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Incentive

It's all you need...

By Eleanor Published 6 years ago 9 min read
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“Ever hit a deer, Mary?” I asked her, as my claws drew closer to her eyeball.

She responded, mumbling through the stitches. I couldn’t help but laugh. The struggling only made her lips bleed, her tears blending with the blood that covered her face. I tore each thread out, one pull at a time, and watched as the blood seeped from her lips. The droplets graced the floor as if each one contained a blessing to the ground beneath her. Once I had pried open her mouth, she tried to scream. But none of them could scream, because I had made it so.

“Ah ah… lies are loud while the truth, the truth, my dear, is found in the whispers.”

Soundless screaming blended in to the silence. It was as though the room had already found themselves in the morgue that they were doomed.

“Care to revise your answer?”

A whimper escaped her lips, hopeful of a non-existent redemption.

“Rob. It was Rob,” she cried, her blood, sweat, and tears bursting from her being.

“And there we have it!” I yelled in her ear before letting her skull fall to her desk.

“Rob, Robbie, Roberto.”

He tried to scream again. Why do they scream? I haven’t even told them what I’m going to do yet, and they’re screaming. Well trying… it’s just wasting air. As I walk over to Rob, I make sure he can hear every step, that his mind doesn’t wander. I watch as the tears of anticipation fall to his desk. A chuckle escaped my lips as his head began to shake as my footsteps grew closer to the front of the room. In a moment, I was in front of him. His eyes were bloodshot, his face even more so. Pulling the stitching from his mouth I asked him a simple question;

“Why didn’t you help the deer, Robbie?"

Tears were falling in to his bleeding mouth. Teenagers are disgusting, too emotional.

“I wanted her, I love her,” he said through gritted teeth. I laughed. The feigned backbones are always the most hilarious.

“Who? Who do you love?” I laughed. “Mary? Or Lisa? Weren’t you and Tim sneaking around together last night?”

“What?” whispered Mary through her tears.

Rude.

“Mary!” I screamed. “I’ll get to you in a second.”

Turning back to Rob, I asked him “Care to explain yourself?”

“I… just wanted them all.”

“Greedy… Don’t you think?”

He nodded.

“And then you leave someone in the middle of the road? You’re a terrible human. Do you know that?”

“It was just a deer,” he cried.

I slapped him. It was as if a whip had cracked across his face. My claws had exposed the muscles that once hid within his cheeks. His grey eye was now sliced in two within its socket, blood dripping into the split in his cheek.

“NOW!” I screamed as the darkness drowned the room. Flames illuminated my skin as I yelled.

“JUST A DEER.” My voice boomed.

Still alight, I moved myself to Rob’s ear. Whispering as calmly as I could:

“Are you a fucking idiot? Am I just a deer?”

I watched him shudder as my breath reached his ear. Fools. All of them.

Mary was the only one not fazed. She became curious to me, as if she welcomed death.

“MARY!” I screamed, forcing her body to walk towards me, to stand behind Rob.

“Why aren’t you scared?” I asked, scraping by claw against her forehead.

"I’m angry,” she whimpered through gritted teeth.

“You’re jealous,” I told her. “Because he never loved you. Oh, you poor thing. The teenage crush had someone else. Well... a few.”

She tried to scream again. Her face was red. It was like an overinflated balloon, one that you have an uncontrollable desire to squeeze until it pops. Mary Carter was an average girl. She wasn’t a nice girl—she had very little care for others. She wore a patterned skirt with trainers every day, her hair scraped back into a ponytail that was too tight, exposing the pimples on her forehead. Watching the girl get angry, to be hurt, reminded me of all the times I watched her hurt others. She would scream at Timmy, tell him to go to church, that only God could save him now (if I had a penny for every time people thought the big man was going to save them, I would be doing this as a hobby). She would cut the other girl's hair in class and taunt the timid boys who couldn’t speak to her. Mary Carter had always been angry for unnecessary reasons, but this time was different. This time she needn’t have been angry. She hadn’t been faithful herself—she was merely jealous. A jealous girl who had realised the world no longer revolved around her had gotten a reality check, and she wasn’t happy about it.

“Kill him.” I smiled.

Mary is the kind of person who gets under my skin. They’re like a disease. They infect you and you get so excited for the upcoming death and then you’re cured. You don’t want the cure. You want the anger and the pain. The inevitable death. But no. A glimmer of morality must poke through the surface and Mary recoils. It sickens me. She sickens me.

I could force her to—but where’s the fun in that? Perks of being me is that I see everything.

“Did you know he’s sleeping with your mother too? When he told you he’d save himself for you?”

I watched her crack his neck, a strength of wrath had taken over her. She watched as his head hung limp towards his chest.

“See, all you needed was some incentive, ladies and gentlemen!” I applauded her as she stood smiling in terror and amazement at what she had done.

“But Mary,” I continued. “I know the little lustful boy hurt you, and he now suffers the way he deserves. You however, are an envious young woman, with a wrath that no one should possess. You just killed a boy for having desires and a high sex-drive!”

“You told me to,” she said, folding her arms defiantly.

“No. I said 'kill him.' I didn’t ask you, or instruct you, or even specify Rob. You just did as pleased,”

“You tricked me,” she whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks again.

“This isn’t Halloween, honey. I gave you an incentive,” I told her, with my face inches from hers.

Mary Carter fell to the floor, with grief or guilt - I really didn’t care. I addressed the class once. "Would anyone else like to kill him?”

They all shook their heads, whimpering through their stitches. I grabbed Mary’s head and lifted her to see the rest of the class.

“This is the normal reaction, Mary!”

My fist made its way through the desk that Robbie’s corpse lay upon, leaving his body to sink in the pool of blood beneath his seat. Mary’s tears began to grow silent. The room itself had welcomed the darkness that I had summoned with open eyes, the raw, bloodshot eyes that had borne witness to the unspeakable acts (ha-ha). Suddenly I was at Mary's level, staring into the bleak pits that now occupied her eye sockets. If she could see my face she might've known how badly I was holding in my laughter. Adolescents.

They're our future, you know? And they think petty murder is a good idea?

It's hilarious! Putting our faith in these imbeciles! Then I must do the dirty work, to make sure we don’t get fucked over too much.

“What shall we do with you?” I asked her.

She flinched every time I clucked in her ear, along to the clock above her head.

Her eyes began to wander to her fellow classmates. "They aren't going to help you know," I told her, without the words escaping my lips.

Punishment is such a tricky decision. There's so many options. How can a being choose just one? I was taught that it is a treat to be given so many options, how could it not be. I am a being of many talents. Yet decisions—decisions always have the habit of over exciting me. The deserving victims, each of them oblivious to the hatred that they subject on to the world. Watching as I move between their desks, wondering what each tear holds for them. Each muffled scream. Is it hoping? Is it excruciating pain? Fear? Tiredness?

I wondered, and continue to ponder the fact, whether some of them were crying, merely because everyone else was crying. Maybe it was a matter of herd mentality, when there’s that one kid who is never going to fit in, no matter how hard they try. The kid that is just a psychotic as me!

So, what did I do with her you ask?

It was not what she deserved, or what she needed either. It was enjoyable for the mind of me.

I allowed the students to help—an assignment some may say. Her wrists and ankles were tied with roped, hoisted to the ceiling with her mouth sewn shut once again. She did not bleed, she could not cry. She watched down in silence as the world went by. It was as if the guilt had spread to her extremities and she had accepted her fate. Her suffering became a punishment which the young Mary could not object to. Tomorrow, she will be extracted, tortured to the brink of death every day, for the rest of her life.

Another gold star for me. Don’t listen to your parents, kids, follow your dreams. Job satisfaction is better than a big pay check. If you don’t love your job, why would you do it?

“Thank you, everyone. Back to your desks and forget everything… pretty please. She’ll be extracted tomorrow,” he said in a mockingly high voice.

***

Desks were once again filled, silence replaced with mindless chatter of adolescents. Chalk scratched on the faded green board.

"Mr. Stag" was scrawled prominently in the white scratches.

His voice was calm and soothing as he asked:

“Has anyone seen Mary and Rob by any chance. They owe me some work…"

“Today we’ll be talking about the effects of anger on the adolescent mind.”

An hour passed, a bell chimed.

A faint mutter of “class dismissed” was heard among the rattling of paper and the rustling footsteps.

Walking out of the classroom was a handsome man of 30, a substitute teacher for the month. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and yet his presence was attractive to them all. He would joke with the staff and comfort the students, a man of wit and beauty. He wandered out of the room on his final day, a whisper of farewell to the girl that hung above him.

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About the Creator

Eleanor

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