Timeline/World: Main Profile
Characters: Pride aka Kian
Race: Emotion – Pride
Age: 29, physically about 22
Final Word Count: 590 words
He knew it had all been a lie. Even at the tender age he had been then, it had been a lie and he had hated it but he’d gone with anyone. He had been desperate to be accepted as part of this new group they were in and it had not done him any good at all. Contrary to popular belief, he didn’t like to be surrounded by others, he hated it when there were too many people around him, it made his chest constrict and his breathing come in shallowly.
Aven had told him that these had been the signs of a panic attack on the edge of happening and since that particular day, he’d not done ‘the thing’ ever again. He’d closed himself off to others who weren’t his family and even to his family he had closed himself up a little.
It had been his nature that had made him act the way he had, his nature that had made him say, ‘Yes, I’ll help you.’ He’d been ten, eager to discover the world, to better control his nature the way they all were, though in a way, not really. The others all seemed to be well ahead of him and he was simply, gently told that it was likely he was a late bloomer but that he would discover his control very soon. He’d discovered it in the weeks following that particular attempt after he’d shut himself away in his room for everything but their mandatory time at school.
Kian could still recall all of the details so clearly that they made him ache whenever he did think about them, he didn’t want to. He still could remember the way the other boy had whimpered and cried as the bully he had been helping then, knowing better but not really able to help himself and not be at the bully’s side, had beaten up the innocent boy. Just because he could, because he wanted to, because the ‘glory’ of being the winner in a schoolyard fight had been sweet. It made him want to hurl.
Of course, the moment all was said and done, he’d run off to tattle, tattling had felt as foul as helping the bully but it had appeased something in him. He’d gotten in trouble for the whole thing because he’d been honest in his tattling, adding his name to the list of those guilty of being part of the fight, even if he hadn’t physically hurt the other boy. He felt like what he’d done had been so much worse; he’d been the one to hold the boy down while the bully delivered the blows.
The thought made his stomach turn but Kian closed his eyes, forcing the memory partially away. He breathed in and out deeply, trying so hard to not think of anything but the present but there had been a necessity to remembering that memory when his eyes had skimmed across the obituary, not for the boy they had beaten up but the bully. Lung cancer. He’d crossed paths with the man a few times in their lives and had been aware of the heavy smoking being done, so he wasn’t all that surprised, was he? No, he might have honestly pushed a little at the other, emotionally, to feel pride in his smoking, to bring back that feeling of glory about what he was doing much as he’d done back then in that schoolyard.
Kian felt no remorse for the death of a bully.
Works of JD Beckett 