it doesn’t hurt like he knows it should. perhaps that’s because the words are nothing more than a replay of what he’s told himself, countless times. endless hours, days, weeks, months, years – the same old proverb he’s come to realize due to his survival. he is still the monster no matter what skin he may shed. pills won’t wash away or numb the damage he’s done, it’ll linger till he passes on and then some beyond his own grave and those that also stood as a memory in the past. she isn’t the only one who’d wished for his demise, prayed that as he lay in a surgical bed wrists bound and body subdued that he’d slip free from the world. parents, his own in fact, wished the same – neighbors, priests, random women who read the tabloids religiously, even himself all yearned for the same outcome… and yet they’d been dealt a cruel hand. he’d be a permanent reminder of what pain took place back in woodsboro, and all while many others thrived and grew from his legacy – he felt no pride only disgust and regret. false promises and vague answers guided him those days and now it lead him to live alone, medicated and secluded from everyone.
there is no flicker of pain in his eyes that wasn’t present already, as much as she may believe she can hate him – she could never hate him as much as he hates himself. lips part as he keeps their distance, the precaution one for them both. his voice is deeper now, tired and worn and its heavy as it settles into the air like a weighted boa. “ i know. “ a soft silence consumes between them as he continues to keep her gaze, to face forth the guilt that lingered behind his eyes. tone steady as he speaks once more, “ you know what they say, your greatest fear shall soon consume you if all you do is avoid it. “ and how right could someone be. fear, something he’d once preyed on and abused – and now his own clutched his shoulder firmly talons digging into scarred and worn flesh. its malicious grin something he may see out of the corner of his eye and she shall be oblivious too because it is his own fear and no one elses to see, it is the fear he’s avoided ever since his youth – a small twelve year old neglected and shoved aside – a sixteen year old desperate for attention so he may act out – an eighteen-year-old so desperate for anything or any semblance of recognition he was prepared to mutilate and kill anyone for it – and now an old man terrified of what he tried so desperately to escape. he was alone, and would forever be alone.