Cold

I was just another kid. Just another punk that seemed to like trouble. If they could see who I really was under the mask, if they could have known the real me, I would be condemned, not just ridiculed. If they could see me, they would throw me into a cell and leave me to rot. If it were possible to do so; they would kill me. But without that option; they would resort to plan B.

No matter how much trouble I'd gotten myself into over the short time that I'd been a teenager, no matter how much trouble I would stir as my teenage years would be dragged into centuries, I always knew what I'd wanted to do with my life, there had never been a doubt. I wanted to go to college. I wanted to become an artist.

Creation was the one way that I could take out my anger without it ending negatively. Sculpting, painting, invention and, more than anything, drawing were my escapes from the hellish life that I lead, from the hellish world that I live in. I could pick up the tools of the trade and just let my frustration out on the paper or clay. No matter how much anger and fear resided inside of me, I knew that I could use it to make something beautiful.

I didn't want to hurt people, no matter what my instincts told me to do. I held all the pain, I gritted my teeth against it and forced myself to be around people, around the people that my thoughts told me, so forcefully, that were my enemies, prey. They were nothing more than animals, a herd of cattle that are waiting in line for my next kill.

I forced myself to sit around them, breathing in every separate scent, feeling the heat of their bodies screaming out to me, begging me to take the heat, to make it my own.

I could survive without them and I would force myself to continue living my life around them. My Creators, what most kids my age would consider parents, showed me how to kill, they showed me how to live the life that society expects of me. I hate them. With every last inch of me, I hated them. They took my life away, they forced me into a life that resented and hoped, everyday, that it would end. Many times, I had thought about my death. What would be the best way to end it all? Should it be quick or did I deserve to suffer?

These thoughts consumed me. For years after they left, I secluded myself. I was seven years old and out on my own. I killed freely at first, loving the feeling of the heat turning into ice under my touch. I consumed the pain that it brought me, to end their lives, loving every second. I would let my eyes roll into the back of my head and take in the sweet smell. I wasn't afraid of people, I wasn't afraid to be caught because the most that they could do was lock me away. They could not kill me, they could not injure me, they could confine me.

I do not have altered genes that create super-human strength. I do not read minds or fly. I simply take. The people that I take from don't realize what I am doing before it's too late. They get a slight chill, at first, like they're being watched. Soon, they feel hungry and then tired. After that, the next step is dizziness and then slight nausea, like they ate bad food.

Most will simply laugh it off as nothing and try to continue their conversation. They soon become cold and will throw on an extra layer or two. Their limbs ache and their muscles cramp lightly, not painfully, just uncomfortably. They will then excuse themselves and go lay down. Before they leave, you dismiss them with a hug or a shake of the hand and then watch them leave the room, they never come back.

Their families wonder where they went, their friends search and, eventually, the police are sent to investigate. It's easy to get away with it, simply because nobody will suspect a child to take the lives of four or five grown people every night. Even if somebody had suspected me, or anybody like me, a coroner would conclude that the person froze to death. Such an anomaly would be impossible when the warm summer hit, of course.

While people would definitely find it strange, they wouldn't question too far because there was no evidence to suggest otherwise. (Tell about the affects of freezing to death)

So, what am I? You may be asking yourself this question, and probably have been since you read the first paragraph. Am a vampire, no. I do not suck the blood from people's bodies, I can survive in the sun and I will not die if you drive a wooden or silver stake through my heart. Am I a monster, maybe. If I am not, then I used to be. So what the hell am I? To be completely fucking honest, I have no clue.

My 'parents' killed without mercy and had no problem with pulling me along for the ride. There was no, “Be careful honey. I don't want you hurting yourself!” or “Don't talk to strangers!” They could have cared less if I lived or died, if I was caught or taken from them. They left me sitting on a park bench at seven years old. They left me sitting in the cold, knowing that I would want the heat sooner or later, that the desperate hunger would overtake me. They knew that I would kill somebody sooner or later. That was all that they wanted. They wanted to leave me out on my own, to fend for myself.

I cried that first night. I remember standing up because it was freezing and I remember walking through the streets, just wandering around, hoping that just maybe, they had lost me, that they were looking for me.

A young man, about nineteen, he stopped and stared at me for a second or two. I guess he noticed how scared I was because he asked me if I was okay. I shook my head and he came closer, his eyes were so worried, so caring. He asked if I knew where my parents were, I told him no because I didn't even know what the word meant. I told him that I didn't know where I lived or what I should do.

He told me that everything was going to be alright. I laid his hand on my shoulder blade and started walking forward. I felt the heat radiating from him and I felt greed replace the fear. I wanted that warmth, I didn't need it, I only wanted it. Such a selfish thought. I noted the rainbow colored wristband that he wore and the kind way that he spoke to me. He was a good person. He wanted to help me while others just passed by without so much as a second glance.

I watched him shiver but he took off his jacket anyway and draped it around my shoulders. He promised me that we would find my parents and that everything was going to be okay. His hand stayed rested on my shoulder through the long walk. He asked me about where I last saw my parents, what we were doing and if they said where they were going. I told him that I didn't know. It wasn't long before he had to sit down. He claimed that his muscles were getting sore and he felt tired.

Soon, he was complaining about being exhausted, his head was throbbing and his limbs were freezing. I watched, just a child, anticipating the end and becoming impatient as I waited for the heat. I asked him if he was okay, but knew that he wasn't. I knew the lies of my words as they escaped my lips. While I never reassured him, I still knew the answer would be opposite of what he was going to say.

“Yes, I'll be alright. Let's try to focus on finding your parents.”

He was dead twenty minutes later. I laid his jacket over him and began walking through the streets, searching for my next victim.

I was a monster, I didn't need this to survive, I wanted it. I yearned for it. I killed for my own selfish gain. It was three years after I killed that man, who I later found out had parents and a boyfriend that would miss him. I felt no guilt. I didn't know the meaning of the word, that I realized what I was doing was wrong. I slipped up. Only once.

The streets were nearly empty, all but a few people walking home from a night shift. Most nights, I would wait for somebody to ask if I was okay. Others, I would approach somebody and tell them that I was lost.

Her name was Catherine. She was a mother of three and a grandmother of two. She had been married for nineteen years and worked in an elementary school. When she felt cold, there was no issue. It was January, there was a logical explanation for it. It was when she tripped that everything was ruined. She had her hand on my arm, I was close enough to her that the connection was okay but it's always stronger when there is touch.

She started to feel woozy and her legs started to hurt. I hadn't been paying close enough attention, her heal caught on a stick and she fell. She was okay, no injuries. In fact, she was laughing it off when she stood up. She also noticed that she was no longer uncomfortable. Her arm brushed against mine again and her stomach rolled. She stopped, I walked forward a few steps, too far for the connection, and she instantly felt better. I took her hand to pull her forward with me and she felt dizzy again, she jerked away from me and ran.

On the news, I saw that she had hypothermia. The look of disgust and fear on her face that scared me. It was look of her children on the television, standing next to their mother's hospital bed. The first stab of guilt ripped through me so fiercely that it was a physical pain. She died two days later.

I made her suffer for two days, I made her family suffer. After seeing this, I went into hiding. I found abandoned buildings and stayed in cold rooms. The yearning was so hard in the first year, it was so hard to force myself to stay in that room, to resist the heat. My veins burned without it, screaming at me.

When I was fourteen, after moving from place to place, I was found and forced into a foster home. For three weeks, I was fine. When winter hit again, that was when it started all over. I cried out in the night, screaming for my mom or dad to come into the room. I wanted their heat more than anything. I wanted to take it from them and never regret not being able to give it back.

They had a baby. Her name was Jessica and she was six months old. This family took me in and offered to adopt me after just one week. They loved me just as much as they'd loved their own daughter.

My mom tucked me into bed, her hand brushing down my face. I gritted my teeth against the painful urge and waited for her to leave the room.

Two hours later, I heard the baby crying. My parents hadn't heard her, or else they would've been in there already. They probably fell asleep with their television on. I stood up with a grumble and went into the room next to mine. I picked the baby up without a second thought. I am able to push back my ability, I can control it. I didn't. The heat from the baby, mixed with the grogginess of sleep, I couldn't resist it. I watched the light fade from her eyes.

My mother came in ten minutes later, I cried out that something was wrong, handing the lifeless body to my mom. She screamed when Jessica wouldn't wake up and she glared at me with suspicion. “What did you do?” she yelled.

I wanted, so badly, to tell her that I didn't do anything, that the baby was like this when I came to check on her. I couldn't say anything. I let tears fill my eyes and waited for her to say something. She collapsed, cradling the lifeless body to her chest. I cried, I couldn't breathe. In that moment, I wanted to die.

My dad came in the room and attempted to process what was happening. “What happened?” he yelled to his hysterical wife.

“She is so cold!” she yelled to him. “It was her! I know it was!”

He stood over his wife, he pulled her arms out and took the baby in his arms. “Jessica?” he whispered quietly. In seconds, he was in hysterics. He felt her cold skin and looked at her nearly blue face. He screamed. “What did you do?!” he yelled at me.

I shook my head and ran out of the room. I locked myself in the bathroom and screamed over and over again. I cried out in the echoing room., I felt the walls closing in around me. There was nothing that I could do! I couldn't tell them what really happened and I couldn't lie to them. I hadn't meant to do it! But I knew that fact didn't matter to them.

The shaving razor sat on the sink. At first, I just picked it up, letting the tears glide down my face. I watched the light glint off of the shining metal, slid my fingers over the dull end. I let the tears fall, listening to my dad hitting the door. I killed my baby sister and my parents hated me for it. I slid the sharp end of the razor over the flesh on my wrist and waited.

One hour passed, the floor was covered in blood, all that I could do was watch it pool around me, hoping that it would end soon. Two hours passed and I watched as the slits in my wrists dried up, leaving scabs and smears of dried blood. It was then, that I knew how much I hated myself.

I sneaked out the window, not bothering to clean myself up before I left. If I was stopped, I don't remember it. I do remember that I never went back. I hid, running from one abandoned building to the next. I never saw anything on the television about me. I saw the news about Jessica, the coroner decided that she died from hypothermia, as usual. I cried and cried as I watched the funeral from behind a tree. My parents never called anybody, never told them that I went missing.

I sent them emancipation papers, though I don't recall how I got them in the first place. They signed them without a word and left them on a bench in the park, like I'd asked for in the note that I'd sloppily written. I was free.

I got a job, working in an arts store for eight dollars an hour. I bought a one bedroom apartment and settled in. I have not lived a day without thinking about Jessica, about the guilt that I felt for what I'd done. I knew what I was and I wanted to end it. I tried too. I tried various attempts, different actions to finish it. Hanging myself in the closet, I even went to the extent of stealing a gun and putting it to my head. I woke up about two hours later, the bullet was on the floor next to me and there was a scar where my head had healed itself. My head was pounding but I had to be to work in less than an hour.

Working in the shop, I got to go to different activities, conventions to see the creations that strangers had put together. After about six months, I attempted the art myself. I found my talent, my release. I found a way to stop myself from killing. I hoped that this would keep me from being a monster.

I didn't have to kill. I made friends, and forced myself to be around them. I forced myself to control my fear by taking all of the hate and pain out on my pad of paper. I didn't notice that somebody was following me, I didn't know that somebody knew what I was when I didn't even know what I was. I didn't know that I was being hunted like I had hunted others for so long...