The Past III I just want to quickly point out, that these chapters can get quite harsh and unpleasant quite quickly, so younger and more sensitive readers please be aware. Continued .. I was already a frequent smoker at the age of twelve, starting with a couple of stolen cigarettes from my mothers pack, and growing into finding and saving every penny for the next pack that would easily disappear in a day. My mother had grown tired of my ten-year younger brother, and I had become his new “mother”. Every stolen hour was spent feeding and caring for him, then sneaking out to smoke, and sneaking back to change him, and try to get him to sleep. My mother was, as always, unemployed, and would spend her days screaming and yelling at me to shut the child up from the couch as smoke poured out through her nostrils, making her look like a red-eyed dragon in the hazy room. And then I snapped. How? I can’t quite explain. I needed pain. I needed to see blood. My blood. My swallowed rage from all those years came over me all at once, knocking me off my feet. Out of breath, body boiling, heart racing I searched my room for anything sharp. Eyeing a pair of scissors, I grabbed them, holding them tightly in a fist, and drove them through my hand. My lungs filled with air, I could breathe again. Laughing, gasping this beautiful clean air into my body, tears racing down my cheeks, the scissors plunged again. I had never felt so alive, so true, so real. I could see my own blood creating bright red rivers between my fingers, feel my whole hand pounding, smell the sickly sweet smell, letting it touch the tip of my tongue, tasting it with my whole body. I was alive. My mother’s shouts from downstairs brought me back to the real world. Quickly wiping up, pulling my sleeve over my hand, I went downstairs to obey, a different person. Continues ..