Author Topic: Picking My Teeth With Broken Fingers  (Read 489 times)

Lion El'Jonson

  • Dark Lord
  • *****
  • Posts: 559
Picking My Teeth With Broken Fingers
« on: July 29, 2020, 07:58:02 PM »
Disturbing themes ahead.

My name is Zander Kobliska. I am a Barovian. I thought. This will be a mess. Disorganized. I am not a writer. If you do not like it, then stop reading. In fact, if you are reading this and I know it, then you may be in danger.

In the hamlet called Adăpost, I was raised by Anamaria and Anghel Kobliska. My mother and my supposed father.

I was young when I learned the truth. But I won't speak of that just yet. Instead, let's speak of my false father. Briefly.

Anghel. A horrid man. As far back as I can remember, furiously he would beat me. For little nothings. The milk was soured. The haul of fish was poor. The taxes were heavy. It seemed that everything beyond my control conspired to injure me. His fists broke upon my face, my chest, my stomach, I made it worse by choice. Even as a child, I was never afraid of him. His raised voice would be met with an empty stare. My eyes have been described to be as unsettling. Now I am wise enough to know that the sadist revels in fear- and is frustrated at the lack of it. I never showed him fear. I never felt it. I didn't know how.

But it helped me grow strong. I no longer bristle with anger at his memory. Only satisfaction at what it helped me become.

The older I got, the more anger I showed him. After the truth, after Zander, I only showed him more. More anger, more defiance, soon it was not myself being beaten any longer. But what I did so deliciously see as I grew in age- he was not like me. He knew fear. He showed it to me. I loved it.

I was eight when I started killing animals. I remember. The broken, tiny bodies of minks, squirrels, birds, whatever I could get my hands on. I twisted their limbs, I listened in awe to their squeals, I was fascinated with the sight of their blood. It had started slow, yet I remember my mother's screams of shock and anger when she found them. The piles of bones and furs in a digout beneath our home. I had not hid my collection well enough.

But as it often does with the weak, the memory faded from her mind with time. Things went back to normal and I had grown smarter from the experience. I knew not to keep my trophies so close to home. Past my tenth year, my sport escalated. Under the guise of hunting I roamed the woods with a small, pitiful bow. But I was good. I killed deer, I killed goats, I even killed the stray boar. I'd try my best to cripple them- to extend their suffering, to delay their death. Funny enough, it was only for these animals that I felt a little guilt for. But that faded eventually.

I had earned quite a reputation in my village for my hunting- keeping us fed with my skilled poaching. They didn't know how I managed to be such an effective hunter without actually using the arrows I took into the woods- my mother suspected, I think, but she spoke nothing. Hard to complain with a mouth full of freshly cooked meat. But my hunger ever increased. My hunger for the sport. I wanted something bigger. Something more dangerous. A wolf? A bear? ..A human? I felt the need within me gnaw and scratch from the inside of my head, the hunting of meagre game slowly reaching the point that it failed to satisfy me.

Had it not been for my father, I would have spiralled into murder and no doubt been killed.

Zander.

My true father. He appeared in every way like a mysterious shadow. A thick black cloak with a hood half-shrouding his scarred, stubbled face. He had seen what I was doing in the woods- he had caught me. I think, when I turned to see him, to see those powerful dark eyes, I had felt a glimpse of fear. It had come and gone like a gust of wind, yet the sensation had rocked me well enough that I did not flee. I would soon learn the truth. So much truth.