Monster - Story Day

You guys. That Most Dangerous Writing App thing is a serious problem. I think I'm starting to get addicted. It makes it so easy to churn out a quick, 500-word-ish story in five minutes that I'm okay with showing other people.

What magic is this?

Anyway. Heh. I wrote this story last night and decided I'd like to share it today. Voila!

The Prompt

He hadn't meant to scare the child...

The Story

He hadn't meant to scare the child, but it seemed like everything he did only made him look more and more like a monster.

More and more like something to be feared.

Something the children should run from.

Shaking his head, Alvio flipped up the cowl of his cloak and slunk into the alleyway, only another shadow among the darkness. He'd seen his reflection. He knew what his eyes looked like, how the scars marred his features and made him look more like a hideous beast than a man. Not even a man - a boy, really.

The child's blue eyes flashed before his gaze again: petrified. And maybe something more.

She couldn't be more than six or seven autumns old. Old enough to know when something was not right - when something should be feared.

Like him.

You're a monster. The whisper of Alvio's uncle was more than a shade of a memory. It was a belief. One he couldn't let go of, no matter how much Beyla had tried.

His sister. The only person in the world who had ever seen him for more than his face - for more than his curse. She had believed that he could change, believed it up until the very end. Until Xave had taken her last, precious breath.

That was why he was a monster. Not just because of his face and eyes, but because of who he was inside. What his past held. Where he had been and what he had seen and what he had allowed.

Monster, Alvio thought again, turning the corner to the city's wall and pausing for a moment to catch his breath. His fingers, crooked and dirty things that they were, traced the lines in the stone. Those lines held stories of heroism. Stories as different from his as the moon was different from the suns.

Unwanted.

Coiling himself, Alvio inhaled, letting the sweet breath settle deep in his chest. He exploded forward and leapt for the wall, his hands barely snagging the top.

No one goes over the wall. No one but the worst of us.

Alvio grunted and hauled himself upward. Every muscle in his body burned with the strain, his hands poked and prodded by the rough rock on the surface of the wall, as he reached the top and straddled the surface. One breath regained, and he dropped into the brush below. Sharp thorns stung his face, but he ignored it. What were one or two more scars?

Worthless.

He accepted the whisper in his mind without even bothering to think about it. Beyla had fought for him once. Now that she was gone, it didn't matter if he let what she had called lies eat away his very soul.

Unloved.

"Yes," Alvio whispered, pulling up his cowl again from where it had fallen during his flight from the wall. "I am a monster. And there is no one left to love me."

---

I need to finish this poor boy's story, 'cause he can't keep believing those things about himself. *frowns at him*

Your turn! What genre do you think this is? What was Beyla like, and why did Xav kill her? Where is Alvio going? Which of the lies Alvio believes do you most resonate with? And who is the girl who saw him and started this whole fiasco?

Until next time,

Take courage, seek God, and smile while you still have teeth!! ^_^

-Joelle