val. / eight fin

There was something off about you.

You'd known this much since you were a boy. The first time you remember was when you were nine, a wild-hearted boy with a wicked sense of adventure. You chased your friends up a hill playing tag. On the way down your foot gets caught on a rock, knocking you off balance and sending you crashing down the hill. You tore through all of the skin on your knees, ruby-red blood dripping down your legs and chunks of skin hanging on by a thread.

Your first thought was, let's do it again.

Maybe there was venom pulsing in your veins, an affliction that clung to your heart like a shadow. It gave you a rush - the pain. Euphoric, even.

You were addicted to the high.

Punched a guy in the nose just to feel his bones crush beneath your fist. Licked his blood off your fingertips to see if you could taste god amongst the iron. Pushed him against the wall and smashed your busted lips against his just to mindfuck him even more.

Told your father to go fuck himself just to feel the weight of his hand against your cheek. Stared at your reflection in the mirror the next morning and ran your hand along the watercolor bruises. Dug your split knuckles into them just to feel the stinging sensation spread like wildfire across your cheek.

Playing with fire never felt so good.

Never felt so right.

Mother noticed it too. She watched you squeeze a baby bird in your pudgy little fists so tight that it started to screech. You'll never forget the look of horror she had painted on her face when she ran over screaming to let the bird go. Her eyes were wide and her lips curled upward in disgust. The memory of her face is engraved in your head, tattooed into your mind and haunting your nightmares. Maybe that's why she left when you were still just a boy, left you in the hands of your father, who was already drunk off his ass as it was. And maybe that's why you hate her.

Hate her for leaving you with him. Wish she was dead for not being there for any of your birthdays or watching you hit double digits. Part of you wants to blame her for how you turned out, for becoming a man that no one wants their son to be, but you know deep down you'd always turn out like this. In every timeline or universe, you'd be the same person. There was no saving Valen Nightshade. You were born bad. Born to be something revolting and cruel, a monster clawing its way up from the darkest depths of hell. She saw that in you before you did.

Forever fucked up in the head.

You chase the high because you can't stop yourself from craving it. You can feel it crawling underneath your skin and rattling in your bones, it was a part of you. Get into random fights with guys bigger than you just to feel something. Feel anything. A never-ending cycle that you were stuck in, a hamster on a spinning wheel. Wake up with a black eye in multiple shades of purple and get another on before you go to bed that night.

Their fists against your skin, bones shatter, skin tears, and you smile through the blood on your canines.