Chapter 1: Beloved Family

Warm naked skin could be felt cupping her right breast. It was the movement of that big hand that had woken her up. Turning her face she stared at the attractive features of the man sleeping beside her. If someone was to tell her that she would end up in this position exactly twenty four hours ago then she would have laughed at them but this was her reality now.

Her new life with this familiar stranger.    

*24 hours ago…*

A headless teddy with gray, dust covered cotton peeking out from its dangling head and body was placed in between a myriad of other abhorrent stuffed animals. The small coral couch tucked in one corner of the room beside the table was filled with them and was arranged in a neat manner. 

A woman was sat in front of the untouched abominations on a light pink carpet matching the sickly sweet theme of the room, talking to them with a gentle smile on her face.

“I am sorry that it took me so long but as promised I am finally going to get you all free,” she said chuckling as she imagined them smiling at her when not one of the toys had an unscathed face. They all had been ridden bare of their industrially made smiling expressions which the woman when a little girl had often found mocking at her.

“You are tired of the noises too, right? I know you hated it,” she said, rejoicing in the fact that she had at least been able to provide them with some peace by taking away their heads as she so wished someone could have done to her. 

The noises of her parents fighting and fucking each other or someone else had started being increasingly annoying. So much so that she could no longer take it.

Standing up she shuffled across her room to her cupboard wherein the mirror she could see her red hair tied neatly in a braid just like her mother had always liked her to keep for the last nineteen years of her life. A black dress that fell to below her knees was ironed this morning before she had gone in to take her bath and was also one that her mother had bought her to wear to funerals.

It was the perfect dress for today.

“Mother should be happy to see me as such for one last time,” she mumbled to herself going to her table to look at her phone to see if she had received any messages yet from her ‘comforter’.

Scrolling through their previous conversations, right up to the beginning she almost laughed at the messages that she had written to him around six months ago.

She had been struggling then from her suffocating family and life and had in a spur of a moment created a fake account on social media to write depressing thoughts to let out her feelings of frustrations and agony.

To these posts very few people commented anything to her and even when they did they were rudely calling her an attention seeker except for one man who had shown some remorse and had tried to understand her.

‘I don’t want to live in this world, my family doesn’t love me. Maybe I should die.’

She had written to him when he had privately asked her the reason behind her sadness.

‘But if your family is at fault then why should you be the one to suffer? You don’t need to sacrifice your life for them.’

That was the reply that had come from her savior and for the first time her deadly intrusive thoughts which had scared her before ever since she was young seemed to have been acknowledged and accepted.

He had given her the strength to find solace in solitude and the strength to get out of the shackles her family had been binding her in.

Suddenly her phone vibrated and feeling her face light up in delight she saw that it was a message from him.

‘Are you sure you will be able to do it? There is no return from here on and there is absolutely no room for regret.’

He asked her but after the last week of constant questions she was starting to become tired of him and glaring at the screen she asked, ‘I have a feeling that you might be the one chickening out. Don’t tell me you aren’t going to show up today. You promised to come take me.’

She didn’t understand why he was making a fuss now. 

Killing her beloved family wasn’t a big deal anyway. 

There was a pause of a few seconds and finally a message came back.

‘Do not disappoint me. I’ll be there exactly in an hour.’

Finally! She rejoiced, throwing her phone on her bed and taking out the small box that she had received as a gift from her comforter. She gently placed it on her bed. She had hid it for the last past two months in the lowest drawer of her old books from high school that for some reason she still hadn’t bothered to throw away. She noticed that a paper had been stuck to the bottom of the box and picking it away she recognized it to be one of those revolting pranks that her peers would play on her.

‘I am a freak. Please fuck me to sanity.’ Was what was written on it in black marker with a bunch of tapes stuck on the edge to keep it properly stuck to her clothes while she walked down the corridor in shame.

The remembrance brought by that paper only loomed her anger more and feeling frustrated for never receiving help from her ‘good’ mother she stuffed the paper in her bra. She had wanted to take her time opening the beautiful black box but with her hands shivering with anger she threw open the lid and took out the gun that was staring back at her as if beckoning her to kiss it.

It was just so bewitching with its silver barrel shining from the golden rays falling on it through the window. A glint sparked in her eyes much as the gun. Picking it up she felt her nerves calm down at the coolness and weight of the death weapon in her hand. Unable to resist she brought the tip to her lips and kissing it she whispered, “You are fucking beautiful.”

The gun was already loaded and having had experience with using them regularly at the shooting range she confidently held the pistol in her hand and came out of her room to go to her mother. She didn’t need to search for her knowing well enough that she must be in the kitchen trying to act like a perfect wife and homemaker while secretly sipping on her flask of alcohol to forget about the pain that her cheating husband brought her.

As she had predicted her mother stood sitting on the barstool taking a swig of her alcohol. Her bloodshot eyes fell onto her daughter’s face but she didn’t stop her actions and when she was done she sat down the thin bottle and seethed, “What are you staring at, my good for nothing daughter? Are you trying to look down on me? Are you making fun of me with those big brown eyes of yours, just like your father, Vevina?”

The woman had been past her state of consciousness and it had only been eight in the morning. The sight disgusted Vevina like it had ever since she had realized what intoxication meant but unlike how she had let it show on her face before she didn’t this time. The scars on her back from all those belt whips she had received seemed to burn again as if she had been freshly beaten up again. Suppressing a hiss she said nothing to her mother and brought up the gun, aiming directly at her face.

It was for a slight second but her mother looked scared and then tipping her head back she laughed, “You are my daughter as much as you are your fathers and I know you are a coward. You couldn’t stand up to your fucking friends when they made fun of you and you think I will believe that you would be able to kill me? Go back to your room sweetie and talk to your stuffed animals like you always do.”

Her mother’s comments towards her had forever been degrading and even today they hadn’t been any different. The woman was capable of skinning out Vevina alive but couldn’t say a word at the injustice her husband showed her.

“Let’s put it to the test shall we, mother?” Vevina asked, for the first time in a while, talking back to her and this didn’t go unnoticed by her mother even in her drunken state.

“Vevina! Stop being a brat and go back to y-”

But by the time her mother would be able to complete her sentence Vevina had already shot her. The loud ring of the gun echoed throughout the quiet house and for a few seconds even made a shrill whistle like sound echo in Vevina’s ears. The time slowed for her as she watched the shining bullet embedded deep into her mother’s skull, right in the center of her forehead and between her trimmed shapely brows.

Blood leisurely seeped out from around the ring of flesh that had been jamming the bullet tight into her skull and trickling down the thick clefts of her nose and from around her wide opened eyes, her mother finally fell down from the bar stool.  Walking to her she took out the crumpled piece of paper from her bra and stuck it to her mother’s forehead, just below the wound, she smiled finally feeling that the words had found their right owner.

“Vevina…” She heard her father call out, making her stand back and turn to look at him. Watching the rich fat man come up from the basement (or should she call it his sex room?) with only his pants on made her realize that a slut must have left early in the morning again today. He had always been absent in her life, never caring for her or her mother while banging multitudes of different women in the very same house where the two lived. This act had brought the result of all the abuse that her mother had showered her with causing her hatred to increase.

When she had tried seeking his help in the beginning, he hadn’t even given her a chance to talk and recalling that she made sure to shoot him in the heart before he would be able to babble another word. 

If he hadn’t given her a chance to talk, why should she give it to him?

The blood poured out of the flabs of meat on his chests and spread onto the floor profusely. While falling the man had struggled to find some support but instead of saving the last few remnants of his pathetic life he had banged his head against the corner of the pointed couch and bashed his head making more blood to pool out.

She watched as a puddle of red halo formed around his head and laughing at the irony she wondered if this was some atonement that his body was doing for all the sins he had committed.

Sighing at the scene in front of her she felt her mind and body become lighter as the wretched house looked beautiful with the splash of color that it had always needed. Even the stench of the metallic blood had been a pleasant and welcoming contrast from the suffocating lemon freshener that her mother always used.

8:50 am

The digital clock kept on top of the fridge read, making her gleefully look towards the door in expectation. 

He should be here now.

She thought and when she heard the lock being opened she rushed towards it with a smile only for it to plummet.

“Drop your weapon and put your hands up in the air! You are under arrest!”