So, I've been just a little bit brain locked on the next part of Macbeth. It's coming, don't worry, but to keep my creative process going, I decided to start this new story that's been begging to get out. Please let me know what you think.
Prologue
When I was fourteen, I destroyed the world. Although, you're reading this so I suppose it wasn't so much the world as civilization. At least, I hope you're reading it and not just using the paper as kindling. I hope the concept of reading hasn't degenerated so far that the words of this, journal I suppose you could call it, or confession, are more than strange symbols that mean nothing. I hope because, with hope, I can believe that what I've done is reversible. If you are reading it, I am so very sorry. If you're burning it, ow.
My name is Calamity Saint. I am half Asian, half Caucasian, with my mother providing the Chinese portion of my blood. My parents each told a different story behind that name. My mother said she thought Calamity was a beautiful, unique name that would catch people's attention. My father said everything was a disaster from the moment mom announced she was pregnant. Needless to say, I prefer my mother's version most of the time.
One thing I have to make clear is that my father doesn't hate me. In fact, before he died, he was probably my best friend in the world. He was just incredibly and bluntly honest. Oh, he didn't mean that I was a disaster because of anything I did per se. At least at first. It was more the fact that everything seemed to go wrong at the same time, right at the time that I was doing slightly more than twinkling in mom's eye. Both of my parents lost their jobs, three of my four grandparents died from medical complications, my mother's dog was hit by a truck, two of my cousins on opposite sides of the family were lost in separate car accidents, and my one surviving grandfather was arrested and thrown in prison for forgetting to pay taxes for the previous thirty seven years. And that's just the first trimester.
So you see, Calamity was an apt name. It only became more suiting after I started to get a little older. Right after my parents brought me home, things were good. But within a couple years, they started to notice some pretty freaky things. And by freaky, I mean downright terrifying. One time, my father opened the fridge and everything inside exploded at once. The food and milk was gross enough, but he was also cut with all the glass and nearly lost his eye. Another time, my mother was watching television and the set floated off the floor and hurled itself at her. And yet another time, the upstairs bathtub crashed right through the ceiling and into the living room with no warning. That's how we lost mom's other dog.
It was pretty bad. But it was worse when my parents put two and two together and realized that the fridge exploded itself right after dad told two year old me that I couldn't have cookies, the television tried to kill my mother after she changed the channel away from what I was watching, and the bathtub murdered Pepper the Dalmatian when they mentioned my having to take a bath. I'm relatively certain my father was ad libbing the violin screech upon telling that part of the story.
I think I should make it clear that, as far as I know, I am not possessed by the devil, or any other evil spirit. The things that happen around me are not conscious choices on my part, but an uncontrollable reaction that occurs whenever I'm angry or upset. As I grew up and my parents were able to make the connection between my happiness and the bad things that surrounded them, they had to come to a decision. They could send me away or keep me and try to deal with the problems. Sometimes I wonder if the world would have been better if they hadn't loved me enough to try to raise me.
At first, I was spoiled. There was no other way to go about it before it could be explained to me rationally. Everything I wanted, I got. I went to bed when I wanted to, I ate whatever I wanted, and my parents did the best they could to always keep me happy. It helped that the inheritance money on the three deceased grandparents as well as the insurance paid out by the trucking company that was responsible for the death of one of those cousins added up to enough that they didn't have to get new jobs. It didn't always work, but at least they managed to avoid any more fatalities. Of course, my mother decided against having any more pets.
I was homeschooled at first, because as much as my parents understood the need to keep me happy, there was no chance that an entire building of kids would have the same restraint. In addition to the normal lessons taught to a young child, my parents instilled in me a sense of right and wrong, reinforcing as much of a moral system as they were capable of. They worked off encouragement rather than discouragement, using a system wherein I did get enough to keep me happy either way, but when I was good, they went out of their way to praise me, to show me as much love as they could. For a child who has all the toys they can ask for, who goes to bed when they wish and eats what sounds good at the time, demonstrations of love are an invaluable form of currency.
I remember the day that my parents explained everything to me, when I was nine years old. I had heard them arguing about it being time for awhile, my father saying they needed to tell me the truth, while my mother insisted I wasn't ready. Finally, my dad won the argument and they told me the truth. Obviously, I didn't understand at first. I was actually upset that my parents were telling me a story about evil things that I had done. Things that didn't make any sense. I was so upset that all of the furniture began to levitate off the floor, the glass in all of the windows exploded outwards, and every car on the block disappeared. When I say disappeared, I mean vanished. None of the cars were ever seen again. The incredible auto-theft spree was national news.
From that day on, I didn't get everything I wanted. My parents dealt with the consequences of my anger, explaining the facts as rationally as they could. I had to eat healthy. I had to do my homework. We went through a lot of windows, and the pawn shops must have thought we were some kind of illegal furniture distribution ring. But they persisted, and I eventually learned to, mostly, control my anger.
My mother died when I was twelve. It wasn't sudden or anything. She was sick most of that year. It was cancer that the doctors, for all their advances and power, couldn't do anything about. They could barely take her pain away, and toward the end, they couldn't even do that. I believe that when she died, it was a relief to her. For a long time, I was angry at her. I was angry because I thought she gave up. I thought she just wanted to leave. There was a lot of broken walls and shattered dishes. But my father stayed next to me. He held me and he soothed me and his strength, his ability to hold me while his own life partner was gone brought me back to myself. He taught me to care about what you have, not what you lost.
For two years, my father and I were inseperable. We left home and traveled, driving all over the United States. I learned a lot more about myself, and about life. My dad was my friend. He taught me how to drive when I was thirteen, along the back roads somewhere in Oregon. We did everything together. He was the most important person in the world to me, and through him, I learned to control my anger. When he told me no, he explained why. He made sure I understood.
Life wasn't normal, but it was good. That changed though, about a month after I turned fourteen. I remember every moment of the day. It was around Thanksgiving. We were in New York for the parade, because my father loved them since he was a child and he instilled that love in me.
We had just checked into a motel around noon, leaving our stuff inside so that we could walk around and window shop. This was my first time in New York, and my father wanted to show me the city that he had grown up in.
I remember the feel of his hand tight in mine as we moved with the crowd along the busy sidewalk. I remember the sound of cabs honking. I can almost smell the hot dogs from the vendor on the corner where we stopped, waiting to cross the street. I remember my father starting to lean down as though to whisper something to me while he raised his hand to point. But what I remember most, is the shove.
To this day, I don't know if the push was made in anger, or simply impatience. I sometimes imagine hearing a curse or a threat, but the truth is, I'm not sure. All I know is that one moment my father was standing beside me, and the next, I was shoved out of the way while he was pushed straight into the street, directly into the path of an oncoming taxi.
My memories from that moment are a little more hazy, as though I don't want to think about them. I remember the cab screeching to a halt while I screamed. I can see my father's limp body fly off the hood and roll brokenly along the pavement. I remember running to him and being pushed out of the way several times. People gathered in a circle around him, as I fell to my knees by his body. My hands gripped his limp arm as I plead, begging for him to look at me. I hit his chest, I punched him, I screamed. Nothing made his body move. Nothing made his sightless eyes focus. Nothing brought my father back to me.
Strong arms pulled me back from my father. I screamed and threatened but they didn't listen. There may have been a soothing voice trying to calm me. All I knew was that I had to be next to my father, and they were preventing me. I wanted to be with my father, and all I could see was strangers faces all crowding around, staring at him, staring at me. All I could hear was buzzers and cell phones and traffic lights, as well as cars. Cars everywhere, cars like the one that had hit my poor broken father. I wanted quiet. I wanted these people to go away. I wanted silence to be with my father's body. I wanted my dad back.
My eyes closed as my body shook with rage and loss. The power swelled inside me, tamed all these years but suddenly off its leash. I remember the scream ripping itself from someplace deep in my soul and tearing up through my throat. "GOOOOOO AWWWAAAAAAAY!" The sound reverberated throughout the area, echoing off of buildings and filling the air.
Then, the arms holding me weren't there any longer. The cars, the voices, the sounds of the city were all gone. The city of 8 million, that never slept, was silenced. When I opened my eyes, I saw nobody at first. All of the people surrounding me, even, in some touch of dark irony, my father's body, were all gone. The cars had stopped. The stoplights were dark. Everything was silent.
It has been three years since that moment when I found myself alone in that suddenly mute city. In that time, I have found other people. I don't know what the reach of my power is, or how it chose who to spare. I don't know what made some people stay while others vanished. There doesn't seem to be any common connection. I have seen old and young, men and women, those of every kind of nationality. There are however, a lot less of them. From what I've been able to piece together, something like two thirds of any particular areas population vanished in that moment.
While a portion of the people were left behind from whatever fate I unwittingly sent the rest to, none of the technology was spared. Anything dependant on electricity to run, from batteries to cars to computers, phones, or even flashlights, simply don't work. Long distance communication is all but impossible. Food storage has been set back a hundred years. Life in general has become a lot harder.
As for me, I've spent those three years trying to find a way to undo what I did in that moment, to bring the people, and the electricity back. I've searched for a way to fix my mistakes. I've sought not just to tame, but to understand this power inside me.
Now, as I sit beside the candle that I salvaged from the backpack of the last man who tried to kill me, writing this account, I believe that I know how to fix everything. I know what has to be done. I know what has to be lost.
But to explain, for you to truly understand what I have to do, I have to explain it all, from the moment I learned what I had done, to now. You have to understand it all, or none of it will make sense. I will do my best to provide an accurate, unbiased account. Here is the truth, the Tumultuous Accounts Of Calamity Saint.
Next: Year One - Age Fourteen.
