Monster?

Log 1: The root of evil

This is pointless... Alexander says that I should talk about this, or at least make a log of it. I’ve been having nightmares recently, stuff about my childhood, and he says just talking about it will help me, even if it’s just to an audio log. Help me my ass! But if Alexander says I should, then I will. He probably knows best. No! He always knows best.

Anyway, I’m Annabella, right hand of Alexander Cromwell, saviour of this world from evil. That’s not my real name, but I haven’t used my real name in years, and, really, who gives a crap about that? My loser parents just thought of something to fill in the blank ‘cause they had to, so I’m not gonna’ go around calling myself that. I was born in 1980-something, I don’t remember exactly, and it really doesn’t matter. I’m old enough to know how the world works. See, we here at the order, we’re crusaders against evil. Alexander says we’re the only hope the world has to be rid of all evil. But the other people, those idiots, they call him insane! Alexander says we shouldn’t just go around killing anyone who talks like that, though. Says it detracts us from the real threats. Whatever. Their time will come sooner or later.

But, yeah, back on topic. Let’s see... Childhood. Yeah, I was born, err... Somewhere in the US. East Coast, I think. My mother was an idiot and my father was a jerk, that pretty much sums my family up pretty well. See, my dad, he was a lousy drunk. Never held down a job, always got in trouble with the cops, and he’d always take it out on mom. First memory I have is he beat her pretty bad. Think he broke something on her, I don’t know. If she’d had any sense, she’d have dumped the bastard, but she was just dumb. Kept forgiving him, kept thinking it was always her fault. Yeah! It WAS your fault for being stupid! Just knife the guy in the throat while he’s sleeping off a hangover. Eh, but she was too weak to consider that.

See, at first I thought she loved me, and she was just getting beat up like a sack to protect me, but then my dad started taking it out on me, and she was still trying to make nice with the guy. What a load of crap! Yeah, thanks for the support, mom! Yeah, I figured out she was worthless when my dad broke my jaw and all she could do was cry about it. For crap’s sake! Do something! Ugh... But she was useless. ‘Sides, I learned to take care of myself, and I could always guilt her for a dollar or two here and there. So I guess it wasn’t all that bad, really. Soon as I figured out I didn’t care about either of ‘em, I was living pretty well.

Until that... Thing was born. Yeah, I had a little brother at some point, hell if I know how that happened. My mom had a soft spot for that little thing like she’d never had for me, though my dad was always too drunk to care. How the hell did that little baby manage to get more favour than me? I still don’t understand it, and I still hate it for it. I did get to take it out on him when he was older, though. It was so much fun to lock him in the basement where no-one ever went. One time he spent something like a week in there, without food or water. I’d have let him go longer, but mom found him and let him out. Not like I got in trouble for it or anything. She was too meek to say anything and dad didn’t really care. He hated my brother as much as I did. But then, he was always drunk, so he pretty much hated everybody.

One day dad comes home, and he’s totally wasted. He slaps mom around real bad, then my brother starts crying. And the dude just blew up, he was so angry. Started kicking him and punching him, and all my mother could do was cry. Man, what a wimp. Do something, god damn it! But she didn’t. She just stood back and watched her drunk husband stomp her son to death. Serves her right. Next morning when he sobered up, dad was sweating bullets, though, ‘cause there were cops snooping around the neighbourhood and he knew they’d throw his ass in jail forever if they found out, so he sort of buried him out back when no-one was looking. Then he has the nerve to act like nothing happened, and my mother still can’t bring herself to hate the guy. What a damn waste that woman was.

But you know what? Screw him! If he could just kill my brother like that, why couldn’t I, you know? I kept hoping my mother would do it, but she just kept crying. Ugh, it makes me sick! And my dad was still wasted by the end of the day, and passed out on the couch. I got sick of the bastard, so I just took that huge meat knife we had that my mom never let me play with and did what she should have done years ago. It was so easy to carve up the guy it wasn’t even funny. I’d seen the movies, I knew exactly what to aim for, and it’s not like he could do anything to protect him fat neck. Oh, sure, he woke up when I cut him, and he spent some time stumbling around and gurgling, but he went down soon enough. He was actually pretty funny to watch, tripping over things.

But then my mother gave me that... That look. Man, I HATE her! Idiot! He was making your life hell. You should have done that years ago. How can you give me that look when I did you a favour? She always said she loved me, but she said she loved my brother too, and she didn’t do anything to protect him. So to hell with her, she wasn’t gonna’ protect me. Why shouldn’t I protect myself? Nah, the only thing she loved was that abusive bastard, and he didn’t deserve anyone to love him! But ever since that day, she never looked at me the same way again. Every time she looked, I could tell she was afraid of me, that she was disgusted of me. She hated me. My own mother thought I was a monster! God damn it! My dad was a monster, but she never looked at him the same way. Him she always forgave, even when he took away her son, she still forgave him. But she couldn’t forgive me. You couldn’t forgive me, could you, mom? Well, go to hell! I can’t forgive you for being a loser.

Anyway, the police showed up the next day, picked up dad’s body, dug up my brother pretty much left. They didn’t care. No-one cared about me. My mother certainly didn’t care. She hated me. From the day I cut my dad, she hated me, and she didn’t have to say anything. She was afraid of me, the... Ugh! How the hell could you treat your own daughter like that, mom? Huh? How? Wasn’t I good for you? I put up with all your crap, I put up with that abusive asshole you were married to, I lived in your craphole of a house. But it was never good enough for you, was it? Well, go to hell!

Yeah, I’d have offed her too, probably, if I’d had enough time. In fact, I started trying to figure out a good way to do it where it would look like self-defence so the social services people would put me into a foster home without investigating too much, but the damn cops got in the way. One day they just storm in and arrest me for the murder of my father. I thought mom would cover for me like she’d done for dad, but no. She sold me out. Yeah, great. Thanks, mom, now I really know just how much you love me. But you know what? You want a monster, you’ll have a monster. Screw you! I could see the relief in her eyes when they took me away. She was glad to get rid of me. Well I hope you burn in hell!

They convicted me pretty quick. My own mother testified against me, even pinned my brother’s death on me. But you know what? By that point I was no longer angry. I’d have offed the little bugger myself, eventually, and I was glad to get away from that old witch. So they stuck me in juve hall and sent me into “counselling.” Heh, they thought I was crazy. A real psycho. But that’s fine by me. I don’t mind being a psycho by their stupid rules. Plus, that sort of things gives a lot of street cred in juve. Even the tough guys are scared of you when they learn you’re a psycho. Yeah, who knows what you could do, you know? See, even the bullies have to play by the rules, and the guards can bully them. Me, I didn’t give a crap about anything. I’d cave the skull of anyone that crossed me, guards be damned. What’s the worse they could do to me, anyway? Beat me up? Lock me up? Like I care.

They all treated me like a monster. The other kids, the guards, even the shrink. Man, you’d think that for someone who gets paid for this crap, he’d be a little more objective, but no. When he looked at me, all he saw was a little juvenile monster girl who was capable of anything. Well, you know what? Fine! Screw ‘em all! They want a monster? I’ll give ‘em a monster. And I gave ‘em a monster. Made life for pretty much everyone in there a living hell. It was a lot of fun to watch the losers get frustrated when nothing they did to me could slow me down. One guard even managed to beat me so bad he broke every single one of my ribs. Soon as I healed up, I shanked her in the back with a screwdriver. I don’t think she ever walked again.

Yeah, I was a real monster, and you know what? It was a lot of fun. I don’t regret it, ‘cause all of these people, they deserved it. I never hurt anyone who didn’t bother me, not back then, anyway, and they still called me a monster. So I just sort of... Gave up and became the kind of monster they thought I was. I didn’t think I had another kind of future, anyway. See, back then I didn’t think there was any room for good in the world. I was born bad, I was raised bad I was destined to be bad. I didn’t exactly enjoy being hated by everybody, but after a while, I just stopped caring. See, I may have had dreams when I was a kid, things I wanted to do, things I wanted to become. But in the end, I ended up being a monster, so that’s sort of what I let myself become.

But Alexander knew. He could see me for what I really was, he knew I had a purpose in the world. Man, I can’t wait to get to the part where he found me, but I gotta’ go. Cops are getting close to the order, and a few of them gotta’ go, all secret-like. I’m due to intercept one in... Shit! I’m so late!

Yeah, I was kind of surprised at it, myself. But that's the kind of villain I've created (unwittingly, no less), and she's already established, so I sort of painted myself in a corner with this one. I'm not sure of how realistic this is, to be honest, as I have no first-hand experience and I'm mostly going off movies and games in that vein.

On the other hand, though, this kind of disturbing character is more or less REQUIRED to put the Order into perspective, as a vast contrast between Alexander's charismatic words and the reality of the kind of people he is actually praising. In a sense, making Anabella redeemable would take away from her role in the Order.

I'll probably get another chapter in at some point this week. Surprisingly, these are fairly easy to write, as they're short and and I haven't been stumped yet. I benefit from not having a concrete plan and just putting in what horrors occur to me as I go along.

*edit*
Oh, and THANK YOU for the response

Log 3: The Fate of Evil

You know... Maybe Alexander has a point about these audio log things, ‘cause they seem to have helped, kind of. I guess. Those nightmares I’m getting, see... I don’t think they’re nightmares. Wait, that doesn’t make sense. Let’s see... These dreams I’m having, I thought they were night mares because, well... I kinda’ woke up screaming and my heart was pounding and all that. But, they’re kind of not scary. Actually, they’re pretty exciting. Kind of cool, you know. Fights, violence, super powers, monsters, that kind of thing. I guess Alexander was right. See, I always thought my childhood was, like, this ugly mess and that made me screwed up, but when I think about it... It kind of wasn’t, really. Yeah, sure, it sucked, I suppose, but it was fun, too. My family was kind of bad, but then I didn’t really spend too much time with ‘em, and I did get to go out with a bang back then. And the horrors and stuff later on, yeah, that was bad, I guess. But then, shit happens, you know? I ain’t dead yet, so it can’t have been that bad, right?

Anyway, audio log. Let’s see, where was I last time... Something about those scientist dudes in that lab, I think. Oh, right, I escaped from the lab, that’s what I was talking about last time. So I busted out of that place big time. Like, I killed a bunch of people and made a mess of the place. Man, I really did those guys a number. Would’ve stuck around, too, but I was still getting used to my powers, so I was kind of worried. I mean, they stormed the building with, like, a whole bunch of soldiers, and these guys weren’t screwing around. Heavy machineguns, shooting on sight without warning. Shot a bunch of their own scientists dead, too. Heh, idiots. But it was kind of cool, too. I was so important that they sent in, like, professional murderers to deal with me. Yeah, I really felt like I was big time, then. I had to hop islands a few times, ‘cause these guys were hell-bent on shooting me dead, but I managed to lose ‘em in about a week. They weren’t that good.

And then everything kind of died down. Cops looked the other way while these guys cleaned up the bodies and hid the base, then everything was like no-one cared, you know? So a bunch of people turn up dead and people see a monster in the street. So? Who gives a crap? It’s always like that here on the Isles. Not like I care, but I wanted to get back at the bastards. I mean, hell! No-one experiments on me and gets away with it! Woulda’ ripped their heads off if I’d known who they were, but they covered their tracks too well. But, yeah, I cooled off pretty fast. See, even though they made my skin look like they turned it inside out, I had super powers, man! Who cares about my skin? I can crush people’s heads with my bare hands, and I can dodge bullets! It was awesome!

It was kind of gross, but it wasn’t a hard life, though. I could always mug people for money, and it’s not like the cops cared. They were too busy sucking on doughnuts and kissing the mob’s ass. That’s the Isles’ police, man – totally worthless. All the better for me, though, ‘cause it meant I could, like, slash some poor sap living alone and crash in his place from time to time when it got too cold outside. No-one misses these guys, ‘casue they have, like, no family, so no-one ever bothers me. And the shops don’t really care who they sell to. The dudes just look down and take your money. It was pretty sweet living out by myself. No son-of-a-bitch dad to slap me around, no loser mom to whine all the time, no guards, no nothing. Freedom, man. It was so sweet! And I didn’t have to get beat up, either. ‘Cause now with my super powers, if anyone wanted to mess with me, he was going home in a body bag!

But... Well, I guess Alexander was right. It was kind of pointless. I mean, it’s not like I needed a point or whatever, but it was an empty, meaningless existence blindly surrendering my soul to evil. Woah! I can’t believe I remembered all that! Anyway, he’s right. I was just throwing my life away living in other people’s garbage. I didn’t really mind being a monster then, but it was different. It was like... See, they all thought I was a monster, and I was like “Fine, screw it! You want a monster, I’ll fuckin’ give you a monster!” And, yeah. I kind of made a mess of the place just to mess with people. I didn’t really think what I was gonna’ do when I grew up. Hell, I didn’t think I WOULD grow up. Always thought some mutant thing would kill me real soon, ‘cause the streets were crawling with the dudes. Lord spider man was, like, busting out convicts from the mainland or something, and they were running all over the Isles, making a mess of the place. Always thought I’d run into one too strong and I’d just get offed. But, eh! Who cares about the future, right?

What else... Oh, right, I met Alexander at... Some point. I’d seen the dude around, talking to people and all that, and he looked really weird. Like, he was some kind of angel or something, all dressed in that white coat of his, always clean... See, the people here, they don’t really look very good. Bums, the lot of ‘em, always dirty, wearing crappy rags, always with their heads down, you know? But he was like a frikkin’ hero, all shiny and proud and stuff. He acts all high and mighty like he owns the place, and that... That was just amazing. And he was a tough bugger, too. Like, I saw a bunch of those nasty snake things jump him at one point, and they, like, slice him apart before he can even see ‘em. He blows up into this white foamy thing, then flows back together and he’s just fine. Not a scratch on ‘em! Pulls out this really cool axe and he just murders the things. Like, no contest, he destroy ‘em.

He’s so cool! Alexander is the man. Like, I ain’t never seen anyone as awesome as that guy, and he’s really smart, too. He knows what he’s talking about. I went to one of his lecture things where he was talking to a bunch of idiots, and he was just super cool, man! He talked about fighting evil and how only what you do matters, not who you are, and then I just knew... Woah! That’s, like, totally me he’s talking about! He didn’t have a lot of followers back then, just that prude, Cross. Ugh... Man, I know we’re all on the same side here, but I swear, if he keeps lecturing me on the bible, I’m totally gonna’ stab him through the throat. Not like he won’t come back from the dead, the devil worshipper, but at least it’ll feel good. Eh, but Alexander will probably be mad. I really wish he’d do something about that guy. He’s driving me nuts!

Anyway, I stuck around after his lecture thing ‘cause I wanted to join him, and I was sure he was gonna’ freak out on me ‘cause I’m a monster. I went in there dressed in these baggy rags to hide my scars, but he knew. I don’t know how, but he knew about it. But he was really cool about the whole thing. I don’t know if he’d researched me or something, but he knew everything, and he still wanted me aboard. And I was like “Sweet!” but then I was like “Hold on! How come? Ain’t I, like, evil and stuff?” But no! See, that’s the really cool thing – he says that, if I swear to follow him and fight evil without question, then it don’t matter what I’ve done. Hell, it don’t matter what I do from here on out, either. As long as it’s in the name of evil and by his order, everything is permitted. That’s kind of been my motto since then.

Alexander’s a really cool guy. Not like my idiot shrink from the halls. That guy, he was always trying to “fix” me. He thought I was a monster, and he tried to, like, fix my head and make me a dumb little girl again. Screw you, shrink guy! I ain’t goin’ back! But Alexander, he was fine with all that stuff. Hell, he liked that I was a monster. Said it gave me power and absolve... No, power and resolve, that’s right! Basically, he said that even if I was ugly and nasty and a killer and all that, it didn’t matter, ‘cause the only thing that mattered was I used that to fight evil with. All that “fight fire with fire,” stuff, I guess. Point is, I could be just like what I wanted to be and do whatever I wanted to do. I didn’t have to change, I didn’t have to be fixed. I just had to listen to him. And I was perfect the way I was. You know, he’s the only guy who’s ever said that to me. Everyone else is either telling me how disgusting I am or trying to kill me. Or gargling blood, ‘cause I’m not the forgiving type.

Anyway, Alexander took me in, gave me my own room, that sweet uniform like he wore and even a weapon. He gave me a frikkin’ sword, man! Huge thing, really sharp, all white and shiny. Awesome! I’ve put this baby to real good use, and it never stains from blood. How cool is that? And that uniform is really cool, too. It covers me from the neck down, so all the nasty scars don’t show, and if I comb my hair just so, I can hide the big one by my eye, too. I never thought I could look pretty, but man, I look damn good in this thing! Yeah, sure, I have to share the building with Cross and his loud idiot congregation... Stupid street punks! They don’t deserve to call themselves members of the Order! I’d slice ‘em all, but Alexander says we need all the help we can get. So, fine. Let the bastards go get shot for us. Cross always seems to be able to find new ones. Ludlow’s pretty cool about everything, though, even if he’s major creepy. It’s like that guy’s a robot or something, ‘cause he does everything Alexander says and never complains. I know he’s not, ‘cause I’ve seen ‘em bleed, but geez! Talk about a dude that has no life. Not like I care. He does what I say and he doesn’t bitch at me about it, like frikkin’ Cross! Man I hate that guy!

Yeah, anyway, I’m good in the Order right now. I’m, like, Alexander’s right hand woman. He needs something done or someone killed, he just gives me a name and they’re dead. He taught me how to hide and sneak around, so I could take people out without getting into too much trouble, but I know he doesn’t mind it when I make a lot of noise and do my executions all public-like. I think he prefers it that way, but he’s still trying to get me to play assassin, ‘cause he doesn’t want me to get hurt. He’s really sweet when you get to know him, really. I swear, I’d do anything that man tells me. He’s, like, some kind of god on Earth or something. He never says that, but I know he is. He’s leading us to a better life, he’s leading us to a world where it don’t matter what we are, we’ll never have to suffer pain or injustice ever again. And, yeah, I know we killers probably have no place in it, but so what? I ain’t that attached to this life, and I would do anything for Alexander.

I really like Alexander. He’s so brave and strong and handsome in that uniform. Not like fat Cross and his muscles. Ew! Oh, and his voice... When he speaks, it’s like he’s talking right into my heart. It always makes me wobble when he does his lecture thing. And his cute glasses, and that natural blond hair... Mmm... Err... Yeah, he’s pretty cool! Yeah...

Anyway, that’s everything. That’s my whole story, pretty much. Yeah, I didn’t say everything, but seriously! Who cares about little crap like that, anyway? It’s the big stuff that counts, right? That’s what my life’s been like – my house, the hall, the streets, the Order. Pretty much, you know? And you know what? I don’t think it’s been a bad life. Yeah, sure, it wasn’t a lot of fun at the time, but so what? It made me into the monster I am today, and that’s my role in the order. If I wasn’t a monster, I’d probably be some stupid whiny wife to some fat bastard who can’t keep down a job. Or I’d be dead or something. Yuck! No god damn way! Nah, all the crap and pain, and of that stuff was worth it to get here. And you know what else? Those nightmares – they’re not scary. In fact, they’re pretty nice. I’ve been living a nightmare a lot worse than them. Nah, they’re just stuff that I had to go through to get here. And that can’t have been all that bad if it got me into the Order. Nah, I’m just fine.

But, hey! Alexander was right. Talking about all that crap really helped me. Oh, yeah, about that – Alexander told me to go kill some kind of rich business guy. Said to make it real public-like, ‘cause the other people need to see what happens to those who sell good to fun evil... I think. I don’t know what the guy did, but if Alexander says he needs to die, then I’ll enjoy cutting him open.

Man... I love my life so much!