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Natural Born Killer

Natural Born Killer

I never felt a thing.

When Jimmy passed, it was pain beyond pain. It always is when such things happen without warning. I remembered screaming until I was hoarse, until I could no longer utter a single word. For many weeks, not a day would go by without tears being shed. When things finally started looking up for us, it was more than we could ever have asked for.

And then came the day when Brian was shot down. Mid-solo, in the middle of our first show back on our feet. At first, I had failed to realise what was going on; he had stood just behind me, our arms rubbing against each other as they so often did in this position. The screaming from the crowd had been nothing out of the ordinary until the more observant of their number began to notice the blood - right about the time that I felt him go limp.

His murderer hadn't stood a chance. Our fans - our family - had taken him down without a second of thought for their own safety. I could remember feeling the smallest amount of surprise when I discovered that they hadn't killed him - they had left that to Matt, who had blindly lashed out in his rage. Cold-blooded killer defeated, Matt had been thrown in prison.

That had been the end of us. As far as I was concerned, it had been the end of everything. It didn't help when Johnny - the only one who truly understood every part of what I was going through - turned to drugs to ease his pain. Much like with the first of our fallen number, I didn't see it coming at all. He went from one day being the only real friend I had left to the next day being a cold, empty shell. I often spoke to him. He never said a word in return.

They say that as long as there is hope, there is always a chance. It's a lie. If you just leave them long enough, all hopes fade in the end. Every last one, until you've got nothing left to hold on to. And that was what happened to me. Two of my friends were lost to the afterlife; a third was lost to a deadly chemical romance; and the fourth, the last of my hopes, turned into somebody that I didn't know at all. Somebody that I didn't want to know. He stopped calling. I stopped visiting.

Gena left me. I barely noticed, too caught up in my own fantasies to ever pay attention to the real world anymore. All I knew was that one day she slept beside me, the next she was gone from my life. Following her lead, the other girls began to keep their distance. My home - once a place for many social gatherings and general hang-outs - became a lifeless house. One that, day in and day out, I refused to leave.

It quickly became apparent to me that the house was filled with memories - all of them good, and now all of them painful. I was on the verge of leaving it for good, of finding some place else to live, when he showed up on my doorstep. He took me by surprise when I answered the door. I had never before seen him in my life, and I couldn't understand how he had come to be standing here now. But here he was, all the same.

"Scott Henderson," he introduced himself to me, holding out a casual hand. "I've been looking for you, Mr. Baker."

I ignored his hand, skipping right to the part where I stepped aside and allowed him entrance into my house. He appeared hesitant at first, but came through all the same. He closed the front door behind himself after realising that I had neglected to do so. I walked on down the hall, leading him into my living room without a word. I dropped down into my favourite seat and indicated for him to do the same.

He sat across from me, his eyes taking in every inch of the room. The claw-footed cabinet. The dusty chandelier. The numerous empty Jack bottles that littered the coffee table. I kept my eyes on him, not failing to notice that he remained rigid in his seat.

"Do I know you?"

I hardly noticed the words coming out of my own mouth until they had already been spoken; it was the first thing I had said in a while, and my voice showed every sign of this with the way that it cracked. Scott Henderson looked back at me in surprise, as if he had only just remembered I was there.

"Oh. Well, not really," he started. "I mean, not at all. We've never met. But you, ah...you sort of knew my brother, Michael."

Michael Henderson. The name struck a chord somewhere deep within, but I couldn't place it. Had I read it somewhere? Had I gone to school with this man? Was he a fan that I had met at one of several shows?

"I can't place the name."

If he had been stiff before, it was nothing compared to how uncomfortable he looked now. He shuffled in his seat awkwardly, his eyes darting back in the direction of my front door. I raised an eyebrow, unamused by all of this. I only wanted to know why he was in my house.

"How did I know him?"

Scott Henderson scratched the back of his head and cleared his throat.

"Well...he was the one who shot your friend..."

I felt my eyebrows rise up towards my hairline. Of course. Michael Henderson. I had heard the name only briefly as the charges against Matt were read out at his arrest. I hadn't given the killer a second thought after I had watched him perish, but here I stood now having his name shoved in my face. Having his brother sitting right in front of me.

His brother.

"Brian was more than just my friend," I scowled. "He was my family. Do you have any idea what it was like for me to be right there beside him and not be able to do a thing to help him?"

"I know. And I'm sorry. I should have known what was going on with him. I should have stopped him. But I didn't, and I've had to live with that every day since it happened."

And I've had to live with that every day since it happened.

I snorted.

"So this is the guilt that consumes you?"

Everybody was guilty of something. Everybody had their own burden to bear. But the fact that his was so petty compared to what it should have been was almost infuriating.

"Do you know what I've had to live with since that day?" I asked him, narrowing my eyes. I gave him little chance to even shake his head before I went on. "I've lost not one but two of my brothers. I watched another go mad with rage, and the other lose touch with reality. And your brother was the one that did all of that. Your brother."

My fists were clenched by then, my knuckles turning white with the force. Scott Henderson did nothing but stare at me, his expression blank. And in that moment he looked so much like his brother that I simply couldn't help myself.

I had often wondered in my life how one human could kill another with seemingly no motive. No matter how I had thought about it, nothing had ever made sense. But it was clear to me now that there was always a motive - perhaps not a motive against the person being murdered, but a motive all the same. I didn't shove a broken bottle through Scott Henderson's face because he killed my brothers. I shoved it through his face because he could have prevented their deaths, their detachments from reality.

I killed him, because he had killed me.

And I never felt a thing.

Comments

That might have been the best first chapter i have ever read. "And i never felt a thing" that was was amazing, good job
synful7plague synful7plague
8/7/13
UH... that was scary. That last bit scared me a bit! But I love the way you wrote this! Great work.
Nia_Flores Nia_Flores
6/18/13