Monster

Damien was born into greatness. A father who was a police officer – respected by all and feared by criminals- and a mother who was seemingly perfect in any way reared her with one thing in mind: Talent can be bred but more importantly it can be trained. Any sign of talent in Damien and they would send him off to classes to refine that gift. Any interest he showed in a subject, the same would happen.

So yes, he was born into greatness. And he exceeded human standards too. That’s what happens when you have a mother who was supernaturally gifted. He was stronger than most humans. Faster too. More so, he was more agile and his senses were increased. His was a natural born hunter. Always had been, and always would be.

But being born into greatness does not ensure greatness. Damien knew he was not great. Overlooking trivial things such as average school grades, midlevel test scores…humans were flawed. Being inhuman made him that much more susceptible. At least he felt that way. He first noticed this during a harmless mistake. Actually…it wasn’t harmless at all.

Damien had been walking down the hall at his school as if it was any other day. And by all means, it had been. Until a fellow classmate Luke had rounded the corner, his six-foot frame lumbering down the hallway and slamming Damien’s teal locker shut.

Luke was the only child of a wealthy couple who weren’t supposed to be able to have kids. He was their miracle baby. And he was a menace to the majority of the school. He was harsh and he was mean. He was a typical bully, nothing more, nothing less. Rather boring in fact if not for his brute strength and creative methods for inflicting terror on the weaker kids. And for the seven years that Damien had been at Luke’s mercy, he’d done a fantastic job of appearing like a normal, scrawny human who was too weak to fight back. He’d never once even had to urge to let go of his more-than-human abilities. Even when, like Luke was doing at the moment, he shoved Damien’s head against the metal lockers.

Until that day.

Damien wasn’t sure what snapped in him. It was like his calm rage, which he had been dispelling every evening, was actually a tightly wound coil. And without warning or choice…it decided to spring. But he also wondered more importantly, what it was in him that made him think this was a good idea. Okay, well he knew. It was the idea of being more. The unwilling hero. Or the crusading vigilante. Revenge of the bullied.

Each of those glorious, tantalizing scenarios made Damien willing to whirl around on the much taller boy and pin him against those cold lockers and lift him off of the sleek linoleum floor. Nobody was in the hallway. Not at the moment.  

“Whoa, Damien. Calm down. You understand it was a joke…right?” Luke asked, hazel eyes widening with the same fear that Damien had seen in his many ‘victims’. Should it have felt this victorious and satisfactory to see the terror chase panic across Luke’s face?

“You’ve made half of this school miserable for years. And you can’t stand five minutes of your own torture?” Damien retorted with the sarcasm, and even more so the anger, dripping from his voice.

It was amazing the way watching Luke writhe and try to break free almost fed Damien. He had no need or urge to stop. Hell, he had no will do so. He probably wouldn’t have been able to stop even if he had wanted to. Unfortunately, he didn’t want to stop.

No…in Damien’s mind just holding Luke up against the lockers wasn’t enough. Not even close to enough. Without thinking he threw Luke down the hallway the same way he’d throw a book to a friend…if he was trying to severely hurt said friend and book. Damien was able to ignore – and justify- the linoleum being torn up as Luke slid across the hall like a bowling ball. Nowhere in the back of Damien’s mind did he wonder how much damage had been caused to Luke in comparison to the damage of the floor.

When he looked at the lockers though…he realized there was a huge dent from slamming Luke up against it. Whoops. He stalked over to the taller boy and looked down at him. He was scratched up, bleeding. Cut up a little. He’d be heavily bruised. Actually…was that a black eye forming? It didn’t strike him that Luke was in worse shape now than any of his victims had ever been in.

Damien’s fist lifted to land a real blow when the classroom doors opened. Instead of the normal mindless chatter and aimless wandering, everyone stared in horror at the scene before them. The kids Luke had bullied into misery did not rejoice and instead looked at Damien with the same disgust they’d once looked at their so-called enemy.

“Damien, stop!” someone cried out in horror. His hand retracted. No. They were wrong. He was the hero. He had to be the hero. Luke wasn’t the victim. He was the bad guy! He’d always been the bad guy.

Then Damien turned and ran. He sprinted the whole way home, ignoring the burning in his lungs or the soreness of his feet. He needed to get out of there. Away from those looks of horror and disgust. He pushed open the door so hard he swore the hinges nearly split. He didn’t stop running until he had shut and locked his door.

So now Damien sat, head hung and realized that what he’d done. The monster buried within him rumbled again. Telling him what he did was right. It was deserved. That there were more people who deserved punishment.

And Damien decided that the monster was right.