Wrath

Charles Press, a young man nineteen years of age, skillfully scaled the brick wall of the shabby, two story inn, aiming for a dark window which was slightly ajar. The heavy, polluted breeze that flicked around the corners of the grimy buildings tussled his short black hair. Grey eyes roved across the wall, taking note of every path that existed. He had been robbing houses for years, since childhood, and it showed. He was an expert.

Reaching his target, he made sure his foot holds were secure before slipping his fingers under the window and slowly, with a silence that came from years of practice, eased the window open. Wiry muscles strained against the dark cotton shirt as he climbed through the slim gap and slid onto the dusty wooden floor, grimacing as they creaked with age, not daring to take a breath until the eerie noise ceased.

Crouching slightly, Charles glanced around and saw a man lying on an old bed in the corner. Cautiously he made his was over to the still figure, smelling a mixture of stale alcohol, body odour and a coppery tang. He prodded the man sharply, grinning when he didn't stir. He loved drunks; they made the job so much easier. Quickly, he rummaged through every pocket he could find, finding nothing more than a few wrinkled pounds that he quickly pocketed.

"Pathetic," Charles cursed, then turned to go. But as soon as he took a step, the man muttered and rolled over, a gold chain slipped from under his clothes and dangled from its place around the man's neck. Hanging from the chain was a gold circle, about the size of a golf ball, with seven lines meeting at the middle. After pausing from the surprise, Charles reached out and took hold of the chain. As soon as his skin made contact, the necklace began to glow, brighter and brighter, hotter and hotter. Charles tried to wrench his hand away, but something bound him there. Then with horror, Charles saw the dark red, almost black, stains covering the clothes of the still unconscious man. Immediately he identified the copper smell he had detected when he entered the room as blood. Lots of blood.

The necklace gave a final, painful flash before turning cold and dark again, and Charles was released from whatever gripped him. Scared, he scrambled out the window, forgetting to wipe his tracks from the dust that coated the floor, and clambered down the wall as quick as possible. The pain in his hand seared every time he gripped a brick, the rough texture tearing at the burnt palm, and the smell of seared flesh pervaded his mind.

He stumbled down the back alleys of London, clutching his hand to his chest, vision blurred from shock. He didn't notice the black, snake like tendrils that crawled under his skin, spreading from the burn in his hand. By the time they had reached his shoulder, the shock had worn off and was replaced by anger. Stupid! He cursed at himself. Bloody stupid! Why the fuck would you do that? You're really in the shit now, aren't you, Charles Press? The anger blinded him, causing him to forget that there was no reason for him not to grab that chain at the first sign of value.

Disgust for himself turned into hatred for the city. Hatred for the grime covered walls, the smog filled air, the putrid rats that inhabited it, and the actual rats that ran through its choked sewers. A city that cared nothing about anything within it, about anyone within it. A city that allowed the man who murdered his mother and raped his sister to walk free. A city that forced a child onto the street. The city was disgusting, filthy, and its inhabitants were lower. Noting deserved to live, nothing deserved to not be hurt.

Angrily, he lashed out at a wall, putting his arm through a wooden fence with a strength he did not possess. Anger burned within him, fire in his blood coursing through his veins, dark, hot, searing. He was unaware of the pain in his hand now, unaware of the blood that flowed down his arm where the jagged wood had torn deep into his flesh. The need to break, to destroy was all he could think of. Through his mind flash images of bloodied explosions, decapitations, showers of red, punctuated by words, hate, kill, hurt, rip, destroy, and the ever present, overpowering smell and taste of warm copper.

His ears picked up laughter ahead, slurred words and stumbling steps. Two girls exited the back entrance of a nightclub, blonde and red, all dressed up, clinging drunkenly to one another and giggling. He stood still, motionless from the shadows, anger flowing through his blood, fighting against the last dregs of humanity that held him back. His breathing became heavier, and the girls walked closer, and the black tendrils crawled under his skin, up his neck, and found his mind. At once, the humanity disappeared and bloodlust found him.

He growled, and the girls, now but 10 yards away, finally noticed him. Before they could react he lunged forward, moving with a speed inhuman, upon the girls before they had drawn the breath to scream. Raising one fist, he swung at the red-head and heard the sickening crunch of cartilage and bone giving out, the spatter of blood, and felt her nose shatter beneath his fist. The girl managed a choked scream, coughing up blood that began to flow down her throat before she impacted the ground hard enough to shatter an arm. Shock, horror and pain crawled over her face as she lay there, cradling her broken limb, spitting out the dark liquid as fast as she could manage.

The blonde girl turned to run, making a it a few steps before he collided with her back, driving her into a cement wall. Several ribs snapped on the impact, one puncturing an internal organ, filling her gut with fire. Charles made an indistinct animal noise and grabbed the hair at the back of her head, wrenching her head back and slamming into the wall. Blood spattered from her face, covering the right side of his face, before he wrenched the head back to find the girl still conscious and repeating the action. She tried to scream for another three impacts before her skull caved in and she fell limp. Blood and gray matter trickled down the wall as he continued to slam the girl against the wall until he held a pulpy mess and hair stained red with blood.

Turning back to the red head, he stumbled over, slipping a little in the blood. She was conscious, barely, and trying to crawl away from him. Harshly he grabbed the uninjured arm, placed a foot against her side, and began to pull. At last the girl managed a real scream as the bones began to crack and the muscles began to tear. Twisting, he felt the satisfying snap of the bones, and the jolt as the arm pulled from the shoulder's socket. With one final heave the arm was torn of, the sounds of wet flesh being ripped apart echoing in his ears as his clothes became drenched in the hot, dark red liquid.

The girl, still conscious, stared blankly up at the monster that now knelt over her, mouth opening and closing silently. Charles snarled at her, furious that she could escape the pain she so rightly deserved, raised his arm, and punched through the girls chest, grasping her heart and squeezing until the organ burst within his hand.

Rage still flowed through him. He needed more to destroy, more to kill, but there was no one. Screaming into the night, his throat burned with the hatred that filled him. Then he heard it. A beating heart, the pulsing of blood. His heart. With a insane frenzy, he began to tear at himself, desperate to destroy everything in the fucking rat filled city, relishing the warm blood that flowed down his hands.

Only when the last heartbeat had stubbornly pumped blood around the mangled body of nineteen year old thief and orphan Charles Press did the black, snake like tendrils under his skin crawled back to the scar on his hand, covered by blood, leaving no trace of why this tragedy had occurred.