FREAK

Dally O'Day knew who and what he was, so when people called him FREAK, he just doffed his hat. If he was feeling really frisky and wanted to play with them, he would bark at them or say "That's me! Gorgeous, aren't I." He always added the playful wink at the end.

Dally did not know what the official medical term for his ailment was called and, honestly did not care. So what if he had been born a hairball. Before his notoriety in the freak show, before meeting Mr. Bogus, he had, had a drive to hurt people for calling him FREAK. His benefactor had given him a home, a place where he did not feel different. He had helped him realize, he was amongst his own kind, and fighting accomplished nothing but trouble.

Today though he was feeling very different. Today he wanted to not just hurt, but kill someone. The someone that had burnt his perfect life to the ground in the middle of the night with the strike of a match.

He had planned on finding this someone and light his world aflame, but when he got to the hospital the dying, last words of his mentor stopped him from doing the unthinkable.

“Dally, don’t do...what you are...contemplating. I am not going…” Mr Bogus choked out his words, “to make it. I need...you...to take over. There is monies in a safe under my bed, under the floor. There is...enough to buy…a new set-up and your…family needs you. No...trouble...please.” “Forgive!” he choked and grabbed Dally’s arm.

“FORGIVE!” he spat out with his last breath.

The young freak hugged the only father he had ever known for the last time and whispered tearily, “I promise to take care of our family. I promise.”


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