The Birth of His Pride

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

My head shot up and I was awoken from my sleep. My mind dazed as my eyes squinted to the unusual amount of brightness in my room, all coming from the reflections off the glistening mounds of January snow that now filled the fields and sidewalks around the neighborhood. My skin shriveled at the cool, dry winter air that circulated my room. It felt like someone had left my windows open.

I sighed, and cold condensation left my mouth. I looked towards my two bedroom windows, and each one was closed. It seemed that it was just me who felt entirely cold.

"Whatever," I shuddered, the alarm still blaring in my right ear. I looked at the digital clock that sat alone in the far corner of my room. It read 8:00 am. I shut off my alarm and immediately got up on my feet. I was facing a clothing rack that hung on my closet door, and on one hook was a face wash towel.

"Tsk…" I hesitated to grab it, but eventually did, and began to make my way to the bathroom to wash up. Morning facial routines were not a daily thing for me, but maybe that was my mistake.

"Maybe if I'd kept my face kempt every day, Julia wouldn't have laid her eyes on someone else."

Unintentionally, I'd reinvigorated the memory I'd so desperately tried to escape while attempting to sleep last night. My heart shot up in tempo, and my cold sweat of anger began to drip. The utter envy for the man that Julia had cheated me on with was completely wrapped around my heart, drowning it with negative energy. I drowned my face with lukewarm water as these thoughts piled in my head, and I soon began to apply high-end facial products to my face with distress.

"Maybe if I'd taken repeated great care of my face everyday, Julia would've only looked at me, and no other…"

The water on my face began to warm up. It was coming to a temperature to boil, but I just kept washing as I bathed in the heat of the water and my rage.

The moans. I couldn't remove the sound of their moans from my head.

"FUCK!" I threw my hands against my face, and I'd splashed water everywhere behind my back. The faucet continued to run, as I held my eyes shut with my reddened hands, refusing to let any tears of frustration or depression escape my eyes in the moment. I had created my own moment of silence.

Tap.

The single simple noise interrupted my thoughts. I looked in its direction, and a dark black raven had landed on the window still of my bathroom. It looked into the room, as if observing my surroundings, while pointing his beak to various random corners of the room, then took off and flew away.

"..."

I turned off the faucet, and finally began drying my nearly blistering face. Luckily, the facial products would do the justice to cover this damage in no-time. At least then I'd look good in front of Julia when she came.

"Tsk1" Her name flushed me with anger, and my hand clenched into a fist unknowingly. I'd gripped so hard with a seeping rage at the thought of her that my palms began to bleed. I'd dug my nails straight into my skin. I sighed seeing this, and washed the bleeding cut on my hand.

Step, step, step.

I made my way down the stairs and into the kitchen. It was empty, as expected. I assumed my parents were in their offices, typing away on their computers to continue boosting the business like always. Though there was one thing that stood out as unusual. A small slip of paper, accompanied by an orange, that sat on the tabletop.

I picked up the note and read it:

{ Your father and I will be tending to business priorities in Xavier District for the next month or so. We don't know exactly when we'll be back, but you can take care of yourself anyways. I've bought enough fruits to last you a daily breakfast for at least a month. But they only had oranges available at the store we shop at. It's okay though, you like oranges anyways, right? Eat healthy while we're gone.

- Mother }

I placed the note back on the table, unsurprised at their usual habit of disappearing out of nowhere, and grabbed the fruit off the table.

"Ah…" I exhaled. At least my favorite fruit awaited me this morning. The odd yet satisfying texture of an orange's rind, and its bright, juicy, and tart interior flesh was always something I looked forward to. With how busy my parents usually were, they didn't know much about my personal favorite things. But if there was one thing they knew, it was that my favorite fruit was an orange.

I peeled away the rind and tore myself a piece. Just as I was about to take a satisfying bite, my phone made a notification sound. The interruption stole my attention, and I pulled my phone out to check what it was.

"I'm on my way." Julia had texted me.

Feeling disturbed, I turned off my phone and put it away. I sighed with an odd feeling clawing at my heart. Looking to cheer myself up, I ate the anticipated piece of orange. Once I bit down and its juices sprayed everywhere, my cheeks contracted, and my eyes squinted.

The orange was really, really sour.

"Bleh—!" I spat out the unusual flavor profile. It made my lips pucker, and the taste was horrendous. When did oranges become so distasteful? I was confused, seeing how I'd loved oranges since I was a child. But now they were a thing to distaste. I hated it. I absolutely abhorred it. I couldn't understand why, but I only came to dislike every single thing about the orange. The unique texture of its rind was rough and uneven, the color of its flesh was too bright and static, and the taste was too sour and unbalanced. Everything about the orange I used to call my favorite fruit was now ruined.

Everything about it was imperfect.

"Absolute imperfection…" I muttered the words to myself, disappointed with the result. It leaked into my brain, and into my wavering memories. The label 'imperfect' began to latch onto all the previous images of myself and my actions. This opened my eyes drastically. The negative term had bound me by the neck, as it began to guide me through memories of the past in which I'd been nothing but imperfect. My moments of hesitation, to my moments of disdain, I was being revealed the truth in myself that I'd been so oblivious to all this time. It was here that I finally understood where I'd strayed from my parents ideals, as both a person, and as the heir to the Hattum Enterprise.

I was an imperfect being.

"Tsk—!!!" I threw what was left of the orange against the wall, and it splattered everywhere. The fruit itself was imperfect in its state, so I had to remove it from my hands.

"Fuck… FUCK!!!" Out of pure, uncontrollable rage, I began smacking the wall nearby over and over again until a formidable dent had formed. I was mad, mad that only now I'd realized just how stupid and inferior I might've looked all this time. In all my time growing up, as a child of a higher-classed family, I'd been avoiding the path of perfection my parents were so desperately trying to put me on. I was too deeply inspired by the indiscriminate values of my generation, where status was not to define any difference among me or my peers. But this is where I'd gone wrong.

Julia would tell me: "I don't love you for your money, Venus. It doesn't matter to me whether you're rich or not." But next thing I knew, she was riding both the car and the dick of another wealthy guy, right behind my back.

"URG—!!!" My resentment had finally taken over, so I formed a fist and punched directly through the wall where a hole was now formed. The foundation in this one part of the house was now broken, as was the foundation of all my inclusive morals leading up to this current point in my life. It would all tumble soon—the imperfections of my views and my actions. I decided now and forever that I would halt with my imperfect state. I promised myself I would stop resisting the true perfection that awaited me in my future, and to achieve that, I would need to become perfect now.

"I am the heir to the wealthiest enterprise in all of Pactolus District, Hattum Enterprise. I am the son of one of the wealthiest families in the entire country. I am Venus Van Hattum."

The echoing moans of my rejected memory continued to play in the back of my head.

I gritted my teeth, attempting to drive the noise out. "I am a perfect being."

DING DONG!

The front door to the manor rung.

"I'm here." I read a text sent by Julia.

The world around me slowed down in that moment, like I'd entered some sort of a limbo state. I was standing on a line, which was a divide between a lightened blue, and a crimson red. My right half that stood in the crimson zone felt hot, blistering, and burning from the heat of its temperature, while my left half that stood in the blue half felt cooled, calmed, and fresh of any burns. I was stuck between the two, on the unsteady line of dilemma. But my decision was suddenly made easy when the area of blue got colder. It got colder, as cold as the January snow, until my body's left half began to go numb. Numb and unfeeling, blind to the traumatic truth of what was real and what wasn't. I couldn't go back to that brighter side; a place where maybe I was better as a person, but would be oblivious to all imperfections including my own. I didn't want to lie to myself, and forgive her for her actions. I wouldn't do that.

"No…" The crimson side began to grow stronger in heat, and the zone expanded towards the blue one with intensity. I was losing the cooler half of myself. I was losing my original morals. A new value was overtaking the other, and it was one that would guarantee my perfection forever.

"I am perfect for who I am."

Now overtaken completely by this burning sensation, my impulse made me grab the closest sharp object to me, being a pair of scissors.

The doorbell rung once again, which only fueled my growing anger even more. The slow, tantalizing R&B music, with the muffled creaks of the couch, and the aggressive sounds from both mouths of my lover echoed into my head and bounced around, ringing my head with an uncontrollable wave of rage. I loved her, but she betrayed that love. She betrayed my trust. Was it because I was imperfect?

I needed to find out.

DING DONG!

I tucked the pair of scissors into my back pocket and marched over to the front door. I took a deep breath, straightened my gaze, put on a smile, and opened the door.

"Hey babe."

"Venus!" Julia suddenly lurched herself towards me. I was enveloped in a hug, one I would normally reciprocate, but this time I hesitated, slightly irritated by her action. The longer she held on, the more my unnatural emotion grew within my heart. It would reveal itself soon if provoked any longer.

"Can you believe it? I made the cut!" She said.

The memories of her 'interview' made itself apparent within my mind once again.

"That's nice."

My bland answer was noticed. "Is something wrong, Venus?" She tilted her head up and looked at me, but all I could see was the way her head tilted up while her hair was tugged from behind.

"No…" I turned around, sensing my anger beginning to reignite. The questions piled themselves inside my mind. Why did she lie to me? Why did she cheat on me? Is it because I'd been imperfect all this time? Is it because I did something wrong?

"What's wrong, babe?" She grabbed my arm, which tugged me back in her direction. I felt myself snap.

SLAP—!

I instinctively threw my hand in her direction, and it smacked her in the face. She fell to the floor, surprised by my action.

"Why'd you do that…?" She looked up at me, her eyes twinkling with tears.

I couldn't hold myself back anymore, not with this bitch acting like she was innocent after what she'd done.

"HOW THE FUCK COULD YOU DO THAT TO ME!?" I yelled out loud, finally releasing my pent-up frustration.

"Huh…? W-What are you talking about—?"

"DON'T PLAY DUMB WITH ME! I KNOW WHAT YOU DID JULIA!"

I stomped towards her, until I was standing over her. My hands were twitching. My eyes were widened to extremity. I was vigorously infuriated and I was beginning to lose control.

"I've always given you everything you've wanted. Both love, and materialistic items alike. I've even offered to support you with my own money, but yet… YOU CHOOSE ANOTHER WEALTHY GUY?!!!" I slammed the wall to the left with my fist. Julia was speechless. She didn't know what to say, or how to say it. Her mouth hesitated, hanging open with blank words, which brought on another undesired image of the past. It was one where her mouth hung open, while another male filled it in.

"FUCK JULIA!!! WHY?! WHY?!!" Burning hot salty tears were streaming down my face, onto her legs that I stood over. "Why would you do this to me? Why…?"

She looked up at me, and I awaited guilt to form on her face. But it never came. She could only look at me with hesitation, unwilling to give into the truth, as if she was holding herself back from spilling it.

My sanity finally broke in that moment. The pure sorrow from the events that'd unfolded behind my back, mixed with the resenting rage that followed in pursuit, created a single entity of hollow moral that overtook my mind. I could now only act impulsively with my thoughts, and the only thought on my mind was how badly I hated this girl.

My back pocket was relieved of its content's weight.

"I hate you, Julia."

I fell forwards onto her, with my scissors leading the way.

SHANK—!

A thick amount of blood gushed against my face as the sharp end of my scissors landed in her throat, impaling her esophagus and filling it with blood. She screamed with agony, but the sound of gurgling viscosity could only be heard, as she began coughing up globs of blood from the amount that flooded her lungs.

I stood back up, watching as my action made its impact, and as my victim met her maker. Suddenly snapping out of my state of rage, I wiped away the blood that covered my eye, only to look down and see how much more stained my hands. The scissors were oozing with red, while my hands were lathered in it. I shuddered with fear and my hands trembled, so the scissors shook off and dropped to the floor, as Julia's reaching hand dropped as well. Both laid motionless after doing so.

"What… have I done…?" My eyes widened with realization. I looked at my bloodstained hands, and back down at the lifeless female below me. I had a double take while trying to snap out of what I thought was a dream.

"No… No… This can't be happening…"

My breathing became shallow, and my neck dripped with a freezing cold sweat. My hands trembled uncontrollably, and my eyes darted everywhere to avoid the sight, but I could only see red. The entire scene was nothing but red.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no." My mind began to spiral. I was losing it completely. The realization of my actions and their consequences etched its way into my mind. I dug into my head with my hands to try and remove the thoughts, but I could only pull out strands of my hair.

"What the hell, what the fuck, what the… No… No, no, NO! NO! WHAT THE FUCK DID I DO?! WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?"

I fell to the floor and laid my hands on Julia's shoulders. "Wake up… I SAID WAKE UP! DON'T DIE! NO! DON'T DIE!!!" I clawed at my face with fear at the sight of her eyes rolling up. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck—"

I was losing myself within a matter of seconds.

The guilt was too heavy and unbearable for me to handle. I recognized I'd been driven by rage to complete my action, but I couldn't find enough reason to justify it. I'd just killed the one and only love of my life. I couldn't ever forgive myself, not in any way.

I was hyperventilating, and the world around me was becoming tighter and tighter. My vision was getting blurry, and I felt the need to hurl. I couldn't believe what I'd just done. I had to reject that I'd just murdered someone. Knowing that fact alone was too much for me to bear, too colossal of a burden. My shoulders were falling, and my body was weighing down. I screamed and I cried while trying to voice the guilt outside of me. If I didn't get rid of it soon, I wouldn't be able to live on. I nervously picked up the bloody scissors off the floor, ready to end everything in this moment. My hesitation to do so lessened when I'd seen Julia's mortified body in my peripheral vision. It shocked me, and nauseated me, and scared me with an incomparable amount of fear.

The scissor's blade approached my throat.

"He thinks he's top shit just because he has money!"

My hands came to a halt, and the blade's tip stopped within a hair of my jugular notch.

Julia's previous words reappeared into my head, and suddenly, all the words she'd spoken behind my back were being played in my head all over again. It were as if my mind was reminding me why I'd done what I'd done.

All the lies.

The deception.

Her betrayal.

With a deep breath in, my everlasting rage and resentment towards her revealed itself. But with a deep breath out, I arrived to a calm state of acceptance. There and then, my panic had come to a stop. The gut-wrenching pain in my stomach from my guilt slowly eased itself until it was soon nonexistent.

I dropped the scissors.

"I did this for a reason…" I looked down at Julia's dead body and let the thoughts compile again. But this time around, I couldn't find myself harboring guilt.

The orange, and its rejection. My mind changed in that moment. I chose perfection over imperfection.

"And you…" I stared at the blood that seeped from her wound. "You have been nothing but a branch of imperfection in my life."

I looked down at my hands and saw the blood that stained it permanently. I attempted to fight the feeling of guilt that tried to tear its way back in. I needed to remind myself why I did what I did, and establish that forever in my mind. I had to, or else I would give into the guilt and crumble under my own sanity.

"I'm supposed to be a perfect being. I'm from a family of higher-class, I am wealthy, and I'm the heir to Hattum Enterprise. Julia is only middle-classed, and she's probably nothing on scale with being the CEO of an entire enterprise…"

I forced a scoff while looking at her dead body, fighting the urge to hurl. In doing so, I'd be expressing my imperfections. Knowing this, the guilt had erased itself again. The scar in my moral was now deeper than before.

The moment finally came where I felt justified for my actions. This was the only way I could erase my guilt.

"I am a perfect being. But you are imperfect, Julia."

Her lifeless eyes rolled up from her lifeless eye sockets.

"If I had let you latch onto me any longer, you would have only continued to plague me with imperfection, draining me of the perfection I am supposed to embody."

The gaping wound in her throat gasped for air.

"You don't deserve the pure perfection I have to provide."

Her fingertips hardened as they fell ice cold.

"No one deserves to have any of my perfection."

The light in the room flickered from above.

"Everyone but me is imperfect, a useless being."

A cold breeze from a gap in the front door passed through.

"Useless, imperfect, stupid beings. Idiots…"

I took one last glance at Julia on the floor.

"Imbeciles."

I opened the door to my basement nearby, and wrapped my hands around Julia's ankles. Dragging her corpse along the tiled floor, her blood smeared a trail along the way. I laughed at how obvious I'd made my scene.

"Whatever."

I whipped her ankles with enough force to throw her body down the stairs. The manor's basement was deeper than most basements, so the flight of stairs down was longer than usual.

THUMP! THUMP! CRACK—!!! THUMP!

I couldn't see her now disfigured body, laying on the basement floor. But I'd definitely heard it.

I slammed the door behind me, officially leaving the last traces of my guilt inside that basement, along with the final instance of imperfection I'd ever let leave a mark on my life again.

"Goodbye, forever."

I walked outside from the front door of the manor, allowing the winter wind to blow against my extinguishing flames of rage, only to be replaced with the blaze of another;

Pride.

I was now reborn.