his mother. "There was... there was... b-b-blood everywhere. He screamed so loud. I can still hear him screaming." And he tore away, the door to his room slamming shut as Lauren dialed for the ambulance.
"There was blood everywhere," she echoed, staring at the ambulance as it drove away, sirens still blazing. At least that meant Mark, one of the neighborhood boys, was alright. Sure he had been something of a bully but that was no reason for him to get hurt like that. And if there had been blood then god help him when the full moon came if her nephew had bitten him. Which he had. That was always the very first thing he did when he changed - bite at the nearest source of heat.
The sound of metal scraping and the vibrations of someone walking caught her attention, jarring it from the window and she turned to find a little boy, nine at the most, standing there. The red of the police lights flashed off a face smeared with dirt, short hair sticking straight up in some places with the other parts were far too smooth. His eyes, a brilliant shade of blue that all of his teachers and most of the ladies in the neighborhood called shocking and future lady-killers, were smooth as two chips of ice in the depth of winter as he looked up at her, unblinking. He needed to blink about as much as she did, staring contests never going over well in a household that was full of were-snakes. Though most of us were born this way, as we should be, he's not right. Her senses had screamed it when she first held him and they had been proven right when she saw the gleaming scars on his hand. But despite those eyes and the chill that they brought to the tips of her toes, her inner snake hissing out a warning that this was a predator no matter how small, she could not deny that her nephew's face was the picture of curious innocence. He was, after all, only nine-years-old and not very large for a child of that age. But he should not be out there, she had locked him in his room for a reason and that reason was that she could not handle having him out. He was dangerous, he had proven that, and he knew why he was in there. She really needed to get a padlock.
"Zaviar," Lauren said after several beats of silence passed, no other vibrations coming, her nerves relaxing as she realized that her sons were either fast asleep or pretending. Neither of them wanted to see their cousin. 'Never ever ever again, mommy!'
Zaviar simply stood there for a moment. "I'm hungry," he said at last and his stomach growled as thought to prove the statement true. He knew that his aunt doubted so very much of what he said while she never even questioned what his cousins did. "I missed dinner." Of course he missed dinner, he had been outside of his own mind when it had been time for dinner, mouth full of hot blood and flesh while his ears rang with the screams and then whimpers of the boy who had dared - dared - to touch him. Actually, no, he could not remember the heat or the screams, or even the whimpers, and that actually bothered him because he knew he had done it. There had been blood all over his face and shirt, even in his hair, when he had woken up in the backyard and he felt as though he had been cheated out of something. Fairness was always very, very important to the young snake and he had witnessed being cheated out of it more times than he could count. His very life was testament to a lack of fairness - there his cousins were, sleeping in their beds, never losing control of themselves and yet possessing all of the abilities that he did. How, he wanted to know, was that fair? That was the question posed on the tip of his tongue when he picked the lock to his room and wandered out but he never asked. He simply felt as though it should be explained by his aunt because that was her job. She raised him, she was supposed to make sure that he knew everything that the teachers could not tell. But she would not, she never did, and he knew it was because she feared him. Which was really the next best things to answers. Zaviar loved the taste of fear in the air, how it sped up the heart and caused people's bodies to simply act different, his tongue flicking out of his mouth to gather it in better. "Why are you afraid, Aunt Lauren? I just want something to eat."
The fact that the police were outside, that an ambulance had come, that he had maimed an older boy and changed his life forever - he should be grateful that I gave him the same gift that I have, better to rage and forget than to be nothing more than a human - did not even bother him. Zaviar knew what was happening and he simply did not care. No one would believe the other children and he knew it. He may have been a child with the innocent face that made so many people overlook things that happened around him but his lessons with the black witch down the street had taught him things that no child should know. Well, that and the fact that he was a child who blacked out every full moon and then some because he simply could not contain the rage seething beneath the surface at all the unfairness that was directed at him and only him. No one else knew what it was like, his aunt could try to understand and claim she did but it was only another lie. Zaviar felt like he had learned how to lie from her. Someone else will understand, Mark will understand. He actually giggled at that, sounding like a kid given a new toy, eyes flickering with delight. But he did not share his little revelation because he knew without asking that she would not think it was funny or good at all. Her view of good and right, that was skewed too.
“How about a sandwich?” Lauren was trying so hard to act like nothing was wrong.
Zaviar shook his head as he padded after his aunt. “No, I want soup.” Hot liquid to make up for what his mind was insisting he had missed. When he had woken up the cold blood had been there but it was not the same. And he knew that he could not have the same experience while he was conscious as he did when he lost his temper and changed, but he wanted to come close. Hot soup... “Tomato.” Red. It would not taste the same but he imagined that it was as close as he could expect to get without getting someone to cut themselves. And really, he did not want the blood, he just wished he had the full experience for what had happened. Or even the full memory instead of nothing past flying off the swing at the filth who had not listened to the warnings. He settled into his seat at the table, feet swinging instead of reaching the floor, and folded his hands in front of him while he waited. To ask what had happened to Mark was not a thought because that would involve caring and he did not. Unless he came home as a snake, then maybe he would care, because that would mean he had made him that way and Mark would have to listen to him. Or something. Was that how it worked? He doubted that his aunt would know.
Of course he wanted tomato soup and Lauren set about making it, mostly because she did not want to tell him no. And that was wrong, that she feared telling a little boy no because she knew what would happen. Oh she could hold her own against him without a problem but there would be a mess and she knew that others could not be expected to do the same. She wanted what was best for him, it was not his fault that he could not control his temper as he needed to, but she also wanted what was best for Jacob and Samuel. Being terrified by their little cousin because every time he lost control of his emotions he turned into a raging monster who could hurt them was not healthy. And it could not be healthy for Zaviar either. There had to be something more that she could do. SIlence reigned as she heated up the can of soup and continued when she set it in front of him, smoothing out the ruffled parts of his hair because no matter what she thought she still had a degree of love for that little boy. It was not his fault. It was her sister’s for daring to do something their parents had told them time and time again to never do. They were better than humans, they were not supposed to bite them and give them the lives that they had because it was not right. They would be tortured by it. Never once had they said “don’t bite a child” because it had been something that did not need to be said, common sense if it had ever existed. Her sister had done worse and bitten a baby.
And it turned into this. Lauren did not even know what to call him anymore. Little boys were not supposed to maim people, send them to the hospital, just because they had been touched.
"You're afraid of me," Zaviar said, the soup dripping down his chin because he really was that hungry. His eyes were the same but there was almost curiosity on his face. "You and everyone else. That's okay, I don't mind." He liked it and showed it by smiling. "Not like I can hurt you." He was sure that he had tried more than once and that was why he had the cage for when he shifted, why his cousins were told to never bother him. Really he liked it that way, kept them out of his hair.
Lauren shuddered and rubbed at her forehead for a moment, trying to still the way her heart was racing. He would hear that, his senses as good as her own. “Zaviar, would you like to go to summer camp?”
Sunny Crest Youth Ranch was not a summer camp and Zaviar knew that from the moment his aunt dropped him off. Left him. She had said once, when he was little and afraid of something, that she was never going to leave him because she was better than his mother. And yet here he was, knees drawn up to his chest while he sat in the corner of his bed and stared at the door that was going to fly open at any moment. He knew it was because he could feel the vibrations, but he could not really react to them. It was hard to react to anything and it bothered him, almost, that he could not even be angry with his aunt right then. They had him on a new medication that was meant to help control his outbursts. He did not understand why they were necessary and hated how much they affected everything. Easy to stay focused but hard to react to anything. Some boy, a human by the scent of him, had brushed against him the other day during lunch and Zaviar had not even gotten annoyed. Not a month ago he would have done what he did to Mark, uncontrolled rage that ended with someone in the hospital.
But now he just accepted the apology - as much as you could without speaking - and moved on. Arts and crafts had been almost fun, his drawing earning no remark because the teacher did not know how to respond to someone who drew a bloody scene with a half-snake. That should have happened to Jake, Zaviar thought, still staring at the door. It had almost been Jake once. The older boy had always been afraid of him and once, attempting to provoke him for something Zaviar could not even remember, he had told him that his father was nothing more than a common human and that was why he had been bitten. Because without that he was nothing but regular, ordinary, filthy.
That memory was always enough to stir Zaviar to anger, perhaps rage, but then it slipped right past his mind. Who cared what his father was? He was no human and yet now, because one of them had touched him, he was surrounded by them for who knew how long. Some of the boys had been there for years, all of them getting some degree or another of help because there was something wrong with all of them.
"Do you miss your mother?"
Zaviar hated the counselor. He asked all of these questions and wanted them answered and he did not know how to answer them. What was he supposed to say? 'Yes'? He could not miss his mother because he had never known her. The first person he remembered was his aunt, peering at him with a blood-streaked face and wide eyes through the bars of the cage she had had made specially to hold him when he shifted. But that was not the sort of thing one told those who were not of the were race because they would not understand. They could not know what he really was, what they really were, and they would think it was simply abuse to keep him put away when really there was no other choice. But questions like this came and he never knew what to say because what they wanted to hear... well, he could give them that. Maybe it would mean he got to leave early. "No, I miss my aunt. She's been my mother." It was easy to lie. Easier when people wanted to hear the lies instead of the truth. Though it was true in a way because he did not miss his mother, but it was untrue because he did not consider his aunt his mother and he did not miss her.
He scribbled a note. "What about your father?"
For that there was no lie. Zaviar could not bring himself to lie about that even if he could anything else because even lying would make his stomach turn. "I don't have a father." Human scum. Had he been a were, or anything, then he would not have abandoned his mother and Zaviar would not have been raised by an aunt who feared him with cousins who thought he was a monster.
"Everyone has a father."
"Not me. I don't even have an uncle." Make the man feel bad for him, let him think that Zaviar felt like something was missing in his life when he really could not care less about the whole thing. He did not need a father.
"How does that make you feel?"
It made him feel nothing. The only emotion thoughts of his father ever inspired were rage and sickness, but he could not feel rage. That emotion had been stolen from him by those little white pills that he was forced to take several times a day. But he knew that saying that would only earn more questions and looks, people knowing truths that were his alone. "Sad."
They always wanted to latch onto things that made you sad, Zaviar had learned that at school. It made them smile and tell you it was alright. Of course it was alright, it did not matter.
His aunt had abandoned him and worse, left him with a medication that made him unable to feel the rage that had always been such a big part of his life. The counselor said it was better that a nine-year-old not feel rage but what did he know? He had never felt that exquisite heat rushing out through his veins, overwhelming everything and even numbing him to the intense pain of his body shifting as it was never meant to... Zaviar shivered at the memory of something he no longer had, eyes narrowing slightly when the door did open after all.
“Time for dinner.” His roommate - John or Jim or Jason - was a pale, tall boy who liked to bite his nails.
Zaviar just stared at him, unblinking. In his home that was a normal response and the lack of blinking was as normal as anything else, but around those who were not snakes it seemed to be quite unexpected. Everyone here was like everyone at school and none of them could handle being stared at.
“Are you coming to eat?”
Was that no obvious? Zaviar did not want the cooked meat and fries that were standard fare, he wanted nearly raw meat and eggs and no one would let him have it. Said it was bad for him. Well what did they know about the diet of a were snake? His aunt would have made that for dinner and everyone would have liked it.
John-Jim-Jason shifted, bringing one hand up to bite at his already ruined nails. “Mr. Hoiden’s not gonna be happy if you skip out on dinner again, just come with me.”
Finally, because it seemed like the nitwit was not going to go away, Zaviar opened his mouth. All of his words seemed to come slower too and for someone who hardly spoke, that was odd indeed. “No. You eat mine.” And choke on it while you’re at it, I’m tired of listening to you snore. The other boy shrugged and ducked back out. Zaviar could not hear the footsteps but he felt them fading and then he felt heavier ones coming. Sure enough the door opened again to reveal a much larger, full-grown man. Mr. Hoiden, the father of the ‘house’ they were in.
“You haven’t come to dinner with the family for a week now,” Mr. Hoiden said, standing in the doorway because for whatever reason he was not quite comfortable stepping into Zaviar’s room. He may have only been there for a little over a month but it was still very clearly his and not Jason’s. “You need to come to dinner.”
Zaviar’s face was smooth. The medication was the main cause of that because normally he would have glared or at least narrowed his eyes at being told what to do. “I don’t have a family.” His father was filth who had abandoned his mother, his mother had left him with his aunt and his aunt had left him here. Family was nothing but a lie and he had known that since he was old enough to understand why he did not have a mother of his own. If family was true then she would not have bitten and left him. If he ever bit anyone, other than Mark since he had been torn away, he would stay.
“Everyone has a family. If you’d try getting along with the rest of us then we could be yours. Come on, Zaviar, have dinner.”
The only family that Zaviar wanted was not one full of humans. He could tell from the taste on the air that most of them were. One boy’s scent confused him, he would have to talk to him, but the rest did not matter because they were nothing. He could change them... maybe he would. Maybe he would make himself a family here. Nodding, to himself not to what he had been told because Mr. Hoiden was too old to be a part of anything Zaviar did, he stood and walked past the man and towards the kitchen. Four other boys were sitting at the table, all of them older than him, but something almost like a smile curved his lips as he seated himself at the head of the table. Mr. Hoiden did not even tell him to move. If this was going to be his family then no one could be sitting ahead of him, not like whats his aunt always did. No.
A smile curved his lips as Zaviar took a bite out of his burger. He could make due with this.