Pain.

It took Jashun thirteen years. Thirteen years to realise that the sweet and metallic scent of blood was something even more addicting to him than drugs.

Or maybe that was just an excuse. After all, he had seen his own blood spilt daily for the past five years. He had never indulged in the scent then.

Maybe the truth was simply that he enjoyed murder. Maybe it was the thought of hurting others, instead of simply being on the receiving end.

As he sniffed the air in the dimly lit room, standing by the corpses of his mother and father with the blood dripping from the knife in his hand, Jashun couldn't help but sway in time to the pitter patter of blood hitting the old and creaky wooden floorboards.

He thought back to five years ago. He was eight years old when the nightmare began.

Jashun had lived a normal life till then. A caring family, a father with a well payed job, had all the toys he wanted.

Yet when people find stability, they long for chaos and excitement. And when chaos comes, they are the first to scream injustice.

His father wasn't content with how much he was earning. He thought he could earn more. Do better. Wear better clothes, drive a better car.

He started gambling.

At first he would gamble small amounts. He was 'getting used to it'. Slowly but surely the amount began to increase, and eventually he won big. Really big. That was where the problem started.

He became over confident. Before, he had sworn he would never get addicted, never risk too much. But now? Now he had the leeway to make much bigger bets. And, lose much more money.

The rest was predictable. He spiralled into debt, drowned his sorrows in alcohol, and became aggressive and abusive.

He would stumble home in a drunken stupor, and as Jashun watched on afraid through the slightly open door of his room, he would vent his grievances on Jashun's mother, sometimes with fists whilst other times with broken glass bottles. His mother would never scream though, she always kept it bottled in.

Later his father would fall asleep, whilst his mother nursed her wounded self, as she cleaned up the blood which had pervaded the floor.

Once, Jashun actually gathered the courage to protect his mother. His mother, who was the kindest and sweetest. Every time she was beaten, she would silently pick herself up and cry without knowing Jashun was watching.

But later, worried about Jashun, she would come to his room and comfort him wiping his tears as she softly whispered "Don't cry my child don't cry, I won't let anything happen to you, no matter what."

Jashun knew he was selfish, that he was comforted by her promise of safety, when in truth it was she who needed protection. The truth was, he knew in his heart, that if his father truly wished to harm him, there was nothing she could do to protect him. Yes. He knew she would be unable to keep her promise.

It was just the way in which the promise was broken, that ripped something out of his soul.

That day, Jashun had been psyching himself up to confront his father. To protect his mother. As night crawled in and the familiar sound of the door unlatching reached him, he stood nervously in the living room with his heart racing at insane speeds.

As the door slowly turned, Jashun could feel his resolve wavering, yet recalling his mother's tear stained face, which she struggled to hide as she comforted him caused his anger to surge uncontrollably.

As his father entered through the door, Jashun's immature voice sounded out.

"I won't let you hit mummy today. Please don't hit her dad, mum...mum did nothing wrong!"

His voice had been fine in the beginning, yet towards the end the sobs began to sound out, almost making the end sound incoherent.

He was eight years old at the time. He was naive.

He still remembered how his father seemed baffled at the time, a look of confusion etched on his features, whilst his hazel eyes flickered in and out of focus, his black unkempt hair swaying loosely in the breeze which had followed him from outside.

After a few seconds, his gruff and cracked voice sounded out "Piss off, before I beat your ass too boy."

His mother walked out of her room at that moment. She saw as he stood up for her. And she watched on as he was slapped, sending his frail body halfway across the room.

At the time, he noticed a peculiar glint form in his mother's watery blue eyes. He had thought nothing of it. Maybe she was just angry at him being hurt is what he thought.

Looking back, it seemed that it was that very glint, which led to his real nightmare.

Later that night, when the screams had stopped, the door to Jashun's room was slowly opened, letting dim yellow light spill in along with an eerie shadow.

When his mother walked into the room, he knew something was strange. Even as a naive eight years old, he was still able to tell that the expression in her face was wrong. Very wrong.

She seemed crazed. As though she was conflicted. He could see the shadows deep in her eyes, almost hear the wild thoughts racing in her head.

She slowly closed in on him as he sat up on his bed. Crouching down, the wild look in her eyes seemed to hit a peak, before she suddenly calmed down. All of a sudden she was back to the kind and caring mother she had always been. He inadvertently let out the breath he had been holding in relief.

"Jashun, my son. Shouldn't you also feel the pain that I feel? Don't you think it's unfair that I receive it alone?" She asked as she caressed his face with her hands, the amiable smile still ever present on her aged features.

"Mum...what are you talking about? P..please don't hurt me!" he exclaimed with fear. The abrupt words had confused him. His mother's words had truly frightened him.

"My son, YOU...you should also experience the PAIN THAT I FEEL. IT'S NOT FAIR THAT I RECEIVE IT ALONE!" her face immediately twisted into a grotesque expression.

Jashun was unable to reply. His face was the very picture of fear and he had been rooted to the spot.

Even as she slowly brought out the knife hidden in her pocket, even as the light reflecting off it entered his eyes, he was frozen up, just staring stupidly as she rolled his sleeves back.

He was eight. It was too much for him to handle.

As she stabbed the knife into his arm, an excruciating pain, like none he had ever felt before welled up inside of him, as his body convulsed and screams tore through the house.

It was strange. At that moment, he had hoped his screams would wake his father. His abusive father. Alas, drunk out of his mind, he had not the slightest response at all.

His mother was comforting him, whispering that it would be okay, that he would be fine, that she loves him and will always love him as she twisted the knife deeper and his screams got louder and louder.

He struggled to break free of her grip but he was too weak. He could only look on as his mother shushed and comforted him. As the warm crimson blood splashed out of the wound, spilling over onto the wooden floor. The contrasting feelings of cold and numbness and warmth danced around his wound.

"Hush my little baby, everything will be okay, I promise." She softly said, as tears welled up in her eyes. He could see it. This was definitely hurting her. She seemed to be crying at Jashun's pain, crying at the intense pain her only child was going through.

Even as the pain tore through his system, clouding his mind, he vaguely remembered thinking. Thinking that she wouldn't be hurting if she didn't hurt him. Why was she hurting herself to hurt him?

He never knew at the time. His mother had a secret.

She had long since been broken.

That night had been the first of many. Jashun's screams had woken up the neighbours, and the police had been called.

His mother had long since pulled the knife out and she had been apologising to him. She told him that she needed this, that she would kill herself if she couldn't vent. Scared out of his mind, he had cried intensely begging her not to kill herself, telling her he was sorry.

As for what he was apologising for, he had no idea. His mind had been dealt too severe a blow to even think properly.

His mother blamed it all on his father, and he started to hate him even more than he originally did.

It's really strange, his mother had harmed Jashun yet he blamed it on his father. Enticed by her soft caring whispers, he began to resent his father even more. Yet he didn't hate his mother. No. The words she would whisper to him were in no way different to before she harmed him and he subconsciously began seeing her as his ally. As though his father was the one who had dug the knife in, not his mother.

It was him and his mother, against his father.

He still resented his stupidity.

When the police arrived, Jashun's mother had already convinced him to tell them that he had stabbed himself while playing with a knife. She had been using her knife for cooking, so even if her fingerprints were on it, it would not be suspicious. He had already gripped the handle at the time.

Later when this had been cleared up, he was sent to hospital to get the wound treated, and a few days later his mother began again.

This time, she would make sure to cover his mouth while inflicting wounds on him before proceeding to sear the wounds shut with a heated knife.

She would do this at least a few times per month.

Eventually he got used to it.

He started getting bullied in school for being poor. People would see his worn out shoes and laugh. They would play tricks on him and the school would write it off as 'harmless pranks'. They didn't want a hit to their reputation.

Eventually, the pranks became harsher and even involved physical abuse.

Later, in a PE lesson, his wounds and scars were discovered, and the school directly expelled him with a bullshit reason, not wanting to give the press a reason to slander their school.

It was due to his suffering that he matured faster than the average person. And he began to see through his mother's manipulation. He knew that his mother had been depressed. Suicidal. Yet too afraid, too cowardly. She was even too afraid to inflict harm upon herself. So she took it out on Jashun instead.

He wondered why he was so unfortunate.

And then, he heard the best advice he had ever heard in his entire life. Surprisingly, it was from one of his bullies who he met on the streets one evening when he was thirteen years old.

He said.

"Hey, yaknow, if I was you? Honestly, I would kill my parents and then kill myself." He laughed as he sauntered off. But something inside Jashun just seemed to just click. He was absolutely right.

And that brings us to the present.

Again, he lifted his head, trying to inhale as much of the intoxicating scent of blood wafting in the air. His father's screams had been so high pitched that he sounded like his mother, Jashun giggled to himself.

As for his mother, her screams had sounded like those of a dying pig.

Drip. Drip.

He looked over to the mutilated corpses beside him. Actually, he had tried to sever their limbs yet he found that to be unrealistic with just a kitchen knife. The bone was way too hard to cut through.

Drip. Drip.

So eventually he had just decided to cut off what he could. Blobs of flesh surrounded him and their corpses were completely unrecognisable.

Drip. Drip.

Jashun looked down at his right hand coloured crimson. He could still feel the sensation of digging through flesh, of leveraging the blade around, even the slightly uncomfortable vibration as the knife struck bone.

For the first time in five years, he felt pleasure once again.

Drip. Drip.

All of a sudden, the door burst open.

"FREEZE. DON'T MOVE. DROP YOUR WEAPON AND LIFT YOUR HANDS!"

Hah. He knew this was coming. For a second he wondered what the officer in front of him could see.

It would probably be a bloodstained youth fighting to suppress the corner of his lips from turning up, eyes lit with manic pleasure as he stood surrounded by globules of flesh and blood, and two unrecognisable corpses.

That was the last thought he had in this world, as he plunged the knife into his own eye sockets at an upwards angle, the point lodging deep into his brain, the soft rhythm of dripping blood the lullaby to accompany him into the cold, harsh embrace of death.