If someone were to ask me why people did what they did…
Why they stole things that never belonged to them.
Why they killed. Tortured. Lied.
Why they loved like it meant something eternal, only to let it rot days later.
Why they destroyed each other, calling it justice, survival, or wrapping it in words like "revenge" and "righteousness."
It all came down to one thing.
Satisfaction.
Every act, whether soaked in kindness or cruelty, fed some kind of hunger.
The need to feel something.
Power, love, assurance, relief, peace, hatred, or maybe just a moment of silence.
But when satisfaction wasn't enough?
They turned to entertainment.
Grief became a spectacle, pain was something to watch.
And the death and agony of others?
They consumed it and still slept peacefully afterward.
And I didn't get to understand that completely into i met him.
---
"Big Brother!"
"Tch… Gimme a damn break, kid, and I am not your brother. Go find Mom or something, I'm busy."
It had always been like that with him, ever since he came back from… wherever he'd vanished to.
I never really got to know him.
By the time I was born, he was "missing," people said, then mocked him like he was a joke.
And when he finally returned, he wasn't the same.
Or maybe that was who he'd always been, and I was just too little to notice.
Jaren wasn't your average teenager, well, teen-turned-adult, if you were counting.
He was the kind of person people crossed the street to avoid.
A walking threat. Hated by everyone.
And the longer he stayed in our lives, the worse it got.
Yet no one dared provoke him without backup.
Breathe too loud near him, and that could be the last sound you made.
By the time I was five, I'd already begun to see the cracks in our home.
Our parents were falling apart, cheating, drinking, screaming behind locked doors.
My sisters were drifting too.
One, a year younger than Jaren, started hanging out with the kind of people who only knew how to ruin your life.
The other, five years younger than me, was a ghost, quiet, dreamy, untouched by the chaos.
And Jaren? He was always at the center.
Not because he deserved it, but because someone had to carry the blame.
That someone was the black sheep of the family.
Maybe that's why he turned out the way he did.
By twelve, I thought I started to understand him.
It wasn't about protecting anyone, he didn't need to.
He was too strong, proud. Generally too... much.
And the things he did weren't for defense.
From my aspect... I'd say pure bitter revenge.
---
"Shut up, idiot!"
I heard him shout, from an alley the day he suddenly decided to buy ice cream for me... but he came across a 'friend.'
His voice tore through the alley, then came heavy sounds, like hitting a wet rag.
I stepped out from the corner he told me to wait in, which I knew I should've stayed hidden in, but didn't.
What I saw hit me like a bat to the chest.
Jaren, kneeling over a boy his age, beating him into something unrecognizable.
Another boy, about a year older than I was, slumped nearby, face soaked in blood and tears.
I didn't understand. Or maybe I did, and just didn't want to.
I told myself they must have done something. Hurt him somehow.
Jaren wouldn't lash out without a reason… right?
But then the boy beneath him turned his head.
Swollen eyes locked with mine. He coughed, blood spraying from his lips, and rasped,
"Hey… kid… talk to your brother. He's gonna regret this… No one lays hands on me… you filthy Avens…"
He paused, breath hitching, as Jaren motioned for me to leave, with those lifeless pools of blood I always admired.
Then he turned back to the boy beneath him, only to get spat on.
"You think you can live in peace after what you've done? After the people you've killed?" The boy yelled out. "I'll make you pay, bastard. Not today... but there's always next time."
"Hm," Jaren tilted his head, the way he always did when something in him twisted.
That split second before he snapped every time.
Then, without hesitation, he pulled out the pocket knife Mom had given him, after she'd locked away his other weapons.
He barked at the younger boy, to run, and he obeyed despite his broken ankle.
I should've pitied him. But I couldn't, because I was too busy watching Jaren.
If I had known what he was about to do, maybe I would've stopped him.
I just stood there and watched as he drove the knife into the boy's eye and twisted it, till the boy began screaming and kicking his legs.
I saw a satisfied gleam in Jaren's eyes as he rose up and kicked the boy until the screaming stopped.
The boy lay still after that, bleeding and close to dying, with no one around to help.
Except me.
Who unfortunately was too much of a coward to do anything.
With the excuse..."I was just a kid."
Jaren disappeared after that day. No goodbyes. No apologies. He just vanished always.
But before he left, he looked at me and said...
"If your life was a book… you would want to meet the author and ask him why he created you only to make you suffer, right?"
I didn't give a reply, because he would understand that for a kid my age, I wouldn't understand anything.
Honestly, I think if he had the chance to jump into the real world, he would kill me.
Because apparently, someone did create and write how his life was, then made him suffer.
That someone is me, and if you asked me what I was thinking when I wrote it.....I'd say, I didn't think, they did the thinking for me.
The ones who dropped ideas in my inbox.
Suggested twists.
Fed me arcs and scenes and brutal ends, all for the sake of making the story "better." And satisfying for them.
They didn't know they were feeding on real people's pain, not just fictional characters.
They didn't care.
And now…Now I regret everything.
Because in about two seconds, I'm going to die too, exactly how I wrote it.