A/N: Thanks to everyone who has reviewed "Bloody Kisses". It's not finished yet. NO FLAMES. Constructive critisism is good though. Thanks.

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Kasey. As hard as it may be to believe, this was not always my name, my title, my identity. There was a point in life when I was not a hideous beast, a monster fueled on my own hatred, my own twisted loathing. When I was a but a child, a mere drop of rain in an ocean of arrant tears, I was pure. Kasey, as I eventually liked to refer to her as, had not yet entered existence, the parasite feeding on my futile being. And yet, she had always been there by my side, for every word spat viciously at my soul, every hit I was forced to take, every dark night I encountered to mourn my loneliness; She was there.

As a minor too young to earn an education, I was a silent little girl, desperately seeking attention. Though many swore, and still do swear, that there is no logical explanation or possibility that I could clearly recall events from years under the age of five, I can object by saying that it is possible, for I still do remember. No, it wasn't a resurrected dream, awakening unto what I forced myself to believe. No, this was real.

I reckon that I was appareled in my usual milky white sun dress and matching bonnet with navy blue trimmings and strings to adorn the design, for my mother always seemed to love it. I, personally, hated the wretched material, a starchy polyester with a netting underneath the bottom section was enough to irritate the most tolerant of skin. Oh, how I detested that deplorable dress, that miserable creature. The dullard bonnet was no better, as it fought my short blonde curls to maintain position upon my head. More often than not, one would incur the amylaceous navy ribbons to float gracefully behind me, as I could not bear the distinct irritation it caused to my neck. How I could have destroyed that execrable bonnet...

And those stimulative nylons! Those white rag-like fiends that clenched my minimal area of leg, a highly bothersome quandary with limited selections. They contained the heat's rays, withheld it's humidity against my insufficient skin layers. Oh Lord, how I despised those nylons!

"Who cares who watches Kassia?" cried a male's voice impatiently. His gruff tone was enough to make me crave sweet death, sweet freedom, sweet candy smothered suicide. "Just drop her off at your mother's and let's go!"

"Rhett, you're shouting again," my mother pleaded, a last cry of hope.

"Annette, I won't put my life on hold for a miserable excuse for a child!" he roared in a state of enragement. "Just drop her off at your mother's!"

"But Rhett..."

The atmosphere shifted into new dimensions, black and dark. I knew nothing of reality, only taking in the horrid events that my innocent eyes were permitted to see. I can still picture the lurid sunset, the golden world that I became the true heart of, only a white picket fence that scarcely exceeded my own elevation to imprison my delicate soul, my fragile being. The grass, so lush and green, greeted my matching white shoes, which was rapidly consumed in deep green grass stains. A narrow winding sidewalk reached on forever before arriving to the back gate, an equal assumption of the pure white fence. I sat at random in a shaded patch of Earth behind our petite deck, painted a rusty red.

I can admit wholeheartedly that I cannot recall every detail to this situation, but I do remember the icy blue of my father's eyes, unforgiving and shallow with rage. I am certain if I was not so withdrawn, so profound in the abyss of my own fear of this man, perhaps then I would have burst into hollow tears. Oh, the way his hair burned in the sun's retreating light, the way his oddly structured face wrinkled in lunacy, the way his heavy arm rose in slow motion to align with my mother's terrified face.

I suppose my eyes grew deucedly wide as I glared in horror upon my father's rein. The hair streaking across his arms appeared to sink down, adding more force to his twisted whirlwind of madness. His arm descended promptly, the upper body assisting his motion to drive more force into his horrified victim's being.

Never before had I witnessed such ruthlessness, the resigned despair of my dear mother's cries penetrating my surface and extending it's repulsion down to the very depths of my innocent and ignorant soul. The urgency of her morbid shrieks filled my blind spirit within, awakening it unto realism, the verity's entrance to reality welcoming me in a diseased fashion. I could almost moan as it reached through me like dirty needles, injecting implausible horror through my veins. For a moment in time, I could sense the rate of my rushing blood halt, my heart literally retiring it's rhythm.

"Rhett! Please no! Please stop! Please!"

The critical words dived and bored into me, my foolish hazel eyes locked upon the scene spread out before me. I was so young, so asinine, so bloody helpless. I was powerless to exceed any standard, forced by my own paralyzed nerves to sit impotently alongside the deck and watch my mother's suffering.

I could just as easily further my explanation of that day, continue to explicate the appalling events that drove my innocent nerves into a frenzy of madness. But in truth I must admit that even now the memory tears at me, coating the wooden furnishes of my poor heart with grief and anguish. No, I cannot proceed this horrid nightmare's contents. I must carry on...

I suppose at this point I was a mere five years of age. Though only five years of existence to haunt me, and oh, haunt me they did, I had come to accept the fact that I was most unlike the other children, most obscure. This was the miserable year that I was to begin my schooling, and what worse a place for me to abide than a public school. Here, I was to learn how exceedingly different I truly was, how dreadfully unusual I would one day become.

The first day of arriving at this prison gleams hungrily in my struggling mind, seeking amusement at my dismay. I recall how dull and gray the building was, and though it did not stand high in altitude, I was so minimal in size that I felt shrunken into the Earth's core. The words "Reon Elementary School" glared at me, like a pair of famished snake eyes selecting it's motive for pray. My mother, dressed in a long plaided gray skirt and a matching sweater composed of achrilic, assisted me inside the doors, the snake's fangs of poison baring to strike. She stopped me inches away from the malevolent entrance, straightening my powder blue dress, allowing the forced ripples that crossed the ties horizontally to hold shape. An itchy netting tickled my peeved little legs derisively. Oh, those stupid nets! But this proved to be nothing compared to the sincere Hell within the schoolhouse...

Mother held my hand tightly in her dry palm as she led me down the endless hallways to an intimately deserted corner of the building. Or perhaps I am wrong, and it was me who clenched her hand so securely, worried for dear life, dear sanity. Nevertheless, she knocked firmly on a closed door, a rusty red color almost fit to match our backyard deck. I closely observed the door as it opened, the number "25" motioning away from me. In the doorway, standing in the incandescent light, was a woman, not so much as thirty years old. She smiled down at me, and I persisted to conceal my being behind my mother, uncertain of the strange woman in herself.

No, I cannot recall all that was said. The words do not even do so much as linger in my mind, but rather flee when I beg to encounter them. But somewhere along the conversation, the woman admitted to being titled as "Mrs. Orwell", a distant and foreign species to my adjusting eyes.

"Come on in, Kassia," Mrs. Orwell gestured to me, taking my trembling hand in hers. As I have said, I was not always known as Kasey, as I am now.

I nodded feebly, falteringly allowing her to lead my distrusting body into the room. My mother called a quick, "Good bye, Kassia," over her shoulder, then disappeared down the long creme colored hallways once more, alone.

The room I had so fearfully entered caught my eyes in amazement. The solid walls were an off white shade, and the tiled ceiling hung rather low. But in every direction I turned, there were articles of play, toys suffocating the purplish rugs. Perhaps, I thought, I had not been condemned to Hell. Perhaps I was now in Heaven, a holy wonder. Of course, I could not have stood farther from the wretched truth.

After months of regressing between home and school, Hell and a lesser Hell, I began to realize that something was not proper, unfitting. The blessed recess bell would toll, and all would rise up and bound out the doors, excited and intrigued. Each individual would grab a playmate, a companion to spend the minutes of freedom with. But no, I unfortunately, was not favorable enough under God's will to be one of them.

I spent my precious time outside sitting on a cement bench implanted into the hard gray walls, a waste of darling time and freedom, most would refer to it as. But to me, who was distressingly learning to accept the position as an outcast, a socially lost soul, it was time well worth it's promises; thinking, pondering. I suppose this was the real point of which I was strained to rely on my own habits, look only to myself for central needs and desires. I was not yet transformed however, not yet the strong minded beast that I would soon become; Hungry for afflicting anguish to those who had broken me, quenching my uncontrollable thirsts for demise by puncturing wounds upon myself...Feeding off of them... No, not yet.

I am aware that I have built myself to appear as a loner to this point, but in truth there was someone. One person played with me, one person talked to me, one person would someday become my realization of who I really was. She did not attend my school of shattered dreams, and had it not been for my mother, who had long befriended her mother before either of us had known existence, I doubtfully would have so much as gathered her into my life.

This girl went by the title Alissa. Alissa Kolvoc. She was a beautiful child, not two years younger that I, with short brown hair, the shade of soft tree bark, and eyes of mint green. Honestly, she was not incredibly skinny, but I'd be damned to Hell if she were known as fat; An average size and weighted girl. Perfect, in my eyes. To be honest, I envied her silently, all the things I could never be wrapped up in one term used to describe this girl; Beautiful.

Where her hair was straight and brown, a lovely combination to the way it brought out her high cheek bones, mine claimed long and wavy, a dark blonde of which I hated to call my own. And where her eyes were a darling mint green, sparkling in the sun's early light like wind chimes dangling in the breeze, mine were a cold and insufferable hazel, two large pools of which you could never see the bottom of.

I never really noticed how petrifying my eyes actually were, how suggestive of homicide they proved to be. I had never spent much time admiring the broken shards of myself in the mirror, hating the repulsive image that blazed back at me in raw hatred, sheer revolt. And so therefore, I had never paused and taken the time to detect any extreme peculiar essences relating to my the night that I did discover that I was yet more eerie and exotic than I had previously admitted to myself, was definitely a mandatory one. If not for that night, I would probably have remained the same excluded being that I had been all nine years of my life (at this point).

Alissa was wrapped up in a medium blue sleeping bag on the floor, the curves of the sleeping bag relatively matching those of her body, and her brown head sunken into her once white pillow. There were extended lines reaching down her pillowcase to her brown head, her hair scattered carelessly about as she giggled. I tittered as well, holding in sharp breaths so as not to be heard as audibly. I was curled into a consolatory ball beneath the warm covers on her bed, huddled on my side as to face her. I was spending the night with her, just content that somebody, anybody in this world cared about me even partially. The drapes of her window were pulled shut, and the rays of the moon were sliding romantically under the drawn shutters. Her walls were a nice clean white, so contrasting with my own room's mismatched walls; Some pink, others adorned with incompatible wallpaper, worn and mantled with yellow sunflowers.

"No, how can you not think that Brad Pitt is hot?" Alissa laughed.

"Tom Cruise is hotter," I argued, unable to contain my mute laughter as it vibrated through my ribs.

"No way. Tom Cruise sucks monkey bum," she joked. To be quite honest with you, it was Alissa who helped me develop such a subtle sense of humor, to her that I owe my own to. Such a deranged girl, but my best friend nonetheless.

"Brad Pitt is gay," I jested back.

"He's not gay! You're gay!" Alissa laughed.

"You're gay!" I laughed. Don't ask, we had a weird fetish with calling each other gay.

"Well if we're both gay, then we should hook up," she joked.

We both fell silent and laughed to the extremity of nausea. It wasn't that we were spiteful, or despised people that truly were homosexuals, but rather that we had incredible hyper surges, strange needs beckoning to call each other anything we could think of. More than once had she called me a whipped monkey ass, and in return she was known as my infinite butt muncher. As I mentioned before, don't ask.

It was at this point that I had let the covers fall away slightly, revealing my face to all who dared to look. I stared down at Alissa, pleased to see my friend so paradisal for the moment. She returned my glance, but suddenly her blissful laughter halted, and a gasp of fear escaped her now quivering lips. Alissa drove herself into the sleeping bag, trembling in a manner I had never seen before. Or... Had I?

"What's wrong?" I asked, suddenly alarmed. The world seemed to stop, a deadly array of suspense chilling through the atmosphere of the room, replacing the former warmth.

"Don't look at me!" Alissa screamed. I am convinced that had she not sounded so horribly terrified, I would have assumed that she had only been fooling with me, 'yanking my chain'.

"What?" I panted, desperate to comprehend her terror.

"Your eyes! Please, don't look at me!" I think she broke into tears about here.

"Why? What's wrong with my eyes?" I asked.

She mumbled a few skittish words that I could not take in, then fell deadly silent again. I looked to her concealed body for some sort of answer, though I'm not certain at all what I was waiting for.

"What?" I repeated, urging her to duplicate her response for me.

"I said they're glowing," she whispered timidly. "It looks like you'll murder me!"

Nine years old, with eyes that represent a liquidator, a murderer. I had never felt so alone, the way my best friend shivered desperately within the mild safety of her sleeping bag. She appeared to be begging me to let her survive, spare her life, and I felt so isolated from everything...

By the time I turned ten, I'd developed a pure hatred for humans, disgusted to be one myself. Humans were sick, ignorant beings who fed off of my pain, caused my pain, endured my pain when I could not. Oh, how I hated humans! Oh, how I wanted them all to perish! And what an awful age to lose faith, only ten. How terribly I yearned to destroy all mortals, one by one. Starting with myself...

After much agony, I decided that I'd had enough, been pushed beyond the set limit inside of me. But the time was not right for death, not welcoming it as I thought it would. Instead I envisioned my younger brother, knowing he would be left defenseless and self withdrawn, perhaps someday even ache for the atrocious activities I craved with all my lonely heart.

The knife at my bedside was cold steel, lulling me into a world of relieving lustre as it soothed my skin, the physical pain numbing the emotional distress. The way it sliced into me, the way it broke open my veins, so calming, so relaxing. I knew at once that I had found my saviour, the one thing that I convinced myself to have had unconditional control over. I remember how assuasive it felt, the overwhelming emotion that for the small cost of an hour a day, I could demolish the unendurable pain in my black little heart; I was now becoming the nightmares that I had been fleeing from for so long, feeling vested abilities, power if you will, over all that had damaged and bruised my delicate life. But the broken shards of my heart could not be mended.

Oh! And how I recall the most unnerving portion of letting the steel open my arms, my wounds. When I was through, such a mesmerizing streak of crimson death would pour forth, and oh how I gasped at it's haunting beauty! I did not bother to rush from the room in anxiety, nor did I cry for assistance from my parents, arguing as usual in the kitchen while my brother lie sprawled across his bed (in the room straight across from my own), most likely covered in bleak tears. Alternatively, I watched the crimson pour down my flesh at an unhealthy rate, instantly in love with it's snake-like movement and persuading addiction. I could not resist it's trance, and finally gave in to it's desperate pleading for me to taste it. I allowed my serpent tongue to lash across the open wound, my eyes widening with pleasure. The flavor was unlike anything I'd ever tasted, a tangy sensation swimming through my relentless lips and down my parched throat, an ecstasy I had never experienced before.

I had, when I was younger, bit my lip purposely to make it bleed, lapping up the delicious blood that dared to seep out of the small cracks I had created. I had always liked blood secretly, it had never ceased to fascinate me. The deep red it produced, the warm coziness, the welcoming taste... But this was the first time I had really felt so attached to it, and I nearly lunged at my arm, sucking it viciously to consume the delightful liquid. Oh dear blood, how you have always been my one true love, surprisingly even before the change that made mortal blood a necessity rather than an option...

I climbed into bed when the blood could no longer ooze out of the wounds, leaving me in a dizzy faze where the world was spinning in unforgiveness. I clutched the darling knife close to my chest, falling fast asleep almost immediately, a mixture of security from the cold steel's presence against my chest, and the queasy impression that swirled in my head, losing grip on myself. No, I don't believe that I can call such a blackout "falling asleep", for it was far from that. And yet, through my exhaustion and drained life, I dreamed.

This dream was like no other that I'd ever encountered, for many quaint reasons. For one thing, I had never had a dream so clearly laid out, one that you could awaken from and determine every detail, as if it really truly were real. It was not my usual type of dream either, though it began as such.

In this vision of sleep, I ran out of the house in tears, though I never knew why. Once outside, I dashed down the street, laughing children who attended my school laughing and mocking. Behind me was my dad, who had me well in pursuit. His eyes never left my back as he screamed and shouted, though I could not determine the words in the least. It was like listening to a stereo far too loud, the booming pulsating the ear drums so that only strange slurs of words can be detected. Then, I saw him.

Before my eyes was a peculiar man blocking the road, head cradled down at the sidewalk, face well hidden in the shadows. He wore a black outfit, a baggy t shirt and equally baggy pants dragging on the road. His hair was a curious bronzed color, unlike any I'd ever seen. Beyond that statistic, his hair was rather long, cutting off abruptly just before extending fully down to his shoulders. Slowly he let his head rise, and I felt paralyzed as I gazed into the two brilliant green eyes, my muscles locking forcefully. I halted. My father however, the crude beast who had made my life a true Hell, did not.

The man outreached his arms to me, and I felt oblivious and unable to do anything but obey his silent whim; I rushed into his arms and he picked me up tenderly, like a real father might do. Of course I did not grow up with a real father, a father who knew how to treat his children like equals, or even at least living beings, so I am supposing this would be how it feels to rest in a father's arms. My experience and research on this was slim to none.

Suddenly the horrid scene vanished, only the stranger and I existed. I was not frightened, a truth within that alerted me in an awkward light that I really should be. But I wasn't. He looked me straight in the eye, smiling warmly, affectionately. Then, he spoke.

"Kassia, mon cher, I have been watching you," he said simply, his tone almost purposely soft as not to alarm me. And I wasn't afraid, only ten years old...

"Why?" I asked simply.

"You do not have a good life at home, do you mon cher?" he asked me gently, stroking my face softly.

"Daddy hates me," I admitted, telling the complete stranger my heart's pain.

"Why would your father hate you?" he asked, rubbing my hair to soothe me.

"He always yells at me and hits me and mom," I said, feeling tears slip down my cheeks. Oh, how real those tears felt!

"Mon cher, I have a question to ask you," he told me calmly.

"What?" I asked.

"Do you like school?"

I was shocked at the question, expecting more pressure about my home, my mother...My father...

"No," I confessed. "The kids are mean to me. I'm shy at school and they pick on me and laugh when I fall down and get hurt and... and..." I remember pausing here, sniffling slightly. "I feel so alone."

"Isn't there anyone for you to talk to? Anyone you trust?" he asked comfortingly.

"Alissa," I said. "I used to talk to grandma, but she's gone..."

I could not resist the tears pushing at me, fighting against me to flow. I began to cry uncontrollably, my grandma's memory haunting me. Never had I expected to look back upon this section of my memory again. Oh, how I had loved my grandma...

She had been a good natured woman with a wonderful sense of humor, though I personally did not find her witty remarks funny. Her hair was a short white-gray shade, her face only slightly wrinkled. Her veins had always seemed to protrude harshly from her skin, the one thing that used to take me aback. But how I loved that woman!

She took diligent care of me, treating me as though I were one of her delicate and fragile porcelain figurines, easily broken. I could always count upon her for anything, the trust between us everlasting and strong.

"You can tell me anything, and I won't tell a soul," she promised me, and kept her word always.

And that was what I did. When my father beat on me like a ratty rag doll, I told her. When the kids at school teased me or tripped me or laughed at my suffering, I told her. When even the slightest discomfort came to me, I told her. And she would always relieve a bit of the stress, something I'll never figure out how she managed to do...

The day she died was a drastic change. I remember getting dressed in a long black dress and riding in dad's beat up mercury to her funeral, where I watched in tears as they lowered my darling grandma into the cold ground. I dropped the handkerchief, gray and soaked with tears, and dashed over to the shade of a weeping willow tree, away from the others, away from everything. I cried so hard, a realization that she was gone, exited my life so sudden, choked at me. Just yet another addition to my hatred of mankind, futile and disgusting humans! My only sanctuary had left me, and I couldn't help but want to die as I learned that love leaves. Love hurts. Love is Satan in disguise.

"Now, now mon cher, it's alright. It'll be alright," he whispered in my ear, calming me unbelievably.

The tears halted as I pulled away from the man to see his face, warm with consideration. Now that I look back, perhaps it was one of the few times I got to see love in his face, adoring for something. And truly admiring and caring, not just irresistible lust or sensual consuming. Oh, how that man loved me. But I am getting ahead of myself...

"If you like, I can take care of you," he said to me.

"How?" I asked. "My mom and dad wouldn't let me go with a stranger."

"They don't know you're with me now, do they?" he asked.

"No," I admitted.

"How about tomorrow night, mon cher? I'll take you to meet some of my friends."

"Yeah!" I grinned.

"I'm glad to see you looking so happy," he mused aloud gratefully, "for it pains me to always see you so sad, Kassia."

I awoke with a bit of a start to notice that it was now morning, the sun's golden rays shining as beams of lurid sparkles into my room, gently lifting my eyelids. What a fantastic dream! This was my first thought as I took my two index fingers and rubbed my glistening eyes, looking at the bumpy ceiling with a feeling of pained loss. For one night, I had owned a father, a real father. One who loved and cared for me. And yet it was all a dream. Just a lost vision that tickled my mind in wasted faith.

The events of that day, I do not recall. And that's just as well, for they were unavailing in themselves, just a regular routine, rotten day. It was the night that proved eventful, I suppose you could claim it to have been 'a dream come true'...

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A/N: This is the first chapter of my "new" book. Thanks to those who have been reviewing my story "Bloody Kisses". I appreciate it! Please continue to do so! I'm NOT done that story, and this one will not likely be updated as frequently. If you choose to review, I'm curious to know what you think of this story, and about what you think about the strange man =P Thanks for reading this, I know it's a bit long and boring lol.