Grendel's Chancler

Another week had slipped past, drowning me in fierce nothingness like some miserable tide slapping my body around on its cruel water's edge.

I groaned my voice cracked and dry as I slumped back in my chair. The black plastic letting out a loud creak of its own as my back pushed numbly against it. My arm slightly throbbed as it tended to do when I was upset; just another reminder of the literary life I'd lived before this strange world.

"Gren, so how was your week?" Vlad prodded, his voice soft yet commanding, eyes watching me- evaluating my reaction to his words. He did that a lot: finding the person who wanted to talk the least and then shoving them onto the spot... I wondered for a moment if he got some sick enjoyment out of watching someone suffer, maybe he belonged in the group more than any of us, his eyes flickering in those drawled out seconds with such jovial excitement.

"It was-uh..." My voice cracked, the uh coming out a painful octave higher than my normally deep-throated words. A lump formed in the back of my mouth, the dry irritated feeling intensified as I almost chocked for something to say. What had I done this week? My mind was a frenzy of mixed up word babble, a panicked sweat started to form on my back sticking the cotton of my shirt uncomfortably to my body, rubbing grossly as I shifted in my chair. An awkward silence formed, as everyone stared at me waiting for the should have been easy answer.



It felt like that time in grade school when we were picking teams for kickball; the type of panic that could only come from social interactions. My words that wouldn't come left a bitter taste in my mouth equal to that of being the last person left, the one both teams fought over not getting.

"Seriously, just answer the question, we don't have all day," Margaret whined her voice shrill and whiny.

"Shove it-Princess," I growled, yelling at the bratty girl was automatic, it required no thinking, no real stress.

"Fighting won't help either of you. Margaret, try to be more considerate of other's feelings. Gren, please take your time, as a group we can wait for your answer," Vlad chastised, although his words may have seemed in my favor it was more a reminder that he'd not be giving up. Vlad could be annoying if he wanted, making it crystal clear no one would be saying anything until I told him what he wanted to hear.

This wasn't the first time someone had withheld his questions, my mother often ranted about the four meetings of silence she had to go to before Tommy had answered one of Vlad's questions. I assumed Vlad played on everyone's impatience getting you to realize you were wasting everyone's time with silence.

Really, I could do this for a year if it meant Margaret had to shut her oversize mouth. Yet, dealing with the wrath of my mother at wasted time was not something I wanted to deal with.

My mother angry was like a tsunami whose waves have just swept away some small Third-World village: violent and quick- once started nearly impossible to stop.

Running fingers through my hair I pulled sharply on the dark locks. My mother's lips were pressed tightly together becoming a thin almost nonexistent line of dark red, her eyes boring into my flesh like razors slashing at my exposed skin.

"Do you know why he doesn't answer Vlad, because he does nothing! He just wastes away in that dark little room of his playing video games! He sleeps all day, and plays those ridiculous games all night! It isn't normal I tell you. It isn't right. The only time I see him is when he's hungry or has to go to the bathroom," my mother ranted openly, her words although said to Vlad and the rest of the group were intended for me.

An agitated growl entered my throat her words in my mind hypocritical. Lost in a frenzy of anger words slipped from my lips before I could think of the consequences, "You're one to talk mother: work, work, work! I'm surprised you even noticed you had a son, let alone cared!" I hissed my eyes glowing with pent up rage.

Rage at her, rage at this stupid little group, rage at my pathetic excuse for a life.

A disturbing sense of pleasure lapped hungrily at my veins the instinctual desire for chaos consuming me like a starving lion ripping into a freshly mangled zebra carcass. A familiar voice pounded in the back of my head strong and rough accompanied by the beats of the drum.



His voice cutting into my skull, the words were of a language familiar in my heart, but not expressed by modern sounds, only feelings... Intense feelings, feelings that were dangerous- fighting things sharp and pointy they rose as if pulled along my vertebrae expanding throughout my body.

I was use to these nagging little monsters, these words, they weren't something new, they followed me everywhere, the drum always signalling the language-no-the mania about to boil my blood. The feelings had sliced through bone and veins searing me as they latched onto my soul, filling me with with vile monstrous thoughts the same deathly language that had tempted me to shove a fork through 'Wulf's flesh not too long ago. This time though, this time it didn't demand blood, or broken bone- it demanded tears, and heartache... The reflex so unyielding it pushed words out of my mouth before I had the chance to even understand what I was screaming at her.

"This is your fault! All your fault! You made me this way, I-I hate you," I hissed my fists clinching at my side as my eyes shot daggers across the surprise ridden room, the words rotting in the air like festered meat. No one spoke, and I didn't dare to stare into the faces of the other three afraid of what I might have seen, instead my eyes stayed glued on her: Gwendolyn, my mother.

"Gren, you know that's not true," my mother cried out her voice shrill and for a moment weak, as if my words had slipped past her iron like skin. Calm reached me, guilt in that single second for the words I said, the drums dying away for only a flash before her impregnable cold demeanor pushed back out and her eyes set with nonchalance, killing all weakness and starting the violent drums back up again.

"This is about you- not me, remember? Stop pushing fault on others," she stated harshly crossing her arms, as if my hurt emotions were nothing more than a child's tantrum which she obviously didn't have time for.

"Gwen, don't you think you're being a little mea-" Vlad started trying to help in his own way getting after my mother, but his help was severely not wanted. "A little mean?" I laughed cruelly my lips pulling back in a dangerous snarl.

"She's a freaking brick wall, you could say anything to her and she wouldn't even flinch! She isn't capable of feeling things, she isn't capable of caring, God knows she isn't capable of love or maybe a little compassion!" I yelled pointing angrily at my mother eyes accusing and venomous.

My eyes were wild, crazy things, as my voice rose above the silence of the room, I flinched as a voice cut into my personal space, almost like a slap to my face.

"How can you say that about your mother! What's wrong with you, have you no decency? No shame?" Margaret cried her bony hand yanking roughly on my arm.

"Monsters have no shame," I replied lamely, my eyes narrowing into slits as I yanked her fingers from my skin, angry I pulled myself out of my chair storming out of the room and into the parking lot. I was done with this, I swore to myself, I'd never come back to this place again. I just couldn't do that, and no one could make me.