Chapter Text
His first memory involves pale blue veins and the sound of choking. His mother, who held him to her chest to breastfeed, now claws at her throat in desperate, gasping wheezes. Her chest constricts and expands faster and faster like a fish shuddering on dry land as she turns paler and paler. Her eyes, bulging and rolling uncontrollably, become glassy and dull within the first five minutes. Tears drip down onto his cheeks while he stares, eyes blazing incandescent, as his mother mouths the words,
Help me.
Please.
Help.
She is found later that day, a slack, withered form curled around a crying babe. Sunlight glares through the windows, drawing stark shadows along the floor and up the walls, where deep gashes deface the pastel green-yellow wallpaper of the nursery. Trashed in the corners of the room are the splintered remains of a rocking chair and a drawer. As the babe wails and wails, a blast of frigid air slices into glass frames and cracks them open.
His second memory involves the warm hand of his father, who coaxes him into attending school at the age of six. He’s never been around other children — no one wanted to hang around a rumored NEXT after all — but his father insists.
He wipes his tears with a sleeve and follows the giant steel-toed boots of his father as they walk to school, unsure but hopeful.
That day in kindergarten, he smiles and offers to share his toys with another boy. The murky, tangled anxiety that sat deep in his stomach dissolves when the boy smiles back.
His third memory involves the playground, where his best friend Rick is being bullied by the upperclassmen. He watches as they make him eat sand by forcing him head-first through the dirty grains. He watches as the other students gather around, hushed and curious.
He doesn’t remember how the bullies end up with fifty broken bones between all twelve of them, but he does remember a rush of exhilaration and pride singing through his body as the trees prostrated under the swell of a furious wind. He does remember crouching next to Rick, who sits in the dirty sandbox shaking, and asking if he’s okay.
Keith can never forget those words:
“Monster."
and
"You hurt people.”
That’s what he does.
A hand, which reached out to console a scared and helpless child, falls back.
After that day, Rick is no longer his friend.