The calmness of violence

I’m walking through the darkness; I don’t have a clue where I’m going. I can feel smooth leaves brushing against my hands as I keep walking blindly, until I start to walk into what feels like water. The water gets deeper, but I keep walking until my vision starts to become clearer; I can start to see a dim light shining on the forest around me and the bright clear water. As I keep walking I start sinking deeper and deeper into the water, but the light keeps pulling me forth and I can’t stop; I must reach the light! I see a figure deeper in the forest, on a bank where the water ends; its golden and blue rings glowing. I push forth desperately trying to reach the figure; just looking at it gives me a calm and warm feeling and I must reach it! The glows of the rings are friendly, I can tell, and the figure is reaching for me. I can nearly touch it, I just have to-

* Beep beep*…

My vision comes to a blur as I tiredly wipe my eyes and awake from what seemed to have been a dream. But this dream wasn’t anything new; I’ve been having the same one for a while now, getting closer to the figure each time, yet I’ve never been able to reach it… My calm world…

“Samantha!”

I hear my name being called from downstairs, from the hard, cold voice of my father. I lie in bed for a little longer ignoring the call.

“Samantha!!”

He calls more fiercely, so I get up and get dressed ready for school and quickly head downstairs. As usual, dad yelled and cussed at me, I could tell he had been drinking again the previous night. Unfortunately dad was the only family I had, my Grandparents were dead, and my mother passed away after I was born, and dad blames me for her death and says I killed her… Sometimes I feel like running away, but I just don’t have anywhere to go and I can’t survive on the streets. Don’t get me wrong, my father may be cruel at times, but he still does things for me like pay for my school fees and food. I have a part time job though, so I can pay for most of my own things.

I had breakfast, and was quick to get out of the house as I headed to school. Once I got there, I met up with my ‘friends’. We were all huddled together in a gossip circle before the bell went which I don’t really like being a part of but I just sit there and listen anyway.

“Samantha, you got any spare change we can use today?” Sarah, the leader of our group asked me. “N-no, I don’t sorry…” I replied. “What the hell Sam, I asked you yesterday to bring some money! Jeez, I can’t believe you’re such a letdown, the least you could do is pay us for letting you sit with us instead of just leaving you like a stupid nerdy loner. You know what, why don’t you just piss off and come back when you can afford to sit with us.” Everyone in the group just laughed and played along trying to shoo me away. My eyes started to tear up, but I hid my face to avoid being seen crying. I just got up and left without saying a word. I didn’t like those girls, I don’t even know why I sit with them, they’re always mean to me. I’m just afraid of what everyone will think of me if I’m a loner, everyone will hate me even more.

I just want a true genuine friend, one that is nice and won’t betray me. I got through the rest of school, barely. I started walking home miserably, until I heard someone calling my name. It was Sarah, and before I knew it she was next to me.

“Sam, I’m sorry about today. I was wrong to send you away, I hope you’ll forgive me.” She apologised. I was surprised that she was actually sorry, and she gave me a pat on the back. Being the soft person I am, I accepted her apology and smiled. As I walked off, people were looking at me giggling and calling out things like “Go hang yourself!”. I was really confused, and walked faster.

I finally got home, and found that I was the only one home. I walked up stairs into my room, and flopped onto my bed trying not to cry. I could feel something on my back and pulled off a bit of paper. “Kill me” was written on it. I screwed it up and threw it away… I started to become fed up with people. I wasn’t suicidal, I didn’t want to die, I just wanted to live a happy life and get rid of everyone else. I hate everyone! I haven’t done anything wrong, so why am I the one that gets hurt all the time?

I looked across my room, and saw my Nintendo Wii attached to the TV. As a child, I used to play games a lot because I had no friends except one, but he moved away ages ago. I blew the dust off the Wii; I obviously hadn’t played it in ages, and turned it on for the first time in years. Thankfully, it was working, and I looked through the games I had. I didn’t have many, but one that stood out to me was “Pokemon Colosseum”, a GameCube game. I gave a little squeal of excitement as I put the disc in the Wii, placed in the memory card and plugged in the GameCube controller, remembering how much I loved this game.

The title came up as I remembered it, and I clicked continue game. I had no idea where I would pick up from, because it had been so long since I’d played. I was in what looked like a base in the game, and I could see bad guys I had to battle. First I checked my party, I didn’t have a full team; I had a level 30 Bayleef, a level 32 Sneasel and the Espeon and Umbreon you start off with. My Espeon was level 35 and my Umbreon was level 42. I remember how much I loved my Umbreon, it was obviously my favourite Pokemon. My Umbreon was unique though, it was half shiny and half normal, meaning it had both yellow and blue rings. I felt really lucky to have been able to have this Umbreon, though I didn’t think it was possible to start off with an Umbreon like this in the game. And for some reason, looking at my Umbreon gave me a really familiar thought, like I had seen it not that long ago…

I went to the first trainer, and started a double battle. I sent out Umbreon and Espeon, while the other trainer sent out a Sunflora and a Wartortle. I checked Espeon’s moves first and made it use Confusion on Wartortle. But when I checked Umbreon’s moves, they were strange and really graphic sounding. The moves were Strangle, Rip, Stab and Behead. I chose Strangle, and made it use it on Sunflora.

Espeon went to attack first unexpectedly, since Umbreon should be faster. But the dialogue came up, “Espeon refuses to attack and ignores Sam”. I was a little annoyed, but it then moved on to Umbreon’s move. Umbreon went to attack Sunflora, but I didn’t expect it to be so violent. Umbreon ran up to Sunflora, and wrapped its tail around its neck tightly not letting it go. The Sunflora struggled until it finally fell. The trainer didn’t return it strangely; it just lied there motionless as the battle continued. The Wartortle attack my Espeon, taking it to about half health.

I ordered Espeon to use Confusion again, and ordered Umbreon to use Rip. Again, Espeon ignored me leaving Umbreon to attack. It charged up to the Wartortle and tore open is shell through the middle, obviously reaching its flesh as blood poured out of its belly. I just sat there and wanted to turn off the game… But for some reason I didn’t, and was drawn to the game by the blood and death. The Wartortle fell to the ground motionless, blood still pouring out. The battle continued.

I was confused because I had won the battle. But it asked me to choose one of Umbreon’s moves, and I chose Behead. The Umbreon ran over to my Espeon, and grabbed its neck with its teeth, breaking my Espeaon’s neck and tearing the head clean off leaving my Espeon on the ground bleeding. I was feeling sick and nervous.

“You only need me…” The dialogue read, as the screen focused on my Umbreon. I stared at the TV, unable to look away. I was drawn to the pretty glowing rings, and it made me feel calm again. I started feeling dizzy and before I knew it I had blacked out and fainted on the floor.

I awoke in darkness, and started to move forward. I could feel leaves brushing against me; it was just like the start of my dreams. I moved forward until I walked into the water, which felt unusually warm and sticky. I kept going until I saw a dim light, and could barely see the forest around me; the leaves were all black. The water became more visible until I realised I wasn’t walking in water. I was walking in a river of blood; I could see corpses of Pokemon and people in the blood as I kept desperately walking towards the glow. I had to reach it this time!

I was panicking and I didn’t feel calm this time. This was more like… madness…

I fell and my head went under; I could taste the blood in my mouth but I went back to the surface and continued to tread through the blood reaching for the glowing figure. I got closer and closer until I could nearly touch it, and I started to feel better and calmer. But as I got close enough to touch it, I could completely see the figure and realised it was my half shiny half normal Umbreon, but it was messed up, it was horrible, I backed away from its menacing face. Blood was leaking out of its eyes, and it had a huge smile full of bloody jagged teeth; its piercing red eyes were focused on me.

“Samantha, my dear sweet Samantha… How I longed for you to finally reach me, how you longed for me to finally reach you… I am all you need, just accept me into your heart… Go on Samantha, accept me and you won’t regret it… I am your friend… I am…”

Its eyes stared deep into me, and I blacked out once again.

“Madness…”

I awoke, I felt strange, the TV was still on and it was all fuzzy, everything in my vision was tinted red. I felt… angry… vengeful…

I stared out the window, the moon was up and a pretty glow from the light poured into my window. I got up… and walked downstairs into the kitchen and picked up the biggest knife I could find. I cut my arm deeply to make sure it was sharp, but I felt no pain, only the bright feeling of… madness…

“Daaaadd…” I giggled silently as I walked into his room, where I saw him waking up in annoyance.

“What are you doing up you little bitch, get back to your bloody bed before I kick your-!”

Before he could say anything, I had stabbed his hand to the bed and he screamed his lungs out. I slowly pulled out the knife again, and this time hit him in the forehead with it. He was still alive, and in pain, just minutes from death. And that’s where I left him, to whimper miserably in pain before he died just as he deserved.

I walked out of his room slowly, and licked off the blood on the knife. I looked at the knife and saw my reflection, I had blood around my mouth but that was all… I went back to my dad and dipped my fingers in his blood, wiping it all over my face and stabbing my eyes with it making them red. I dipped my hair in the blood, making my hair a dark red. I smiled and opened my mouth, carving my teeth fiercely with the knife making them jagged and making my gums bleed onto my teeth.

“This is my mad world… I am no longer Samantha… I am… Madness…”