Lucifer

A boy never has experienced true anger. For the past 15 years of his life a tumour has been blocking the parts of his brain that allows him to be angry. But after he starts to exhibit odd behaviour

I’m Elijah Emmitts and this is my story.

The anger spreads through my body like wildfire. He seeps through my veins like magma, taking over my entire being - just as a demon would.

Walking out of school felt good…. For a while. Since the surgery I’ve had many firsts, my first crush, my first kiss, my first fight and now my first jig. Each step that takes me further from school, takes me further from who I was. I turn down a street, my home isn’t far now but far enough to make me agitated. So much so that i kick the pathetic plant to my right, without realising it, it propels a few feet away. A grey Mercedes passes by and inside an old withered lady glares at me, her stare is full of judgement. She pulls over and rolls down her window. “What does this old hag want?” not realising that I'd just said that aloud. 

“Excuse me young man but who do you think you ar…” Without even thinking I approach the car like I'm being controlled not knowing what i'm going to do next. The old crone quickly realises my intentions. She starts to pull away, but before she can escape i grab her side view mirror and tear it off as if it were play-dough. It must have already been broken, how could i have just done that if it wasn't? The woman quivers in fear, where there was once an old proud prune now sits a shaking bag of old bones. Her reaction puts a feeling through my body, i think I’m glad, glad this witch is scared. Without a word she drives off almost hitting me and the other cars parked along the street. I continue to walk back on my route not even bothered by the incident that had just occurred. If anything, I feel good.

This heat, this day couldn't get any worse, suddenly as if on cue everything slowly turns a shade of red, the sky, the pathway, the trees. Something groans inside me, I can feel it pulse through my body. My hands abruptly start shaking and my legs feel weak, not strong enough to keep me up for any longer. I close my eyes and try concentrating on the good things in life, but is there anything good? My family? no, they're all alcoholics. my friends? no, they don’t really like me. my life? what life? My legs give in and I collapse to the ground, hitting the cement like a wave crashing down on a surfer. I can taste blood in my mouth, not the first time. Maybe one of my cuts opened up again. My head bobbles, and I feel like my body is being swallowed into the ground as if it were quicksand. My body continuing to convulse and shake uncontrollably. Everything goes black. Black and silent. I don't know how long I was out but slowly  my eyes open and my surroundings become clearer and clearer, my body almost stops seizing and the feeling I had within my stomach slowly fades away. Scared that someone might have witnessed one of my episodes, I try and stand. Wobbling at first, I'm able to get on my feet and () pace my walking My head aches but i carry on, knowing that the heat isn't going to go anywhere. I have to be honest, that was one of the worst seizures since the surgery. 

It's been almost 3 months since the operation and every few weeks i keep suffering worse and worse episodes. At this point I’d have rather have no emotion, then suffer like this. See that's what the surgery was, before it, I couldn't experience emotion, i couldn’t understand people like a normal person. Nothing they did worked until the operation, they found a large tumour had been blocking certain neuro pathways that allowed me to feel, all of a sudden I cry every night and hate everyone with a passion. Driving me to do things I thought i would never do.

Why am I so angry? I'm never like this, or at least I never was. The heat making sweat drip from my pores like a leaking faucet. My shirt drenched in salty liquid, sticking to my skin like glue. I’ve been walking for five minutes and already my whole body aches, seconds away from giving out. This heat, this anger makes my mind screamed with agony, maybe I shouldn't go home. Maybe i should go calm down somewhere I can be alone. But then where do i go in this disgusting heat? The sun stares down at me like a hawk, hunting its prey, with every step I can feel my body getting more and more burnt and crisp. Maybe today is the day I go?  It wasn’t meant to be like this. I was meant to be fixed. Fixed and normal. Yet the anger poisons my body, toxifies my mind making me think terrible things, almost coercing me to do them. The temperature multiplying this emotion by ten fold. I'm close to home now. Yet i am not comforted, not comforted by the fact that my mothers s**t box of a car is parked right outside our house. 

My house isn't anything special, a one story brick box. My mother and father have both been too busy getting drunk and now the front yard closely resembles a graveyard. The grass is dead, the colour has been sucked out from the lack of attention and scorching sun. The grass makes a crunching sound under my feet.  

I slowly get closer and closer to the door trying to delay the inevitable. The closer I get, the more I feel my heart pounding inside my chest. My chest feels like a drum, beating so hard I could erupt any second now. My body feels like a soaked towel. The door is unlocked and I swing it open, forgetting that behind the door lays a small wooden desk with a tall mirror. The mirror tips over and makes contact with the ground, smashing into a thousand pieces. Not long after, I hear a piercing scream, and then thumps coming from the stairs to my right. The woman I call mother stomps down the stairs, glancing at me and the broken mirror. She shrieks my name “Elijah Emmit, what have you done?” 

But is that my name? is that who I am right now?

“Elijah what are you doing... and are.. aren't you meant to be at school?” her voice sounds worried, no confidence. I can smell the wine pouring from her aura. Something I’m used to but somehow flustering more than usual. Without a thought I lunge at her, tackling her to the ground, motivated by an ever- growing urge, the same one that drove me to attack the old granny before. It’s as if my conscious is shoved into the passenger seat forcing me to watch this body attack this woman.

My hands grab her neck and squeeze, still trying to grasp what's happening, what her very own son is doing. Like an animal, i can smell her fear. We scramble on the floor, she almost escapes my grasp but I'm able to keep her in my jaws. I enjoy this, the hunt, the struggle of the prey. Grinning ear to ear i realise that it's time. I knock the game hard against the wooden floors, the blood follows. I sit up and admire my work of art, a sudden rush of calmness takes over my body. A feeling I haven't felt in a while. The body starts to move, the calmness goes and anger comes once again. Redness washes over my environment, a piercing inhumane sound enters my ears. All I want now is blood, blood everywhere, on the wall, on the ground, on my hands. Something sharp appears in my hand, I look down and see its part of the mirror that had smashed. As if the almighty god himself is pressuring me to draw blood. Without warning the body moans, tries to speak to me, She mumbles a name, Elijah. The name belonged to someone else, it's not who I am anymore. I slowly walked over to the woman. She continues to groan on the floor. I kneel down smelling the blood that surrounds her, with the screeching white noise, the raging red that fill my sight I raise the mirror shard ready to strike down at my prey, but before I can take her life she whispers “Elijah stop this”

I respond “Elijah is gone.”

And with one last grin i let my hand fall and plunge the shard deep within her throat. The squealing sound and red taint over my eyes fades and once again the rush of calmness floods my body. I lay beside the now still body, glancing at the shard, i see my reflection, my blood stained skin and raging red eyes. I finally know who i am. I am Lucifer.